when you can pick 3 of 10 candidates for school committee, but you only vote for one, and your vote, in essence, gives your candidate of choice the equivalent of 3

In that case (I don't know how this school board thing works) are you voting for candidate A, first choice, candidate B, second choice, candidate C, third choice, or each one is equal? Because you may be talking about a different system.

In the Austriailiian system, you are told to rank all ten, with a number between one and ten, in the order you like them. Not three out of ten.

I dunno. Just how vicious are the Krav defenses against an attack with teeth?

Monkey would have the most votes and still lose

I honestly don't know if that's true, I really need Jon or billytea to audit your argument there.

Plus, what's a "vote"? Monkey got the most primary votes. It didn't win. Then we run a more complicated kind of count, mathy because it needs to be, to see if we can get a result from secondary votes. Something like that anyway.

And this seems in conflict with the spirit (although it may fall within the letter) of chosing simple majority. But maybe that's me. Doesn't it, though?

Actually in my example 60% are voting anti-Monkey (poor misguided souls) so they are really the "simple" majority. I think John's Auistiriailiiiiiian system is probably the fairest way. Still pulling for write-in option though.

And of course such a vote is extremely unlikely, from my poor understanding of it, you get to eliminate the least-voted-for option before you go for a second round, and if there really were exactly 30% each for the less-popular options, then I don't know what they do. But if it's 29 and 31, we know how to proceed.

In the Auisitiriailiiiaini system that is.

John's principle was correct, but not his math. Here's a simple example:

We vote for mascot. There are three choices -- Monkey, Kafka, and Cheese Man. The first choice results are Monkey-40%; Kafka-35%; Cheese Man-25%. If we weren't voting preferentially, we'd have to have a runoff between Monkey and Kafka. However, since we voted preferentially, the runoff ballot has already been done! We take the ballots of everyone who voted for Cheese Man and resort them based on those ballots second choices. IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME AS A RUNOFF BUT WITHOUT THE EXTRA TIME NECESSARY TO SET UP A WHOLE OTHER BALLOT. thank you.

t edit and John, if I misunderstood and you had the math right, then I apologise.

If we weren't voting preferentially, we'd have to have a runoff between Monkey and Kafka.

For the simple among us, despite being monkey averse, who gets shafted and how hard if Monkey doesn't win with 40%?

The first choice results are Monkey-40%; Kafka-35%; Cheese Man-25%.

I think the issue is that some people (myself included) are inclined to think that "simple majority" means "Most votes wins", even though with 3 items this is not true.

So, i think what Cindy is saying is that in this case, she believes that Monkey should just win, without a runoff. Correct me if I am misrepresenting you.

For the simple among us, despite being monkey averse, who gets shafted and how hard if Monkey doesn't win with 40%?

Change my example to Monkey-38% and Kafka-37%. I think the Kafkaphiles would want a runoff, don't you?

I'd rather have some kind of ranked preferences than have run-offs if no choice gets 50% of the vote, because otherwise we'll be voting ALL THE FRICKIN TIME.