A better balloting system

Re “Voting, as easy as 1, 2, 3,” Opinion, Dec. Dec. 10

I hope we continue to hear more about instant runoff voting. Blair Bobier presents many reasons to support it. I would add that in our current general and runoff election system, only a fraction of the electorate turns out for a runoff. That small number of voters has the final say, rather than the large number who voted in the general election.

I credit the Los Angeles City Council for convening a task force to assure that all the logistics of implementing such a system have been considered. Its work should be reported by June. Until then, pay attention to the L.A. city election in March and probable May runoff election in 2009. Consider the percentage of voters in each and the cost of the second election. Then call your council person about instant runoff voting.

Liza White

Los Angeles

The writer is the president of the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles.

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The Op-Ed article touted some virtues of instant run-off voting over our current system of plurality voting.

A yet better voting system is approval voting (AV). With AV, one simply “approves” of as many of the candidates in a given election as one wishes.

The candidate with the most approval votes is the winner. In addition to its obvious simplicity, AV elects the candidate with support from the largest majority of voters. Although not as well known as IRV, AV is used, for example, in the United Nations to elect its secretary-general.

Because systems like AV and IRV give third-party candidates better chances to participate in meaningful ways in elections, it’s not in the interest of either the Democratic or Republican parties to change our current voting system to another, such as approval voting, that is superior.

Ben Zuckerman

Los Angeles