There is another thread on Instant Runoff Voting elsewhere in the forum, and several of their advocates have been providing good input. http://instantrunoff.com/ or http://www.fairvote.org/irv/ are probably the best sources, though there is a lot of information out there.

I read recently in the Washington Post that Obama and McCain both support it, but I cannot see it ever passing with the current set of politicians. With GOOOH candidates I believe this would pass on the first vote, because it seems to make so much sense. Note that I have not studied the concept in depth myself, and believe there are a few flaws (as with everything - including GOOOH), but at first pass it passes the common sense sniff test.

OK.  I just finished reading Wikipedia articles on the Borda and Instant Runoff Voting, and my head is swimming.

I think what I like best about the Borda count is that it tends to pick a candidate that appeals to the most voters, even if most placed that candidate as second choice.  It avoids choosing a candidate that say 52% loved, but 48% despised, in favor of everyone's second place choice, one that is more uniting, thereby preventing tyranny by majority.  However, it's achilles heel is that it is prone to insincere voting tactics.  Quoting de Borda: "My scheme is intended only for honest men."

While the IRV system will respect the will of the majority, it does not appear to solve the 'spoiler effect' problem:  It allows for multi party systems as long as the third party is weak.  It still seems to gravitate choices toward two parties, witness Australia, possibly due to insincere 'spoiler' voting.

So, neither is perfect.  I'll revisit Wiki later and re-read the articles.  For now though, I still prefer the Borda count due to it's ability to elect popular (uniting) compromise candidates.

The details of the process are documented in the book. They will be posted on the Web site as the time nears, but we don't want to bog down on the process itself right now. Further, as we get critical mass in membership, we hope to have hundreds of "trial" sessions so that we can refine the process further.

You guys may also want to research Instant Runoff Voting. We have a contingent that is actively pursuing that as well, and it seems to make good sense, though I haven't studied it thoroughly (yet).

I like this approach. :-)

A few years back Discover magazine printed an article on voting theory that discussed the major issues with our current system (plurality voting), and proposed two mathematically superior alternatives.  The article can be still be found here: http://discovermagazine.com/2000/nov/featbestman/?searchterm=voting%20math

My personal favorite is the Borda count, commonly used to rank college football teams: voters would simply rank the candidates top to bottom.  If there were 5 choices, then the top ranked choice would be assigned 5 points, and each lower rank would be assigned one less point.  Each candidates points would be totalized, with the candidate having the larget point pool representing the largest common consensus.

Have the candidate selection methods been finalized and if so, how is consensus reached?