Bart Ingles wrote in part:
>On the question of IRV vs Plurality, I would like to first point out >that pure first-past-the-post is not really the norm for U.S. >elections. For nonpartisan local elections, the question should really >be IRV vs. Runoff. And for partisan state and federal elections, we >generally have primary and general elections, which are similar in >effect to runoffs.
For New York State the standard is partisan for all elections in the state except:
By law, villages can choose nonpartisan.
New York City is considering nonpartisan for city offices.
School boards are in their own world - at least some are nonpartisan.
I question this emphasis on runoff. It could be true for PARTS of the US, but I did not find the word in a quick search of New York State election law. Also, within NYS, some cities, etc., do do runoffs.
Relating primaries to runoffs bothers me:
A primary is an election within a party to decide which of competing candidates the party shall nominate for the general election.
A party would not WANT to nominate competing candidates for the general election (assuming Plurality) - such could split the vote of party backers, thus improving the odds of some other party's candidate winning.
A party COULD use a runoff to resolve primary results being too close to a tie.
David Gamble
-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek Dave Ketchum 108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY 13827-1708 607-687-5026 Do to no one what you would not want done to you. If you want peace, work for justice.
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