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MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean — who's also the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee — says he favors a voting system that would bring big changes to the American electoral process.
It's called instant-runoff, or ranked, voting. It allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If the voter's first choice loses in the initial vote-count, the second choice is counted as having the voter's support in the next round, until one candidate emerges with more than 50 percent support.
Dean says he's urging voters in Maine to adopt the system. It's on the Maine ballot this year.
It was tried in Dean's home city of Burlington, but was repealed after it led to the election of Mayor Bob Kiss, who ended up very unpopular.
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