# Instant runoff voting worked out fine in San Francisco

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 3, 2004, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781 "2004-11-03T16:13:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781/41 "2004-11-13T23:36:38Z")

</div>

> [@Mr2001](#):
>
> Each ordered ballot is converted (behind the scenes) into a matrix representing pairwise matchups between each combination of two candidates, and all these matrices are added together to produce the final vote count. After applying some math, you can determine the winner, unless there’s a genuine contradiction in voters’ preferences. [ElectionMethods.org](http://www.electionmethods.org/CondorcetEx.htm) has a more detailed explanation.

Matrices… algorithms… I think these are dangerous terms when it comes to counting votes for public election…

(doens’t quite know where to stand on the issue, but doesn’t trust matrices)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781/42 "2004-11-14T19:38:15Z")

</div>

How would any of these voting systems apply to voting on policies instead of people? For instance in a large committee, or whole body, would it make sense to have various proposals, essentially combinations of amdenments that have been offered, on an approval ballot? Cross off the mix you don’t like? You could have each amendment up for approval or pairwise showdown, but that could get crazily complicated in pairwise voting. Or two contradictory amendments could get approved in approval voting, so it seems the approval needs to be of a mix of amendments.

Maybe this doesn’t matter as people have a longer period of time to vote up or down on a variety of amendments?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781/43 "2004-11-14T19:50:25Z")

</div>

Majority voting works fine for elections with two possibilities, such as whether to pass an amendment.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/instant-runoff-voting-worked-out-fine-in-san-francisco/272781.md?page=2)