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» Vote Instant Runoff Voting from Zepfanman Blog
In addition to my entry about the coming U.S. elections, I wanted to post some important information about Instant Runoff Voting a......[read more]

Tracked: October 22, 2004 1:12 PM

How come everyone shows up to vote in the election where their vote is least significant? Anyone wants to wager on the outcome of California’s primary going in Bush’s favor can get 100x odds up to 10 grand (i.e wager $1, win $100 if Bush wins Cali).

Yeah! Especially since the CA primary is over, and Bush did win the Republican primary here. So I’ll put $1000 on Bush winning the CA primary. Wanna pay up?

That said, its still important in CA and other “decided” states to vote, since there are many other races (house seats, judicial) that are not set in stone and still make a huge difference. Just because Bush is going to lose CA in the general election doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote at all. I think that anytime people can be motivated to vote in this country, its a good thing. No vote is a wasted vote.

I don’t think Tiberian Sun was implying that your vote is going to be “wasted”. You should ask him about the “wasted vote fallacy” and Third Party Candidates! I think he was just saying that people like casting a vote for President, even though ultimately that vote counts very little and is unlikely to sway the outcome.

Anyway, it might be lame that this is the only time people feel it’s worth making their way to the polls, but that’s just how it is. Technically people should be voting in all those little elections, since those are the local officials who will actually affect your day to day life. That said, I haven’t voted in every election I could’ve, and I guess there is something more exciting about voting for the US President than some city official.

And btw, you guys still haven’t given me your views on these Props! :)

Posted by: Jennifer on September 27, 2004 @ 12:19 PM

I havent received my guide yet. Yes on some, No on others.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)? It seems like a pretty cool idea, ensuring that you get to let people know who you’d rather have in office, without wasting money on runoff elections. Apparently SF will be using it in their November City Elections.

Go click on the link and see the cute example IRV election, using MUPPETS! :)

Posted by: Jennifer on September 27, 2004 @ 2:04 PM

Hey hey… don’t take advantage of a guy who takes time out of his busy schedule to make a friendly wager and happens to mistype what race he’s talking about! It was just a typo, we all make them (see your usage of “its”). You know I meant the general election, and as a consiliation I’ll offer 1000 to one odds. But if you’re smart enough to catch my error in terminology you’re certainly smart enough not to take that bet. And Jennifer is right, I don’t at all believe it is a wasted vote come November. What is a wasted vote is voting for Bush or Kerry when you really don’t like either of these guys. A staggering amount of people are voting for either Bush/Kerry because they feel that the other candidate is just worse. As a result, the message to politicians is that the American majority support Bush or Kerry’s policies. What people should do is look over all the candidates and figure out which one has the beliefs and principles that they most agree with, and vote for that candidate, regardless of his/her chance of winning. It sends a message that this is what you want. Unfortunately, people don’t do this, and as a result we have two candidates that are quite similar on most issues.

I’m in favor of Irv voting.