Preference Voting -- LTTE New York Times

[rogerashton]

just sent --

To the Editor:

The New York Times deserves credit for changing its editorial position and calling for the abolition of the electoral college. Perhaps it is appropriate to raise the question "what should be put in its place?" Election by popular vote (with plurality rule) is still not good enough. Consider the election of 1992. Mr. Clinton got the largest popular vote, the plurality, with 43%. Put otherwise, 57% of those who voted voted against Mr. Clinton. How can this be a democratic (with a small "d") result?

Please take the further step of endorsing preference voting with a single transferable vote, sometimes called "instant runoff." It works like this: (http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/votingsystems/stvi.htm) Each voter may vote not only for a first preference, but also for a second choice, third choice, and so on for as far down the list as she chooses. If one candidate has a majority of the first-place votes, that candidate is elected. If not, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those who have voted for that candidate as first preference have their second-preference votes counted. The advantages are 1) there is always a clear winning candidate, and 2) that candidate has a majority of the vote against the other candidates remaining in the election at the end.

No voting system is perfect, but (we agree) America can do far better than the electoral college. Further (I submit) we can also do better than the plurality system of popular voting.