New GOP ballot system has friends, foe

State GOP delegates Saturday will use a system called preferential balloting to pick the top vote-getting candidates.

The system, which was praised in the 2002 Republican convention, is not without its critics, however. Delegate Dana Dickson has even introduced a resolution at Saturday's convention outlining problems with the system, also called "instant running voting," demanding that the state GOP central committee reject its use in future conventions.

Here's how preferential balloting would work in an eight-person governor's race:

After hearing from all the candidates, the 3,500 delegates will list on their ballots their gubernatorial preferences, first place through eighth place. They don't have to list all of the candidates.

Each candidate has a ballot box in the counting room. Ballots with a candidate listed as first preference are placed in that candidate's box. Then, all the ballots in each box are tallied.

The candidate with the least number of ballots in his or her box is eliminated and the first round is completed.

The ballots in the eliminated candidate's box are examined and the candidate who is listed second now gets those ballots. And the ballots are placed in the appropriate candidate's

box. Boxes are then recounted for the second round.

Round by round, the process continues, the lowest vote-getter eliminated in each round and the ballots in his or her box redistributed into the boxes of the remaining viable candidates, who may be the second or lesser preference on the eliminated candidate's ballots.

If, in any round of the counting, one candidate gets 60 percent of the total delegates voting, he or she is the winner.

Otherwise, in the final round of voting the third-place candidate is eliminated, ballots redistributed to see if one of the remaining two candidates gets 60 percent of the vote. If not, the final two candidates go into a June primary.

Dickson and other critics claim that preferential balloting can be abused. They say in some circumstances "lackluster" candidates — not the best the party can put on a public ballot — can actually advance out of convention by being in the middle of nearly every delegate's ballot. The system can also lead to "vote-brokering," where certain candidates get their supporters to team up in their preference listings, which can also skew results.