A new form of deciding "tied" votes

[Lamplighter]

I have never heard of this sort of thing before.
It's a bit confusing at first but seems like a good idea in some situations.

North Carolina has 13 candidates running for a single judgeship position and
it is likely that no one will gain a majority of votes on the first election,
and so a "run off" would otherwise be necessary

N.C. debuts new ballots for midterm elections
Ballots allow second and third choice

By SETH CLINE | The Daily Tar Heel

While selecting a judge for the N.C. Court of Appeals,
voters will select their first, second and third choices for election.
<snip>
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the first-place votes,
the second- and third-choice votes are counted for each of the top two candidates
in the final vote tally. Every ballot in the state features a section of instant runoff voting,
which is meant to eliminate the need for a second runoff election.

[Happy Monkey]

I've heard of it, and support it, but never thought it would happen in a post-Bush-v-Gore world. Very cool.

[footfootfoot]

I think pistols at dawn would be good

[Lamplighter]

a 13-way Mexican standoff or a Polish firing squad ?

[xoxoxoBruce]

13 candidates and nobody gets 50% in the first column.
For the top two vote getters, they add the second and third column votes.

Is the winner the one with the most votes, even if they don't get 50%?
50% of X voters, or 50% of 3X votes?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

13 candidates and nobody gets 50% in the first column.
For the top two vote getters, they add the second and third column votes.

Is the winner the one with the most votes, even if they don't get 50%?
50% of X voters, or 50% of 3X votes?

The best chance of winning would be to vote for your candidate 3 times. I hope they have a mechanism in place that prohibits that from happening.

[gvidas]

I believe a better way to put it is:

"First choice" votes are tallied. If there is no clear winner (50% majority), a certain number of absolutely-losing candidates are removed from the running (all but the top two, or whatever, depending on interpretation.) The votes of the just-now-eliminated candidates are re-distributed to the remaining candidate based on the 2nd and third choices of the voters in question.

I.e.,

Bush and Gore each get 49% of the vote. Nader gets 1%, and Alf gets 1%. Nader and Alf are both out of the running, and the votes they had received are given to Bush and Gore based on the voter's preferences. If you voted Alf #1, Bush #2, your vote is tallied for Bush after Alf is eliminated; if you voted Alf #1, Nader #2, Gore #3, your vote is tallied for Gore after Alf and Nader are eliminated.

It's still one (wo)man, one vote. But you can show your support for snowball-chance-in-hell candidates without having to sacrifice the 'lesser of two evils' consideration.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

The best chance of winning would be to vote for your candidate 3 times. I hope they have a mechanism in place that prohibits that from happening.

It would probably invalidate your ballot.

I'm not certain of the details for this particular ballot, but the normal definition of instant runoff voting works like this:

In round one, the first choices are counted. The last-place candidate is eliminated. The ballots of those who picked that candidate are redistributed based on the second choice.

The process is repeated until a candidate gets over 50%. Each ballot is either counted once, or discarded if all of the choices on it have been eliminated.

This looks like a hybrid of that system, where they eliminate all but two candidates in the first round. I would suspect that each ballot still only can count once at most, and they don't just add all three columns together as the article implies. For example, if your first choice is eliminated, and your second and third choices are the top two, I would guess that your vote goes to the second choice.

This site doesn't specify exactly that, but it does state that picking the same candidate for all choices doesn't help them.


[edit: what gvidas said]

[xoxoxoBruce]

I see a hell of a lot of confusion.

[Rhianne]

There's no real reason why voting for the same candidate three times should invalidate your ballot and it wouldn't help his or her chances either.

Remember that second (and third) votes are only counted once your first choice has been eliminated from the election so if you choose the same person as a second and third choice you will be voting for someone already out of the contest.

We use a similar system here (no.2 below) where you number as many of the candidates as you want, all of them if you like - if there are twenty you can put '1' as your first choice down to '20' for last. Candidates are removed (by lowest total) one-by-one until someone gains a majority of over 50% and only your first choice is ever considered until that has been eliminated.

[Griff]

I like it, unfortunately we live in a country that litigates votes...

[ZenGum]

Australia also has full preferential voting, as described by Rhianne. It works and is pretty easy if you're choosing from no more than 10 or so, but for some elections (proportional representation in the upper house) there can be 50 or 100 candidates. For this we let people either vote their preferences all the way through, or give their whole vote to a single candidate (party) and let that candidate assign the preferences as they like. This is simpler for the voters and gives minor parties who don't get elected the chance to influence those who do, ask for questions to be put in the house, et cetera. Preference dealing can slide into political shennanigans, tho.

This system returns about 5 - 10% invalid votes, but because voting is compulsory in Australia, quiet a few of those are probably deliberate.

I think adopting this would do the USA good, because it prevents the dilemma of "if I don't vote for a major party, the wrong major party might get in". People could vote for Perot, and then give their preference to Gore, for example. It might loosen up the power duopoly you guys have.

[xoxoxoBruce]

We could do away with all this nonsense by just letting me run the country.

[Pete Zicato]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

We could do away with all this nonsense by just letting me run the country.

I'd vote for ya.

[Sperlock]

When there has been a tie before in Nevada, it has been broken by the candidates in a tie choosing a card from a deck of cards. High card wins.