Star Tribune Top 10?
The following article is from the Star Tribune Editorial Board and it lists the "Top 10" reasons why we should have Instant Runoff Voting. It is very disturbing not simply because the arguments don't make much sense or that they make a mockery of the voters, but also because of their shameful intent to mislead.
NOTICE the headline refers to "Minneapolis" and their first response (#10) conveniently refers to "Minnesota."* If they had used "Minneapolis" in the response as their title refers, their BEST argument would no longer be applicable because the cities' elections already have a 50% +1 majority requirement!
Our "rebuttal" is in bold blue.
Minneapolis should try voting by number
Top 10 reasons (most of them serious) to vote YES on the instant runoff voting charter question on the November ballot.
Published: October 09, 2006
10) If you like majority rule, you need a new voting method. The one Minnesota uses now is plurality rule.
IRV creates only an artificial majority. Furthermore, because pure majority rule often leads to tyranny, our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitutional Republic, not a majority-rule Democracy.
9) Third parties -- and fourth, fifth and sixth parties -- are here to stay. Without a change, pluralities, not majorities, will decide the winners in more and more elections.
Pluralities are perfectly acceptable in a diverse political atmosphere and a Constitutionally limited government. E. Pluribus Unum!
8) Rank three or more candidates in order of preference, and you've cast a guilt-free ballot. You can vote for your favorite without worrying that you've actually helped elect your least favorite.
You should worry very much that your least favorite candidate might have a better chance to win with IRV. Once the secondary choices begin to be tallied it would be possible for a candidate who got the second or third lowest number of 1st choice votes to end up winning the election.
7) Getting the whole state to switch to an untested new way of voting is nigh unto impossible. Instant runoff voting needs a test.
Test it in the laboratory.
6) Long-ballot Minneapolis, where just about everybody except the dog catcher is elected, is a great IRV testing ground. If instant runoff voting can make it there, it can make it anywhere.
How will we know if it worked, if the "correct" people get elected?
5) A new way of voting will take some explanation. Where better to do that than in the city that may be the Public Meeting Capital of the World?
Public meeting capital of the world? What's that got to do with the price of beans?
4) Instant runoff voting would eliminate the city primary, which isn't the great exercise in democracy it's cracked up to be. Only about one out of seven of the city's registered voters came to the polls on Sept. 13, 2005, to decide which candidates would advance to the ballot two months later.
The people who care enough to vote in the Primary are the ones who get to decide who the candidates will be. Should we penalize these citizens because they choose to get involved? Besides, people also have the right not to vote.
3) Keeping more candidates in the running in October will enrich the political stew. The ideas they tout will get wider exposure.
Enrich the political stew or muddy the waters??? IRV brings more opportunities for irregularities and manipulation.
2) Instant runoff voting will inspire candidates to appeal for those important second-choice votes. That should stifle at least some of the smear tactics Minnesota is seeing too often today.
Accurate reporting in the media would have a better chance of eliminating smear campaigns, but since the major Twin Cities newspapers actually engage in the smear campaigns, this might be a tall order!
1) If kids can learn to paint by number, grownups can learn to vote by number.
It looks like kids dreamed up this whole IRV mess!