[EL] latest snapshot of CA 36 race

[Rob Richie]

I'm in Oakland, as tomorrow we're giving our Champion of Democracy awards (
www.democracychampions.com) to a lot of deserving institution sand
individuals who helped bring instant runoff voting to East Bay cities and
make it work last year. So this issue is on my mind, but glad the CA 36 race
is getting a lot more people to think about sensible ways of reducing big
fields to one winner. IRV has pro's and con's. Runoffs have pro's and con's.
Plurality voting (really, drop "first past the post," as it's a nonsensical
metaphor) has the most con's, yet the most history of use in big elections
in the U.S.

One way to think of thw CA36 race is that in a traditional primary system,
it might have had the exact same outcome -- Hahn winning the Democratic
nomination by plurality, even if  she might have lost to fellow Democrat
Bowen if paired against her one-on-one.  We see plurality voting winners
frequently in primaries, and a good number of those times the winner had
gotten in due to a "spoiler."

That's why in elections with one winner, I support efforts to uphold
majorityrule with runoffs or IRV. But anyone who thinks either one is going
to be fully satisfactory to observers is kidding themselves. I do think
exploring combining them has merit -- so, for instance, in this race the
field could have been reduced to three or four, then  used IRV in the final
general election. Doing this rule would lead to general elections with more
voices and choices for voters.

Rob

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 8:29 PM, Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I don't want to steal Steve Chessin's idea, but he today pointed out that
> if California used Instant Runoff Voting for these special elections, it is
> extremely likely that Debra Bowen would have won.  Steve, a Democratic Party
> state central committee member from Santa Clara County, and President of
> Californians for Electoral Reform, says that most Hahn voters would have
> given their 2nd place vote to Bowen.
>
> And, most Winograd voters would have given their 2nd place to Bowen.
> That's all it would have taken for Bowen to win, and save Los Angeles County
> taxpayers the expense of the July 12 election.
>
> --- On *Thu, 5/19/11, Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [EL] latest snapshot of CA 36 race
> To: "Rick Hasen" <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
> Cc: law-election at uci.edu
> Date: Thursday, May 19, 2011, 4:55 PM
>
>
> This will expose my complete ignorance of this matter, so feel free to
> berate me: is there any reason it's top-two and not top-three, etc.?
> I have a hunch that it's so there can be no splitting and that it's
> subtly related to Duvenger's Law and FPTP (sorry, Rob!). best, Joe
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu<http://mc/compose?to=rhasen@law.uci.edu>>
> wrote:
> > http://rrcc.co.la.ca.us/elect/11051110/rr1110pa.html-ssi
> >
> > As of Date: 05/19/2011 Time: 13:31                            Votes
> Percent
> >
> > US REPRESENTATIVE 36 DIST    TERM ENDS 01/03/13
> >
> >    JANICE HAHN            DEM                                15,607
> 24.62
> >    CRAIG HUEY             REP                                14,096
> 22.24
> >    DEBRA BOWEN            DEM                                13,346
> 21.05
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