Vote in this on-line Democratic primary (uses "Condorcet"-type IRV)

[scottxyz]

Try it now!
Here's an actual on-line Democratic primary you can vote in (till May 1), and see the results using a type of Instant Runoff Voting called "the Condorcet method" (see link at bottom of page).

To vote in this on-line Democratic primary, go here:
http://www5.cs.cornell.edu/~andru/civs/public_elections.html
and click on the link marked 'The Democratic Primary'

You will be asked to RANK up to 9 candidates: 1 for your favorite, 2 for your second-favorite, and so on.

You will only be able to vote ONCE on your machine.


How it works - why it's different from a regular voting system
Our current system lets you pick just one candidate, forcing some people to cast an "insincere" vote for their "second-favorite" simply because their true favorite might be "unelectable".

A better system is a round-robin or Instant Runoff Voting method called "Condorcet" voting, which lets each voter RANK each candidate instead of just picking their "top" choice. The tallying software then looks at every possible PAIR of candidates to determine which candidate won the most pairwise matchups.

This gives more-accurate results than simply picking ONE candidate. In 2000, it would have allowed Green types to vote:

1 - Nader
2 - Gore
3 - Bush

and if Nader didn't win, his votes would basically be "transferred" to Gore instead of being wasted and tipping the election to Bush.


The theory behind Condorcet voting
Here's an explanation of the Condorcet method of voting and tallying:

http://electionmethods.org/Condorcet.htm