Nygaard Notes
Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Number 342, August 25, 2006

On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/

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This Week:  Instant Runoff Voting

1.  “Quote” of the Week
2.  Instant Runoff Voting: How and Why
3.  Heads Up, Minneapolis Voters!  IRV is Coming!
4.  Learn More About Instant Runoff Voting
5.  Off The Front Page Jubilee (Well, More Than One, Anyway...)

Election processes in the United States are deeply flawed, on many levels. Every year that major federal elections are held I publish an article called "Seven Steps to Better Elections." I'll probably publish it again this year somewhere around November 7th. In that article I briefly recommend a specific election reform known as Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV. Among the many reforms that we should talk about, IRV is perhaps the easiest to enact, and right now it's the one that seems the closest to catching on in a big way around the country. For one thing, unless I miss my guess, Minneapolis is poised to adopt IRV in this fall's election.

The one, perhaps the biggest, obstacle to building mass support for this easy-to-carry-out-but-hard-to-pass reform is that it has a reputation of being complicated and hard to understand. I don't think it really is that complicated and, if I'm right, I should be able to explain it quite thoroughly in a short article in Nygaard Notes. So, here we go!

For full article, see:
http://www.nygaardnotes.org/