christopher diggins wrote:
Alright, we might need a little more time. Kalin (the one who volunteered on doing the tally), sent me a tally. However, IRV poses a special challenge because of the number of entries involved. It would be nearly impossible to get a "majority vote".
Hence, we would have to do more tallies, iteratively until either the winner has a "majority vote" or we reach the 5th iteration
With all due respect you clearly are misunderstanding how IRV works. The iterations may most definitely continue after five iterations, and that is clearly to be expected when there are numerous choices. I would suggest rereading the algorithm description at http://www.fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm .
Specifically the section: "How does it work? Voters rank candidates in order of choice: 1, 2, 3 and so on. It takes a majority to win. If anyone receives a majority of the first choice votes, that candidate is elected. If not, the last place candidate is defeated, just as in a runoff election, and all ballots are counted again, but this time each ballot cast for the defeated candidate counts for the next choice candidate listed on the ballot. The process of eliminating the last place candidate and recounting the ballots continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote. With modern voting equipment, all of the counting and recounting takes place rapidly and automatically."
Yeah, I clearly misunderstood the IRV system. Thanks for the clarification. Cheers, -- Joel de Guzman http://www.boost-consulting.com http://spirit.sf.net