New Voting System?

August 14, 2008 11:06 PM

So a while back I heard a story describing a "new" voting system that was being tried out in either Vermont or New York State. The major difference I remember was that this new system gave voters the chance to tell the candidate what positions they supported and, what they didn't though in a more precise way than we do now by simply voting for or against a particular candidate based on their positions on many issues. Does this sound familiar to anyone or am I living on another planet? And what is this system called?
posted by lowlight to law & government (6 comments total)

Are you thinking of instant runoff voting? In this system, voters pick first, second, third etc. choices among candidates. If no candidate gets a majority, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the second etc. choices of that candidate's votes are redistributed. The linked wiki provides details and issues surrounding this idea. The jury is out on whether or not it provides a more fair or accurate vote. It is in place for local elections in Burlington, Vermont. It has nothing to do with telling candidates about issues, however.
posted by beagle at 5:13 AM on August 15, 2008

Yeah, that would be an awfully impressionistic description of instant runoff voting. Wikipedia:Voting System has a sidebar which lists several voting systems, but I think this might not rate a mention.

It really sounds like voting + exit polling to me.
posted by grobstein at 5:34 AM on August 15, 2008

You don't mean fusion voting, do you? That's the only alternative voting system that I can think of that's in place in Vermont and New York (though it's also in many other states, just not as commonly used).
posted by cheerwine at 6:16 AM on August 15, 2008

I live in NY, and we still use the big mechanical machines from the 50s here. I'm a campaign volunteer, too, so I suspect anything new going on would have been mentioned at a meeting or something.
posted by Kellydamnit at 6:23 AM on August 15, 2008

Yeah that is it, I heard the story on NPR but I could not for the life of me remember what it was called. I recently had a discussion with someone on staff with one of my states representatives and I mentioned this but could not remember the term and felt a little silly. That said, this person is closer to the source and seemed utterly clueless to what I was I was talking about. Thanks!
posted by lowlight at 10:10 AM on August 15, 2008

Well, of course the person was clueless! What you described is not really that close to IRV.
posted by lunasol at 12:34 PM on August 15, 2008