Forwarded by Jeanne Massey from Tony Solgard:
As I see it, the way to use IRV in the endorsement process (with a 60 percent supermajority requirement) is to use the instant runoff mechanism on the first ballot to narrow the field to two candidates. If this results in a candidate with 60 percent support, then you've got a first ballot endorsement. If not, the convention proceeds to a second ballot with those same two candidates and continues as DFL conventions normally do. "Normal" usually involves a rules negotiation over the number of ballots that must be taken before either a vote for "no endorsement" or for adjournment is in order. So, the convention doesn't have to endorse if it doesn't want to. And the convention still has the option of pushing a 55 percent candidate over the 60 percent threshold on the next ballot. But the process is expedited so you don't have to sit through 6 ballots when you could condense the process into just one ballot or two ballots and come to the same outcome.
This IRV idea for local party conventions sounds rather wacky to me. It's much more difficult for tellers to count votes with an IRV situation than counting for traditional ballots without the rankings. There's also much more room for counting errors.
When you are talking about elections, ballots aren't counted manually (except in a manual recount - which is the exception rather than the rule).
I personally see very little use for DFL endorsements for "non-partisan" city elections.
Eva Young Near North Minneapolis [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
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