A real example of a runoff-type election failure (no reason to think it would have been different under IRV). This from the recent Discover Magazine article: > The advantages of an approval vote� and the perils of plurality voting� are > most apparent in contests like the Louisiana governor's race of 1991. The > primary that year was dominated by three candidates: Edwin Edwards, the > often-indicted former governor; David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku > Klux Klan; and incumbent governor Buddy Roemer. Edwards won the > primary with 34 percent of the vote compared with 32 percent for Duke and > 27 percent for Roemer. But it was Duke's surprisingly strong showing, despite > his overtly racist stance, that won national headlines. Time and Newsweek ran > long articles about the politics of hate in America. Bumper stickers, > anticipating an Edwards-Duke runoff election, urged Louisianans to "Vote for > the crook: It's important." > > In the end, Edwards walloped Duke by a 61 to 39 percent margin. But the > result was hardly a triumph for the runoff system. Say what you will about > Louisiana voters, it's unlikely that anyone other than Edwards's core > supporters really wanted to put a "crook" in the governor's office. And the > election returns from November show beyond a doubt that very few people > approved of Duke, outside of the 32 percent who originally voted for him. > Roemer, on the other hand, had no strikes against him except that he had > recently switched parties. In an approval vote, he might well have finished > first, sparing Louisianans the choice between racketeering and racism. By the > same token, approval voting might have spared Minnesotans from electing a > professional wrestler to the governor's seat two years ago, or New > Hampshirites from handing Pat Buchanan a triumph in the 1996 presidential > primary. More recent news on Edwards's whereabouts: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/09/MN170971.DTL http://www.theadvocate.com/news/ewedefault.asp
