Recently opponents to IRV lost a Minnesota Supreme Court case because the Court did not agree with them that IRV took away one person-one vote.
Today's Star Tribune had a letter-writer who argued that IRV would have prevented Jesse Ventura, George W. Bush, and Tim Pawlenty from winning. He argued that since none of these won a majority of votes they would not have won with IRV. I guess he is assuming that all those who voted for the candidate with the least votes would have made their second choice the person who came in second.
Let's suppose in the Coleman-Humphrey-Ventura race that half the voters who voted for Humphrey gave their second choice as Coleman and half as Ventura. Ventura would have still won. My guess is that more than half of the Humphrey voters would have given their second choice as Ventura, disliking a Republican more than Ventura, giving Ventura an even bigger win. On the other hand, what if no Humphrey voter gave a second choice. We still have a non-majority winner.
