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Cobb Calls for IRV to Solve the Spoiler Dynamic
Washington, DC — Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb will join a panel of elections experts in calling for voting reform and improvements to the electoral process on Sunday, January 23, at 11 a.m., as part of a Progressive Summit being held this weekend in Washington, DC, at the University of the District of Columbia. Panels will be held in the David A. Clarke School of Law Auditorium at 4200 Connecticut Ave., NW.
"The problem with our democracy isn't having too many candidates or too many choices; the problem is the election system. Instant Runoff Voting is the solution."
— Blair Bobier Media Director |
The panel will also feature Rob Richie, Executive Director of Fair Vote, the organization most actively promoting Instant Runoff Voting and proportional representation in the U.S.; Gregory Moore from the NAACP National Voter Fund; and Gary Flowers, Policy Director for Rainbow/PUSH, among other speakers.
"Many progressive Democrats have come to see the Green Party as being champions of democracy because we stood up and did the right thing by demanding a recount of the fraudulent presidential election in Ohio. Unless we reform our flawed electoral system, many people who are now hailing us as saviors may call us spoilers in the next election.
"The Green Party is here to stay: we're getting bigger, stronger and better organized in each election cycle. What some people call 'spoiling,' we call 'participating' in the democratic process. Instant Runoff Voting is a proven method of electing candidates which eliminates the spoiler dynamic, improves campaigns and ensures that the person who wins an election has the support of a majority of voters," said Cobb.
The presidential elections of 1992, 1996 and 2000 were all won by a candidate who received less than the majority of votes cast.
Instant Runoff Voting, also known as ranked choice or preference voting, is used to elect city officials in San Francisco, the president of Ireland, the mayor of London and officeholders at different levels of government in Australia. A type of preference voting has been used successfully in Cambridge, Massachusetts for many years. In San Francisco, where voters used Instant Runoff elections for the first time in 2004, the system promoted an unusual level of civility and cooperation among candidates.
"We have to change our old-fashioned, horse and buggy electoral system; it simply doesn't work in the diverse America of the Twenty First Century. More and more people are joining third parties or are registering as independent voters. We need more choices and more voices in our elections; not fewer. The problem with our democracy isn't having too many candidates or too many choices; the problem is the election system. Instant Runoff Voting is the solution," said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.
To see a New York Times article detailing how Instant Runoff Voting affected campaigning in San Francisco, see www.fairvote.org/sf/nyt093004.htm. General information about Instant Runoff Voting can be found at www.fairvote.org/irv/faq.htm.
For more information on the Cobb-LaMarche campaign, electoral reform and the status of litigation concerning the Ohio and New Mexico recounts, visit www.votecobb.org. The website for the national Green Party is www.gp.org.
