I am not familiar enough with any of these candidates to weigh my support for them relative to each other.
I am, however, familiar with voting systems and I find it disturbing that they use ‘instant runoff voting’ for this election.
Instant runoff voting is a pretty poor single winner election system.
From http://minguo.info/election_methods/irv :
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) has been officially endorsed by several organizations and is gaining momentum. Unfortunately, however, confusion reigns regarding its advantages and disadvantages. IRV is very good at preventing minor parties from interfering with the two-party system, but it is arguably no better than our current plurality system at expanding the two-party system and giving other parties a chance to actually win elections. Furthermore, if a third party ever does become strong enough under IRV to seriously threaten the two major parties, they could hurt their own cause and wreak havoc with our entire political system, just as they could under our current plurality system.
IRV can prevent the spoiler effect, in which a minor party splits the vote with a major party and tilts the election toward the other major party, hurting its own cause. IRV therefore seems to allow supporters of minor parties to cast protest votes without “wasting” their votes. This advantage is illusory, however, because it applies only as long as those minor parties are sure to lose. As soon as one of those minor parties threatens to become a major party and actually win, its supporters vote for them at the risk of hurting their own cause, just as in the current plurality system. Under IRV, votes for minor parties are therefore symbolic at best, or dangerous at worst. An example will illustrate why.
...snip…
In other words, IRV can have either of two completely opposite effects, depending on whether a third party is truly competitive or not. Before a third party is competitive, the effect of IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which all supporters of minor parties are somehow convinced to abandon their principles and vote for the “lesser of two evils.” Yes, those voters get the satisfaction of knowing they voted for the party and the candidate they truly prefer, but their first choice is eventually eliminated and has no effect on who actually wins. After a third party is competitive, on the other hand, the effect if IRV is equivalent to a plurality system in which many voters are somehow convinced to forget about strategy and vote sincerely. As most intelligent voters know, that would wreak havoc with the stability of our political system.
IRV has been said to make strategic or defensive voting very difficult. But strategic voting is difficult under IRV only after more than two parties are truly competitive. Before that time, strategic voting is essentially the same as what it is in our current plurality system: rank the “lesser of two evils” candidate as your first choice. As soon as more than two parties are truly competitive, strategic voting could indeed become very difficult because the “lesser of two evils” concept no longer applies when more than two parties are competitive. However, this difficulty, far from being an advantage, is actually a huge disadvantage. Voters will then need to vote strategically but will be unable to figure out how to do so, except to revert back to the old two-party paradigm. Hence the original duopoly will remain intact. In other words, IRV will not solve th
