The essence of democracy is that elections should reflect the will of the majority. This is often the case when Democrats and Republicans face off: The candidate with the most votes wins.

But some elections involve three or more candidates who can cause a “;spoiler effect,”; where the losing candidates split the vote of a common constituency. This allows a candidate to win with a plurality of votes, over the will of the majority.

In 2000, the spoiler effect may have helped George W. Bush win the presidency. Many believe those who voted for Ralph Nader preferred Al Gore to Bush and, had that preference been reflected in the election, Gore would have won. This may have also happened in 1992, when Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.

We may see the spoiler effect in action in the upcoming 1st Congressional District special election in Hawaii. Among the major candidates are two Democrats, Ed Case and Colleen Hanabusa, and Republican Charles Djou. Because this is a winner-take-all election, our next member of Congress may be elected with a plurality of votes.

For example, if the main competition in the special election is between Hanabusa and Djou, Case voters would not have a say in who ultimately wins. A race with Case and Hanabusa as front-runners would remove any positive influence that Djou supporters might have in the election. And so forth. The third-place candidate (or other candidates) could spoil the race for the candidate in second place who might otherwise have received those votes.

To remedy this type of outcome, we support a voting method called Instant Run-Off Voting (IRV). IRV is like a run-off election where voters of losing candidates could vote again for their next preferred candidate, but without having to schedule another election. With IRV, each voter would mark their ballot with their first, second, and third choice. If their first choice came in last, their vote would go automatically to their second choice, etc.

A more detailed description of IRV can be found on The Center for Voting and Democracy's Web site (http://www.fairvote.org/How- Instant-Runoff-Voting-Works).

Instant run-off voting in this election would allow Case voters to choose Hanabusa or Djou as a second preference. Hanabusa voters could choose Case or Djou as next preference. And Djou voters could have Case or Hanabusa as second choice.

It is likely that each candidate has a strategy for using the spoiler effect to his or her advantage. However, we should not allow strategies that split voting constituencies to determine who will represent us in Congress.

While this idea has languished in the Legislature for many years, we think the congressional special election illustrates how IRV would help to improve our democracy and restore the will of the majority in elections. We urge the Legislature to take up this issue in the next legislative session. We support the efforts of the Office of Elections in moving forward with the special election, despite some opposition from the Legislature, and ask the Office of Elections to study this race to see how it can implement an IRV system in the future.

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Josh Frost is with Progressive Democrats of Hawaii and Brien Hallett is with Americans for Democratic Action/Hawaii.