Oops. Sorry. I see I'm wrong again (to save you the trouble Robert). I see you did say 55% of the original turnout on election day numbers, so I see your point is valid. Sorry, I'm trying to go too fast and get onto other things.
However, that does not alter the fact that the voters have the CHOICE to vote or not in the real runoff elections, unlike with STV/IRV. Voters may decide not to vote in the runoff for many reasons, such as not caring which of the two finalists win, but they ought to have the right to participate and to have the opportunity to learn about the two finalists and make a decision if they want to - ALONG WITH THESE OTHER RIGHTS THAT IRV/STV REMOVES: 1. IRV/STV remove the right cast a vote with a positive effect on a candidate’s chances of winning. 2. IRV/STV remove the right to participate in the final decision of who wins the election by eliminating voters’ ballots prior to the final counting round. The more candidates, the more voters are eliminated prior to the final counting round. 3. IRV/STV remove the right to have one’s votes counted equally and fairly with all other voters’ votes because only voters supporting the least popular candidates as their 1st choice are assured of having their 2nd choice candidate counted when their 1st choice candidate looses. 4. In comparison with top‐two runoff elections, IRV/STV remove the right to elect majority winners. San Francisco had to eliminate its legal right to elect majority winners when it adopted IRV/STV because STV routinely elects winners with far less than 50% of the votes. 5. IRV/STV remove the right to a transparent, verifiable election process with a decentralized, simple counting process that can be easily manually counted and audited. 6. IRV/STV removes the right to have an economical election process. 7. IRV/STV removes the right to change one’s mind between the primary and general election and to have time to get to know the candidates. SURELY THERE ARE ALTERNATIVE VOTING METHODS THAT DO NOT MAKE THE ELECTIONS PROCESS LESS FAIR AND REMOVE SO MANY VOTER RIGHTS!! I am sure that Condorcet, Approval and other methods that can also be applied in PR elections would be far less problematic and destructive of voting rights and even be an improvement over plurality. -- Kathy Dopp http://electionmathematics.org Town of Colonie, NY 12304 "One of the best ways to keep any conversation civil is to support the discussion with true facts." Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf View my research on my SSRN Author page: http://ssrn.com/author=1451051 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
