The Proletariat

During the month of January we got to see how Instant Runoff Voting worked in a multi-candidate Mayoral election. Several myths about its fairness needed to be cleared up. IRV is not that much different from our primary first and then general election system in which we currently elect our mayor. The big difference is that all votes are counted and it takes place at one time, one place, and on one ballot.   

But, what if you had district wide elections for multiple seats. This is what we do for school board elections. For example, we have an all district election for seats 3, 4, and 5 in the February primary.   But, what if the three candidates that ran for seat 5 were the least preferred by the electorate for the school board. In other words what if the more preferred candidates were lumped into one school district seat. What would be ideal is if we could have an IRV type election where not 1 but 3 candidates are elected.

The IRV way to accomplish this is STV or single transferable vote. A voter would rank their preferences like IRV, but multiple candidates would be elected. The most common way to do this is through the Droops Quota which is,

So, if we had 100 voters and 3 seats needed to be decided, 26 votes would be required to win a seat. One major difference from IRV is surplus votes would need to redistributed first (votes above the quota). For example if a candidate got thirty votes, four of those votes would be redistributed in the second round meaning those voters second preferences would be calculated. As with IRV the main objective is making every vote count.  With a quota of 26, not redistributing the remaining four would be the same as throwing their votes away. After this initial surplus redistribution we go back to redistributing the last place finisher’s votes.

Lets assume we have 10 individuals who are trying decide which two colors to use in a project. They agree to use STV to help them decide.  Using Droops Quota (10/3 + 1), the quota would need to be rounded off to 5 votes since 4.333 is a decimal. In round 1, Red is selected as 1 of the colors with 1 surplus vote. Yellow gains a vote but does not meet the 5 vote quota, so we redistribute the last place finisher’s votes. Since red is already selected as one the colors we move to the voters third preference, which is yellow. Using STV yellow and red become the colors for the project.

Calculating votes with STV is a three step process.

1. Determining candidates who met quota in first round.

2. Redistributing surplus votes of winning candidates.

3. Redistributing votes of last place finisher until all seats are filled.

In the next few days, I will be putting up an STV poll for the Madison school board. There will be one poll in which you can vote your preferences for school board.   You will be able to select any candidate from either of the three seats currently up for election.  All candidates who get 26% of the vote win a seat on the school board.  Any candidate with a surplus of 26% will have the surplus votes redistributed. If 3 candidates are still not elected, the last place finisher’s votes will be redistributed. 

IRV /STV is not some wacky idea out in left field.  San Francisco just had its third successful IRV election. From the very first election the city saved millions of dollars and increased voter participation by over 300%. This passed election cycle Minneapolis passed STV by over 60% of the vote and now St. Paul want in too.  Its not just them Connecticut, Vermont, Florida, Washington, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana and Maryland have passed or is considering IRV / STV in local elections.   Not only that but it has been endorsed by Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Howard Dean, and John McCain, and so many more.

Who would you like to see on the school board?