The Real Spoiler? No IRV.

• Author: Wood, Betty K.
• Position: Instant Runoff Voting

Greens are advocating Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and are taking part in campaigns around the country to have it made a part of how we all vote. Democrats are accusing Nader of being a spoiler. From a Green perspective, Nader is not a spoiler--each candidate must earn his [sic] own vote, not just demand a lesser of two evils vote. However, let's look at it from the Democrats' perspective--the Nader vote was sufficient to make a Bush win possible.

The states where Nader's share of the vote was greater than the difference between Bush's win and Gore's loss are: Florida and New Hampshire, two states where no candidate got a simple majority of the vote. So it looks like Nader's presence made a difference in the selection of the President. But should the Greens back off and vote the "lesser of two evils?"

Let's look at how IRV might have made a difference. There are the nine states where no candidate received 50% of the vote (see chart).

These 77 electoral votes break down to 33 for Bush and 44 for Gore. Nader came in a distant, but significant, third in all states. where he was on the ballot.

Bush could have reached a simple majority in Nevada with the redistribution of the votes of the "others" (all but Nader). He would need only 1/4 of those ballots. It would be possible, but unlikely, that Gore would have reached the threshold in Maine on the redistribution of the ballots of the "others."

The second choices of the Nader voters would have been redistributed in eight states (including ME), representing 73 electoral votes. Let's see if they would change any of the electoral votes. In those states that Gore won (IA, ME, MN, OR, and WI), the redistributed Nader votes would put him over the threshold. In those states that Bush won (NH and FL), Bush would need only 0.8% of the 4.9% to be redistributed in New Hamphire so it's most likely that it would remain for Bush. So far, IRV would only allow for a simple majority for the current winner. However, Nader's redistributed votes probably would have made Florida a win for Gore and, given no other electoral vote changes, it would mean the Presidency.

The real spoiler in the election is not Nader's presence but the lack of IRV.

Caveat: This exercise uses the votes as cast and then imposes IRV on top of the results. If IRV were a real option we would expect that the actual first choice votes might be quite different.

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