http://www.fortcollinsweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=647&Itemid=35

Colorado Representative John Kefalas is looking to bring new voting methods to his state for the November 2008 election to try and eliminate the problems with the current voting system. Currently, in Colorado, citizens vote for one candidate for each opening position, however it is often the case that no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote. With independent parties on the ballot, such as the Libertarian party and the Green party, it makes it hard for one candidate to win a decisive majority. This dilemma is often refered to as the ”Nader problem” or the “Perot problem” as both independent candidates Ralph Nader and Ross Perot have run in presidential elections and have been accused of “stealing” votes away from the front runners. 

In January, Kefalas first introduced House Bill 1162 to the Colorado state legislature which he helped bush through congress until it died last week in the House Appropriations Committee. The bill would have created a 13 member committee to examine many alternative voting methods. These methods include: instant runoff voting,  approval voting, range voting and proportional representation.

Instant runoff voting, which Kefalas is in support of, allows each voter to rank candidates on their ballot. If no candidate receives a majority of first place votes, the candidate with the fewest first place votes is eliminated from the ballot and those votes are reallocated to voters second place votes. If that still doesn’t result in a candidate with a majority of votes the process is repeated for multiple rounds until one candidate emerges with a majority.

Range voting allows each voter to rank candidates with a numerical value from a scale ranging from either 1 to 10 or 0 to 99. Scores for each candidate are then tallied up across all ballots and the person with the highest aggregate rating is elected. Approval voting is a form of range voting in which voter votes “yes” or “no” for each candidate. A candidates “approvals” are then tallied and the one with the most “yes” votes is elected.

 Proportional representation is different in that voters vote for a party list of candidates and seats in a legislature are awarded in proportion the the percentage of votes each party list receives. This is already practiced in Israel, Iraq and in most European parliaments.

Range voting is very similar to the alternatives to majority rule voting that we discussed in class. Range voting is  similar to the Borda Count in which numerical rankings are assigned to each candidate and aggregate rankings are used to determine a winner. However, in range voting, voters are allowed to assign a number based on their opinion and degree of approval for a candidate rather than just assign a numerically ordered ranking. This means that the vote is more qualitative than the Borda count and may be more indicative of public opinion. A range voting method would allow voters to give support for more than one candidate but in different degrees. It would allow voters to vote sincerely based on their opinions without worrying that their vote for an independent candidate could potentially “steal” a vote away from the next best alternative.