INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING

I've been watching a lot of polls lately, mostly on RealClearPolitics. It occurs to me: these would be so much more interesting if we had instant-runoff voting!

To explain: in instant-runoff voting, you get three choices for president, or senator, or whatever. This year, for example, the presidential candidates are

Republican Party George W. Bush
Democratic Party John F. Kerry
Libertarian Party Michael Badnarik
Green Party (I forgot his first name) Cobb
Reform Party Ralph Nader
Constitution Party Michael Peroutka

And so on.

Now everyone knows that either Bush or Kerry will win. So a third-party vote is sometimes called a "wasted vote." Third-party candidates retort that a vote for Tweedle Dem or Tweedle Repub is a "wasted vote," because they're both the same (too capitalist, too socialist, whatever.) But usually voters do have a preference between Republicans and Democrats. Major-party candidates think third-party candidates are taking votes away from them and call them "spoilers." So Democrats are brutal to Nader this year. Republicans would be just as bad, no doubt, if Badnarik or Peroutka looked like a serious threat.

With instant-runoff voting there would be no "spoilers." Pat Buchanan, for example, could vote as follows:

1. Michael Peroutka
2. George W. Bush

An ardent environmentalist lefty might vote like this:

1. David Cobb
2. Ralph Nader
3. John Kerry

Votes would be collected and counted. If one candidate had a majority of first-choice votes, that candidate would win. Suppose the first votes were distributed:

Bush 43%, Kerry 35%, Badnarik 5%, Peroutka 4%, Nader 10%, Cobb 3%.

Cobb, having the fewest votes, would be eliminated. His 3% would be distributed among the other candidates according to second-choice. Suppose 1% went to Kerry and 2% to Nader. The race would then be:

Bush 43%, Kerry 36%, Badnarik 5%, Peroutka 4%, Nader 12%.

Next Peroutka is eliminated. Let's say 2% of the second-choice ballots go to Badnarik, 2% to Bush. The race becomes:

Bush 45%, Kerry 36%, Badnarik 7%, Nader 12%

Despite the assist from Peroutka voters, Badnarik is eliminated next. Let's suppose that the second- or third-choice candidates appearing under Badnarik are 4% Bush, 2% Kerry and 1% Nader. The race is now:

Bush 49%, Kerry 38%, Nader 13%.

Bush still doesn't have a majority, so Nader's votes would have to be distributed too. Let's suppose 2% go to Bush, 11% to Kerry. The tally then becomes:

Bush 51%, Kerry 49%.

So Bush wins. But the "mandate" to emerge from the election would tell an interesting story.

This would also give smaller parties more of a chance to emerge from obscurity. In this election, for example, Libertarians could thrive, given that many conservatives are disgruntled with Bush's big spending, and many across the spectrum dislike the war. If you got a 35% Libertarian vote, that would send a message.

In this time of ideological confusion, this could be a great guide to the future.