I think eliminating runoffs with the type of exceptions you suggest is an excellent idea. This is no more than just another example of expensive politics as usual which provides the taxpayers with nothing.

Other suggestions to save money and eliminate politics as usual include

1.Eliminating one house of the state legisalture. Other states need to look at  this as well as a way to save money and prevent higher taxes. In New York State the body that needs to be eliminated is the state senate for obvious reasons.

2. Eliminate the offices of Borough President and let the senior city coucilman from each Borough preside over Boro-Wide functions.

Lets get government to be more efficient. I am so tired of politicans doing deals, pretending otherwise and loving the sound of their own voices

but jerry, how do you justify the cost?  In this time when the city is cutting back services and laying people off, you want to spend $15 million per on runoffs when the winners almost always win again?  I'm sorry but that is not fiscally responsible.  There comes a time when idealism takes a back seat to practical needs.  If runoffs were free to have, you might have an argument.

You've heard of course the arguments made that runoffs also make it more difficult for minority candidates to get elected.  Witness the 2001 mayoral primary, where hispanic Fernando Ferrer won the primary and then lost the runoff to the white Mark Green.  Green had to spend so much money winning the runoff, and was so badly damaged in doing that he was useless as a general election candidate and the party lost its chance to regain the Mayor's office.  The party is still recovering from that debacle and many have said that as long as the democratic party subjects its candidates to runoffs, it is going to be vulnerable in mayoral general elections.  That debacle would not have happened had their been no runoff and Ferrer, who won the primary 35 to 31, was made the nominee.

Finally if candidate B gets the 'majority of the vote' in the runoff, and it is still fewer votes than Candidate A got in the primary, because far fewer people voted, than who has the mandate?  Unions and those who work in the political industry want runoffs, its more business, but most of the rest of the public has trust that the voters make the choices they wanted to make in the primary.  Which you see when the primary winners win the runoff again and again.

Democracy is SO inefficient and costly.

Seriously, I do think some kind of instant runoff voting system does make sense rather than a runoff. Though in reality I am not sure it will affect the outcome of elections. I think money is still the main determinant (though not only determinant) of who wins, particularly when voter turnout is so low. Not sure that your reasons for doing so make sense.

I very much like the idea of an instant runoff on the first primary day so we do not have to waste all this money. Technology could easily allow it

What about eliminating the boro presidents and 1 house of the legislature. I want to eliminate the state senate for obvious reasons

As usual, I agree with Skurnik.  We need MORE runoff elections, not less.  Take a look at Council District 28.  Koslowitz won with 26% of the vote.  That means that 74% of the voters voted AGAINST her on election day, but because of the large number of candidates, she won.  I'm willing to bet that if we had a runoff election, some of the new incoming council members would not be new incoming council members.  I think Schulman probably would have beat Koslowitz, Nunes might have beat White in the 28th, and Griffith would have had a better chance against Vann in the 36th.

Take this to the hypothetical extreme.  If you have 20 candidates in one race, and one of the gets 6% of the vote to win the election, I don't believe that that person with 6% of the vote should be representing the other 94%.  Now if you have a runoff and the winner gets 50%+, that adds legitimacy and is more in line with Democratic principles.

What we found out in 2001 was that there isn't enough time between a runoff and a general election for a damaged nominee to recover.  All the runoff did that year, all it did, was allow for an ugly and divisive replay of the primary.  The fact that it was a close election and the result was different doesn't change that.

However that is an entirely separate argument than the one over costs.  Skurnik tries to confuse the issue by ignoring the cost argument.  He will not justify the costs of the elections because he can't.  He'll see libraries closed and homeless people not fed for lack of funds before industry.

Is fifty percent of 200 votes is not the same as fifty percent of 20,000 votes?.  Runoffs were designed by the political machine to protect the political machine.  Because it is ten times more difficult for a candidate running on principle, and not backed by the big money, to win a runoff- where he'd have to somehow raise more money-- against a big money candidate.  Runoffs do not create a level playing field.

Because Gatemouth, unlike you who often posts just to rip people, I make a point.  These days every dollar and every cent counts. You have libraries closing early.  You have homeless soup kitchens that don;'t have enough food to feed the homeless.  You have a city that can't take all the folks who wnat to be police officers or fire department offices because there is no money.

Yes $15-20 million for a runoff where the winners will win again?  Gatemouth ignore that there were posters who agreed with me about the fiscal insanity here.  Maybe he really doesn't give a damn about the fiscal crisis the city is in?  Maybe he wants the city to go broke.

 Or maybe Gatemouth has been psoting here so long that he thinks that notihng ahybody else posts here matters.  I don't know but I do know that when Gatemouth disregards perfectly good arguments on the basis of who is doing the posting,m that he shows an ego out of control and not one who really cares about the city.

...because even when you accidently hit upon a good point, you write on the basis of feelings rather than facts, often choosing not to spend two minutes worth of due diligence on google.

In this case, you seem blithely unaware of the history behind the current law, which stemmed from an effort to prevent parties from being stuck with nominees for Citywide office who were unrepresentaive of those parties, such as reactionary Mario Procacciono.    

However, in this case you are also not without a point. Nonetheless, I tend to Skurnik's view, that ensuring that our elections produce results which actually reflect the views of the majority in each constituency is worth the money.

I do think that having runoff in all primaries with a 50% threshold, would invariably produce a cultural change, with people understanding that the election wasn't over until it was over.

However, even that is a 1969 solution.

It is 2009, and implementing Instant Runoff Voting, where voters rank all the candiates in order of preference, with the bottom ones eliminated until some achives 50%, would accomplish the purpose of a runoff far more cheaply and accurately, without putting undue financial burden on the candidates or the City (after the intial start-up cost, which would be well worth it).

I eventually intend to do a piece on this, and did not want to waste my thoughts on your thread, which is the moral equivalent of burying them in landfill.    

We agree on yet ANOTHER topic? It took me some time to warm to instant runoff voting, but when I saw it in action (at CBID) and was able to directly compare it to the alternative (at IND) I realized how much more efficient it could be.  If applied properly, I think it is a good idea, even if it WAS pushed by the Greens.