NY: Will Hoboken City Council adopt IRV and ditch lever machines? 6/3?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Because you can't rank choices with lever machines. How else would
Sequoia sell their Rube Goldberg Machines without IRV?

they decide Wednesday (today by time you read this)

Will Hoboken City Council eliminate runoff elections?
There's a measure on the council agenda for Wednesday, June 3, to eliminate runoff elections and save up to $75,000. The suggestion on the agenda is to use a new idea called "Instant Runoff Voting" (IRV). In IRV, voters choose a first, second, third, fourth, etc. choice. At first, only first choices are tabulated, just like in a regular election.

But if no one gets more than 50 percent, the result is not a runoff. Instead, the candidate receiving the fewest first choices is eliminated. People who voted for that candidate will then have their second-choice votes counted toward the others.

As the website for IRV says, "This process continues until one candidate receives a majority and is elected."

So for example, in this past Hoboken election, all of the voters who supported the sixth-place candidate would then have their ballots counted toward their second choice instead. If that wasn't enough to put that person over the top, then the people who supported the fifth-choice candidate would have THEIR second-choice added to the others. And so on.

Confusing? Comment below! And see if the council keeps the resolution on the agenda and votes on it this Wednesday.
http://hudsonreporter.com/pages/full_story?article--Will%20Hoboken%20City%20Council%20eliminate%20runoff%20elections-%20=&page_label=home_top_section&id=2655535--Will+Hoboken+City+Council+eliminate+runoff+elections-&widget=push&instance=up_to_the_minute_lead_story_left_column&open=&

[NJGeek]

1. IRV is what Ireland uses and its awesome

It lends itself to multi-party democracy and away from two-party systems. It would be awesome if we adopted IRV-STV (instant runoff voting with a single transferrable vote) in the USA

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Ireland has one party rule -after 80 yrs of STV (a form of IRV)

How awesome is that? One party has virtually a monopoly.
STV has been in use in Ireland for over 80 years. Despite its use, one party, Fianna Fáil, has formed the government in all but 19 years since 1932. From 1932 to 1989 it formed a majority government after all but 5 elections. Since 1989 it has been the major party in 7 coalition governments, failing to form government only from 1994-97. It is currently government in coalition with the 6 Greens and 2 Progressive Democrats. Canadians recently reacted strongly against the idea of a coalition government.

http://www.nostv.org/world.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Burlington VT: the Green Party & indie candidates eliminated in first round

All that hassle and the ultimate winner was the one guy everyone liked the least.

IRV suffers from many perversities AND makes elections non transparent.

And incentivizes computerized vote counting.

City attorney: IRV vote must wait
By John Briggs, Free Press Staff Writer • May 15, 2009

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090515/NEWS02/905150313

[Bill Bored]

8. Nothing awesome about it. Just more computers running elections.

Tell us how to figure out who won without software, and then we can talk.

[MarjorieG]

3. Levers to electonic? IRV yet another design to require computers, with more concern for access than

accuracy.

I want to feel assured of who got the most votes, of any rank or vote share.

[aquart]

5. HELL NO.

My god, the opportunities for confusion and obfuscation are AMAZING with that.

And if you hated all those other candidates, would they then get to say they had your support? Or a mandate?

There really is one born every minute. But why is it always an elected official?

[bettyellen]

6. wow, I have to read more. Hoboken has always had very serious but fairly low tech fraud

i managed the polls one year, machined were delivered unsealed by the (future) mayor's father in law.
little did they know he was also future inmate #9257wi3649.

[Bill Bored]

7. That's Jersey -- not NY. nt