Muppets Use Instant Runoff Voting

The Muppets Gain Voting Strength 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.

The Muppets Use IRV 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.

No Muppet Has a Majority 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 Muppet had a majority of the vote and thus no candidate had won. The candidate with the fewest votes was eliminated.

Eliminate the Weakest Muppet In the second round, ballots were counted without the eliminated Muppet - meaning the ballots of that Muppet's supporters counted for their next choice. This process of eliminating Muppets and counting the votes took place until a Muppet won with a majority of the vote.

Will Oscar the Grouch Win? 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).

Oscar Lacks a Majority 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 choices, Miss Piggy, is defeated, and the count moves onto a second round.

Miss Piggy is Eliminated 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.

Ernie Gains Strength 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.

Elmo’s Out, Ernie Wins! 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.'

Studying Muppet Rankings 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 choice rather than have the ballot be 'wasted' on Miss Piggy.

IRV Produced the Correct Muppet Winner 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.