No, I haven’t flipped out and gone for Irving Kristol, considered the founder of American neoconservatism, for president. Instead I’m going for IRV, or Instant Runoff Voting!
Many places in the world use IRV now, including even a few places here in America. For example, Aspen, Colorado, and Sarasota, Florida, as Hendrik Hertzberg points out, have become the latest jurisdictions to adopt it.
Hendrik has a nice discussion on his blog of the effects of IRV in the recent elections in Australia. The Green Party there got 7.7% of the vote which because of IRV helped push the leading Labor Party over the top for the win.
Just the opposite of course occurred in America in 2000: Ralph Nader’s Green Party with 2.7% of the vote sank the candidacy of Al Gore. Here’s the way Hendrik describes it:
For the past seven years, Americans (and the world) have been suffering from the head-pounding hangover of that 2.7 per cent: President George W. Bush. Even though a clear majority of us—51 per cent—wanted a left-of-center government, we got, with the help of a little nudge from the Supreme Court, a very, very right-of-center one.
Thanks Ralph!
Similar Posts:
- It’s All Here…
- Hundred Year War
- Nader Explained
- Juan Cole Great This Morning!
- That Mainstream Media!
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YAY! A political thing that we both back 100%!
(Have had a link to IRV on my blog page for almost a eyar now…It would make a HUGE difference and would break the strangle hold that the Corporate Incumbent Party has on our system.
(Sorry…haven’t been able to log on lately.)
-Aracos aka Michael -
Right on, Michael! I thought you’d like that one. And you’re right, it would make our system much more democratic and less controlled by the corporate media and big corporations. Thanks for the comment.
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