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Starting in the early '90s, the Henson production company started
to pay the Muppets with stock options rather than a straight salary.
Quietly, the Muppets, as a group, gained a controlling interest in the
Henson production. In a move that shocked the world, the Muppets
decided to elect one of their own as the CEO of the company. Being
savvy students of the world, the Muppets chose instant runoff voting
in order to elect a candidate who would best reflect their views.
They decided to choose among five candidates: Beaker, Elmo, Ernie,
Miss Piggy and Oscar the Grouch. Under instant runoff voting (IRV),
the Muppet voters ranked the candidates: a 'one' for their favorite
candidate, a 'two' for their second favorite and so on - up to five
choices. Votes were counted for the top-ranked candidate on each
ballot. After counting these ballots, no candidate had a majority of
the vote and thus no candidate had won. The candidate with the fewest
votes was eliminated. In the second round, ballots were counted
without the eliminated candidate - meaning the ballots of that
candidate's supporters counted for their next choice. This process of
eliminating candidates and counting the votes took place until a
candidate won with a majority of the vote.
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At first it looks as though Oscar the Grouch will be the winner -
indeed, if the Muppets had used a simplistic 'plurality' voting
system, then Oscar would have won. He has more votes than any other
candidate (in other words a plurality). But IRV requires a candidate
to possess a majority, which Oscar fails to secure in the first round
of counting - he clearly has strong support, but his support is not
strong enough to help him cross the 'majority line.' A strong CEO
should have both strong support and wide support, and IRV helps
measure which candidate best achieves that balance. So the candidate
with fewest first-choice votes, Miss Piggy, is defeated, and the count
moves onto a second round.
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The ballots originally cast for Miss Piggy are now counted for the
candidates listed as the second choice on each ballot. Everyone else
has their ballot count for their first choice candidate. Note that
one ballot does not count for any candidate -- rumor has it that Miss
Piggy only voted for one candidate, 'Moi.' No candidate has a
majority of the vote yet, and Beaker now loses.
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In this round of voting, three candidates remain. Note that Ernie is
showing not only strong support (he was second to Oscar after the
first count), but broad support - he keeps picking up more votes as
other candidates are eliminated. We can see that Elmo did not receive
enough votes to remain in the running. He too is eliminated.
Before we find out who the winner is, let's take a closer look at the
ballot of one of the (few!) Muppets who voted for Miss Piggy as their
favorite candidate. This Muppet's ballot first counted for Miss Piggy,
but after she was eliminated, the ballot counted for the second choice
- Elmo. Once Elmo lost, the ballot counted for Ernie. Note that Oscar
is ranked last on this ballot. Clearly this voter supported Ernie over
Oscar as the Henson Company's new CEO, and it was important to
register this preference rather than have the ballot be 'wasted' on
Miss Piggy.
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When Elmo loses, ballots that had been cast for him are now counted
for either Oscar or Ernie. Note that some ballots are counting for a
third-choice candidate - those voters who had listed Miss Piggy or
Beaker first and Elmo second. With the field narrowed to two, Ernie
secures a majority of the votes cast and crosses the 'majority line.'
And Ernie is now the CEO of the Henson Production Company! If the
Muppets had chosen the more traditional plurality voting system, a
candidate could have been elected who most Muppets didn't like as much
as Ernie. The use of instant runoff voting has assured the victory of
a candidate with support of at least 50% plus one vote.
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DISCLAIMER: THE MUPPETS and characters are trademarks of the Jim
Henson Company and all opinions expressed herein do not reflect those
of the Jim Henson Company. The maintainer of this site is in no way
affiliated with the Jim Henson Company or with Jim Henson
Interactive. This website has been created solely for educational
purposes. Adapted from script by Matthew Pierce at the Center for
Voting and Democracy.
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