Correcting New America Foundation Instant Runoff Voting Misinfo

Note to City of San Jose: The New America Foundation misreported the popularity of instant runoff voting in North Carolina. In its recent sales pitch to San Jose, the New America Foundation falsely claims that IRV is being used in "a number of cities in North Carolina". Actually, IRV is retreating in NC, and only one town is going to experiment with it this year. Not "a number of cities".

Instant Runoff Voting for the City of San Jose:“One Election, Not Two”By Blair Bobier, Steven Hill, New America Foundation New
America Foundation June 2009...Besides San Francisco, IRV is currently being used in Burlington, Vermont; Takoma Park, Maryland; Aspen, Colorado; in a number of cities in North Carolina; for overseas voters from Arkansas, Illinois and Louisiana; and has been used for decades in Ireland and Australia, and more recently to elect the mayor of London (United Kingdom). Cambridge, Massachusetts has been using a form of IRV to elect its city council since the 1940s.

Is this just sloppy work or deliberate misleading? The New America Foundation, a DC think tank (who knows what is best for us) - is flat out misleading the public when claiming that IRV is being used in "a number of cities in North Carolina". The truth is that IRV is retreating in NC, and only one town is going to experiment with it this year. Not "a number of cities".

FairVote NC was just as bad in their attempt to mislead and paint a rosy picture of what is a harsh reality for them. IRV is on the retreat in North Carolina. The fact is, there were only two volunteers for IRV in 2007, and in 2008 there will only be one. Efforts to spread IRV have failed. Another blow to IRV was when the City of Fayetteville said NO. See Inside Politics: Council rejects instant runoff voting FayObserver.com - ‎Jun 13, 2009‎

IRV advocates don't talk about Cary, North Carolina any more . The Cary Town Council made their decision on April 30th, 2009, to ditch IRV leaving Hendersonville NC as the sole guinea pig. Cary actually had to count the IRV votes in 2007, so they tried it and didn't like it. Hendersonville has not had that "interesting" experience yet. The rest of the New America Foundation's claims about IRV have been proven incorrect too. See The Truth About Instant Runoff Voting - It Does Not Work As Advertised and Here is Proof

Instant Runoff Voting too Costly - Pierce County WA Says Ditching Would Save $600,000

IRV, Instant Runoff Voting - does NOT save money. In fact, the Pierce County Washington Auditor has recommended ditching IRV in order to save the county money. Savings would be at least $600,000. IRV creates new costs for machines, software, increased ballot printing costs, and increased costs of election administration.

May 6th, 2009 Pierce County auditor sees savings from scrapping ranked choice voting David Wickert

So where might Pierce County Auditor Jan Shabro’s quest for cost savings eventually lead? Think ranked choice voting.

After Tuesday’s County Council vote rejecting her request to close the polls for budget reasons this year, Shabro said she has about $600,000 in her budget dedicated to implementing the system voters approved in 2006 and used for the first time in 2008.

In November voters will consider an amendment to the county charter repealing ranked choice voting. County officials say voter confusion about the system contributed to long lines at the polls last November. Ranked-choice voting supporters say the auditor’s office blamed the system for its own mistakes....But Shabro said the repeal would save money next year, when the county budget may be in even worse shape...

Why does Instant Runoff Voting increase election costs?

A recap by Pierce County Washington officials outlines the costs and issues:

The county had the costs of new software, education, equipment, increased testing, additional staffing, increased ballot printing and postage costs. The county hired an Election Consultant. Total costs - $3,291,340. Due to complications, four additional Charter Amendments had to be presented to the voters in November 2007 to clarify the implementation of IRV. Other unexpected costs - the county had to switch to central counting of the votes after discovering that the precinct scanners could not count the IRV votes. This meant hauling ballots to the county office to be counted by the central count scanners. The shift to central counting meant the county had to hire 114 Ballot Transporters and Ballot Processors. The county also instituted 24 hour shifts to check in, visually scan and tabulate the votes...

56,751 of 90,738 Pierce County Voters polled said they did not like IRV

December 5th, 2008 Ranked Choice: Very expensive and Pierce voters hated it Joe Turner The News Tribune.

...Although Pierce County voters changed the county charter last year to allow the new voting method, it appears they have changed their collecting mind. Two of three voters who responded to a survey were opposed to the concept.
...McCarthy said 90,738 voters answered the questionnaire that asked, "Did you like this new Ranked Choice Voting method?"Of those, 56,751 said "No," 29,206 said "Yes" and 4,781 were undecided.

In November, Pierce County voters decide whether to ditch IRV or not:

February 10th, 2009 Pierce County voters will decide fate of new voting system*David Wickert* The News Tribune
Pierce County voters will decide in November whether to repeal an election system they used for the first time last fall. By a vote of 6-1, the County Council approved an amendment to the county charter this afternoon that would repeal ranked choice voting. Now the fate of the election system goes to voters for the third time in three years. ..

PLEASE DIGG THIS STORY

San Francisco to put Instant Runoff Voting out of its misery?

A possible repeal of Instant runoff voting was discussed by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce at a meeting last Thursday, June 18th. Fair Vote and IRV advocates are worried.

Time Redmond of the San Francisco Bay Guardian reports

Will downtown go after IRV?

Interesting meeting at the Chamber of Commerce office yesterday.

... Among the topics: A campaign to repeal the city's Ranked-Choice Voting system.
Downtown has never liked RCV, also known as Instant Runoff Voting. ...

I couldn't reach Falk today, but Lazarus called me back. He said the Chamber had polled this year on both district elections and IRV, and found (no surprise) that the public loves district elections, and that trying to return to a citywide system was a nonstarter.

And while support for IRV was also strong, the voters, according to the Chamber poll, would be willing to consider direct runoffs between the top two finishers if the voting were all done by mail....

If only special interest groups oppose instant runoff voting, then why did 56,751 out of 90,738 voters in Pierce County Washington say, when polled, that they didn't like IRV?

Rob Richie worries that San Francisco's business community will route IRV out of San Francisco: At his blog on the Huffington Post, RR complains that it is business groups want to ditch IRV, and that a poll shows that voters are agreeable:

Lessons from downtown business attacks on instant runoff voting in San Francisco June 22, 2009

The San Francisco Bay Guardian's long-time editor Tim Redmond had an important scoop last week: the downtown business community is contemplating an assault on San Francisco's instant runoff voting (IRV) system...A Chamber executive said that its recent polling had found that after five annual elections with IRV in 2004-2008, support for IRV was strong, but potentially vulnerable to the right combination of attacks.

The Chamber's representative was revealing in explaining his opposition to IRV. "The Chamber has always been in favor of direct runoffs" because "it allows the top two candidates to directly address their differences on the issues."

First of all, IRV does NOT help voter turnout. Implementation of IRV in San Francisco corresponded with a drastic drop in voter turnout in the mayoral contests. In the 2007 mayoral/municipal election, turnout was only 35.61%, with 100,000 fewer voters than in the mayoral runoff in 2003 where 54% of the voters turned out to vote.

Switching to vote by mail is assumed to increase turnout, but there is more to VBM than meets the eye. Vote by Mail opens elections up to increased risk of voter coercion by overbearing spouses or even bosses, for example who can make demands on voters.

Turnout is directly proportional to voter interest in the candidate or the issue. When there is a compelling contest, as there was when Newsome ran against Gonzalez, the turnout was impressive. Touting voter turnout for turnout's sake is just ignoring the purpose of elections - to determine the wish of the electorate.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the value of IRV may be questionable: In 2007, many SF Voters did not utilize the option to rank choices. 94% of absentee voters did not list 3 choices on their ballots in the November municipal election, even though the field of candidates for mayor was large. There was confusion over ranking. According to a Nov 8, 2007 Electionline report , "Voters also questioned the value of ranked-choice voting." "There are a lot of people who only mark one [candidate] or the same person three times," "I don't want to vote for a second one, I want this one."

The claim that IRV would save San Francisco money also did not pan out. While SF may not have to hold runoff elections, they got stuck with many other costs thanks to IRV - $12 million for a new uncertified voting system, costs of almost $2.00 per voter in education, continually escalating annual costs, and instructions from a Grand Jury to ramp up efforts on voter education.

If the Business Community has the ability to get rid of Instant Runoff Voting, they would be performing a community service.

Minnesota Supreme Court Says IRV OK, Minnepolis to get its "free pony" now

Today Minnesota's Supreme Court said OK to instant runoff voting. The MN Supreme Court turned away a "facial" challenge to Minneapolis' voter-approved Instant Runoff Voting system. ..The Minneapolis IRV system has never actually been implemented, yet, so this challenge was not to the application of the ordinance, but to the concept of it. Basically, this means that Minneapolis will get to live with its decision, and the city will learn -as have others like Pierce Co Washington - that the "free pony" named IRV is lots of work and costly to take care of. Read on for news and analysis.

The Associated Press reports:

Minnesota Supreme Court OKs instant runoff voting; St. Paul may consider it 06/11/2009 Steve Karnowski

Minneapolis can go ahead with its plans for instant runoff voting for city offices, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today in a decision that gives St. Paul and Duluth a green light to consider it as well.

...Erick Kaardal, the attorney for opponents including the Minnesota Voters Alliance, said the decision doesn't prevent them from filing lawsuits after an IRV election to contest how the votes were counted, and that they likely will. He also said they'll continue to campaign against IRV in St. Paul and Duluth.

"The battle has just begun," Kaardal said.

The court's 30 page ruling is here (pdf doc)

The Minnesota Voters Alliance says - Court Rules IRV Constitutional? Not Quite

Warren Smith, an elections method expert from the Center for Range Voting provides analysis:

The two main parts of the plaintiff's argument were
1. IRV is non-monotonic,
2. IRV "unequally weights votes."

(1) ... we know that some non-monotonicsystems clearly are constitutional

(2)...the court either did not understand, and/or the plaintiffs failed to adequately explain, how IRV "unequally weighted votes."The court then pointed out that the plaintiffs in trying to get avoter-referendum result ruled unconstitutional on its face(without any actual problem having arisen since no IRV election under this has happened yet) theirburden of proof was very severe. (I'd also predicted that.) The plaintiffs failed to meet that burden, Case closed. Unfortunately the court's judgement contains some mistakes. Also unfortunately,the court weaseled to try to maintain its earlier 1915 judgement ruling Bucklin unconstitutional, was still valid.

...."Respondents contend that monotonicity is merely a mathematical concept, and nota constitutional requirement. They explain that monotonicity is one of severalcharacteristics identified by economist Kenneth Arrow as desirable in ademocratic election system. See generally Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951). Arrow proved mathematically, in what is known as Arrow's Theorem, that no voting system can satisfy all of the desired conditions that he identified. Respondents contend that because no election system can comply with all the characteristics, it is inappropriate to use any of them as a constitutional requirement."

--that about Arrow was false. ...However this is true:

"In particular, respondents point out that, as the district court found, even the Minneapolis primary/general election system was non-monotonic, and thereforethe fact that IRV is non-monotonic cannot be fatal."

--but now back to being utterly false:

"Although it is disconcerting to acknowledge that a voter cannot be sure thathis or her vote for a candidate will help, rather than hurt, that candidate, any system that involves a process for narrowing a field of three or more candidates has that potential."

...The court did a fairly impressive job in some ways, but far from perfect since they fell for various falsehoods which have now been carved into stone. (If acourt rules that 2+2=5,is that a problem?)

the full commentary is linked at Center for Range Voting group

The Truth About Instant Runoff Voting - It Does Not Work As Advertised and Here is Proof

Instant Runoff Voting does not work as well as advertised, and has unintended consequences . IRV does not save money, does not reduce negative campaigning, does not simplify elections, does not increase turnout and does not provide a majority outcome in most elections. In fact, most often it provides a plurality result.

Administering instant runoff voting in US elections is like trying to put a square tire on a car... you can do it but you are in for a bumpy ride: IRV is a vastly different way to cast, count and value ballots and its results are non-intuitive. Implementation is complicated, expensive, damaging to election transparency, and the confidence in election results. IRV may negatively impact racial minorities. The list of places that have tried and rejected instant runoff voting continues to grow: Aspen Colorado, Cary North Carolina, Pierce County Washington, Burlington Vermont, the Utah Republican Party and even Georgetown University. IRV is not a solution, but a problem.

IRV is not "as easy as 1-2-3". It requires extensive, costly and repeated voter education. San Francisco spent $1.87 per registered voter per year in the IRV elections they have done since 2004 - yet a recent San Francisco civil grand jury report indicates that more needs to be done, because voters and poll workers still don't know enough about IRV after 4 IRV elections.

In Cary, North Carolina's 2008 bi-annual citizen survey, a significant percent of respondents did not understand IRV. 58.6% indicated they understood IRV, 30.6% did not understand IRV, and 22.0% polled did not understand IRV at all. Overall this indicates a degree of misunderstanding among the respondents. That is shocking when you consider that Cary has the most Ph.D.s per capita in the U.S. for towns larger than 75,000 people. On May 5, 2009 in Aspen Colorado, the first IRV election left "plenty of voters confused at the polls.... And the whirlwind runoffs after three hours of tallying votes left plenty of observers at a loss to explain exactly how the results were tabulated."

Even University of Virginia students were confused by the results of recent instant runoff voting election for student body. ( Marginal mayhem The University Board of Elections should educate the student body further about its voting methodology Lead Editorial / Opinion March 3, 2010)
Strangely enough, the candidate with the most 1st and 2nd choice votes lost. Even the winner of the UVA's IRV election didn't understand the results. Consider that UVA "has ranked ...among the top 25 nationally since the first U.S. News rankings came out in 1988.

IRV actually hurts third parties. IRV leads to two party domination wherever used. IN March 2010, the only elected official in San Francisco who was a member of the Green Party switched to the Democratic Party. ( Green Party San Francisco City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi switches affiliation to Democratic Independent Political Report. March 11th, 2010).
One reason is because if a voter puts a third party candidate as his or her first choice, it can hurt the chances of the voter’s second choice major party candidate, who could potentially be eliminated in the first round, causing that voter’s last choice to be selected for office

IRV entrenches a two party system. After decades of use of IRV, Australian Politics attests to that in Disadvantages of the Preferential [IRV] System ... "promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents."
The Center for Range Voting reports: "The three IRV countries: Ireland (mandated in their 1937 constitution), Australia and Malta (and more recently Fiji for a brief period of IRV democracy before its coup) all are 2-party dominated (in IRV seats)" - from the report "Why does IRV lead to 2-party domination?

IRV does NOT help voter turnout. Implementation of IRV corresponded with a drastic drop in voter turnout in San Francisco's mayoral contests. In the 2007 mayoral/municipal election, turnout was only 35.61%, with 100,000 fewer voters than in the mayoral runoff in 2003 where 54% of the voters turned out to vote.

IRV consistently suffers from majority failure. See An Instant Runoff Voting Majority is not what you think In San Francisco,"majority" is of the "continuing" ballots, not a majority of all ballots:

"If no candidate receives a majority of votes from the continuing ballots after a candidate has been eliminated and his or her votes have been transferred to the next-ranked candidate, the continuing candidate with the fewest votes from the continuing ballots shall be eliminated. All votes cast for that candidate shall be transferred to the next-ranked continuing candidate on each voter's ballot. This process of eliminating candidates and transferring their votes to the next-ranked continuing candidates shall be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes from the continuing ballots."
SEC. 13.102. - INSTANT RUNOFF ELECTIONS.(D) go to this link and type in the SEC. 13.102 in search box.

In other words, the majority consists of the votes left after others are eliminated. The elimination of ballots and the exhaustion of ballots (the point a ballot does not have choices marked) is part of the reason that in many instant runoff voting elections often suffer majority failure.

There are two possible reasons for this "majority failure":

First, as in a common plurality or two-election runoff system, there may be a compromise candidate who is preferred by most voters to the actual winner, but whose lack of first choice support meant the candidate did not make it into the final runoff.

Secondly, exhausted ballots, those with no votes on them for any remaining candidate, can result in the IRV winner not having received a vote from a majority of voters, but only a majority of votes from remaining ballots

In Cary, North Carolina in 2007 - after running voters 1, 2n and 3rd choices, Don Frantz obtained 1,401 votes,which is 46.36% of all votes cast in the Cary District B contest. See Cary IRV election results for Oct. 2007.

In Pierce County Washington's first IRV election, 2 out of 3 Pierce County RCV "winners" don't have a true majority and in Burlington Vermont's 2nd IRV election, held in 2009 the winner did not get a majority of all votes cast. Bob Kiss had 4313 - or 48.41% of the original 8909, not 51.5%

IRV does not save money

Instant Runoff Voting creates new costs - upfront costs for purchase of new voting systems and software, and increased administrative costs in future elections. Several jurisdictions including Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Pierce County Washington, Vermont and San Francisco have performed fiscal analysis showing that IRV creates new and high capitol expenditures and new administrative costs in elections. San Francisco has utilized IRV since 2004, yet has not saved money overall according to their net annual costs from 2000-2008.

Pierce County, WA reports actual costs of IRV for their first IRV election. From an official recap of their 2008 IRV election:

2008 General Election Costs $1,664,542
RCV One Time Costs $857,025 - Software, Education, Equipment
RCV Ongoing Costs $769,773 - Printing, Paper, Envelopes, Education, Staff
RCV Subtotal $1,626,798
Total Costs $3,291,340

The County needed an additional 4 more charter amendments to clarify the implementation of IRV before they could move forward. The precinct scanners were "Not robust enough to handle RCV ballot image, would not support multiple precincts". As a result, Pierce adopted central counting of the ballots. They hired 114 Ballot Transporters and Ballot Processors and instituted 24 hour shifts to check in, visually scan and tabulate polling place ballots. The county hired and trained over 600 staff. Officials worked "24 hours per day for one week to tabulate ballots followed by 17 hour days up to certification."

Chris Telesca sums it up: "It cost 2 million to implement an un-certified system for 375,589 votes - or $5.33 per registered voter! That is on top of the regular costs of their election system. And in two of the three races that used IRV to decided the "winner", the "winner" didn't get a majority of the first column votes cast! Now 2 out of 3 voters in Pierce County want to ditch IRV after their first election!" - comments Chris Telesca of No IRV for NC blog.

Also see
Instant Runoff Voting too Costly - Pierce County WA Says Ditching Would Save $600,000

IRV has other start up costs besides just voting machines: The state of Maryland estimated start up costs totalling $12.5 Million. This includes for Documentation revision $5,000,000, Agency IT costs 4,500,000, Voter education 3,000,000 and Election judge training development 50,000. This does not even include the voting machines or software.

Cary, North Carolina costs were neither estimated nor tracked - voter education was mainly provided by the advocacy groups promoting IRV, ballots were counted by hand. The exit poll was conducted by IRV advocates, and data reported to a University Professor working pro bono. The IRV pilots were basically done off the books.

IRV affects Campaign Finance Disclosure.

The city of Minneapolis Minnesota failed to up date campaign finance rules to fit with IRV. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune in Run-off voting delays finance disclosure June 7, 2009 : "candidates won't have to file the usual pre-primary report around Labor Day showing who has contributed to their campaigns."

Minneapolis is not alone in muddling this. San Francisco also had a campaign finance problem when they first implemented IRV. From a NY Times article: San Francisco's New Election System Runs Into an Obstacle By DEAN E. MURPHY Published: October 17, 2004 "...several campaigns have been advised by the Ethics Commission staff that city and state laws appear to ban cooperation among candidates if it involves the expenditure of campaign funds."

IRV does NOT reduce or eliminate negative campaigning

See September 6, 2008 Letter from San Francisco: Politicos turning against Instant Runoff and Politics are nasty as ever ...one of the "progressives" who pushed for IRV no longer believes in it. Here's a letter from a blogger who lives in San Francisco, the largest IRV jurisdiction in the country. Supervisor. Daly is one of the "progressives" who pushed for IRV. Blogger H. Brown says now Daly is against IRV because he wants to try and control votes. He even advocated "bullet voting" - something you CAN'T DO under IRV.

Also, see Instant Runoff Voting Not Meeting Expectations - Part II by John Dunbar for "Beyond Chron" Nov. 17‚ 2005 , Dunbar says "there is no evidence IRV is stemming the flow of hit pieces. In the 2004 supervisor contests Districts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 all witnessed negative campaigning. Some negative campaigns used robo calls, others used the mail while others used both. The District 1 race broke new ground with negative street signs. In this year's contests, there were hit pieces."

IRV is complex to count
IRV increases reliance on more complex and bleeding edge technology and requires the central counting of votes. This is in direct conflict with North Carolina statute § 163-182.2. and opens elections up to the risks of ballot box stuffing or tampering.

IRV is not additive. There is no such thing as a "subtotal" in IRV. In IRV every single vote may have to be sent individually to the central agency (1,000,000·N numbers, i.e. 1000 times more communication). [Actually there are clever ways to reduce this, but it is still bad.] If the central agency then computes the winner, and then some location sends a correction, that may require redoing almost the whole computation over again. There could easily be 100 such corrections and so you'd have to redo everything 100 times. Combine this scenario with a near-tie and legal and extra-legal battle like in Bush-Gore Florida 2000 over the validity of every vote, and this adds up to a complete nightmare for the election administrators.

The complexity of counting IRV ballots leads to great logistical problems and time-delays as in San Francisco . IRV counting cannot be started until after all absentee and provisional ballots are judged eligible and are ready to count because any mistake in the first counting round requires that the counting process must be begun all over again. (Imagine recounts of each IRV round in a Minnesota-like recount!)

IRV is not transparent.
Voters have to rely on people instead of an open process. From Voting Matters Blog:
The counting of IRV is complex — the elimination of some candidates at the end of the first round means that second choice votes are transferred to other candidates. If a third round is required the elimination and transfer process continues. The average voter has to place great trust in the reliability of the counting algorithm in a way far beyond what is necessary in plurality voting. So the counting is opaque and non-transparent — a kind of voting voodoo with election officials in the role of witch doctor producing the magical results. If one believes strongly that the average voter should be able to understand and observe the counting of votes in a democracy, then IRV fails to meet this standard.

Current IRV Vote Counting Computers are experimental and not trustworthy

Any jurisdiction that switches to new IRV capable voting machines will be beta testing them. That is beta - testing millions of dollars worth of computerized voting machines. These machines are considered to meet federal standards as long as they do not exceed a 9.2% failure rate in a 15-hour election day. San Francisco spent over a million dollars to provide IRV capability for their optical scanners, ES&S Optech Eagles. After three years of beta testing the special IRV software created for them, problems were discovered: the algorithm was flawed, undervotes weren't being reported in some cases, and also the machines couldn't read all popular types of ink. San Francisco has new Sequoia voting machines that have not been federally certified yet. The city has been granted 2 exemptions from state standards for voting machines so that San Francisco officials wouldn't have to count IRV ballots by hand.

Pierce County 2008 IRV election recap: In 2008, Pierce County Washington had to obtain Emergency/Provisional permission to use the new IRV capable voting machines. During the certification it was determined that the Polling Place Tabulators (Insights) could not be used. Washington State certification testing of the Sequoia Ranked Choice Voting system found serious software defects that caused votes to be tabulated inaccurately – defects that Sequoia was unaware of until the state pointed them out. Backed into a corner since the other choice was to hand count the vote, the state allowed the use of the software anyway. Officials learned that the precinct scanners were "Not robust enough to handle RCV ballot image, would not support multiple precincts". As a result, Pierce adopted central counting of the ballots. They hired 114 Ballot Transporters and Ballot Processors and instituted 24 hour shifts to check in, visually scan and tabulate polling place ballots. The county hired and trained over 600 staff. Officials worked "24 hours per day for one week to tabulate ballots followed by 17 hour days up to certification."
If you want to read more details about the Pierce County problem, look at this report, (http://www.votersunite.org/info/uptherabbithole.asp ) and here (http://www.votersunite.org/info/TheisenTestimony5-23-08.pdf ).

Scotland - after the May 2007 debacle, a report was issued that "... strongly recommends against introducing electronic voting for the 2011 elections, until the electronic counting problems from the 2007 elections are resolved." according to the Register UK .

Instant Runoff Voting Results are not intuitive

It will be harder to detect fraud or tallying errors in an IRV election. The recent Burlington Vermont mayoral election exhibited paradoxes where IRV likely thwarted the will of the voters. See March 12th, 2009Voting Paradoxes and Perverse Outcomes: Political Scientist Tony Gierzynski Lays Out A Case Against Instant Runoff Voting
Also see Burlington Instant Runoff Election riddled with pathologies The instant runoff election in Burlington,Vermont suffered from nearly every pathology in the book! Non monotonicity, the spoiler effect, the no show effect, and majority failure.

Traditional Runoff Elections are much better than IRV

Consider the experience of two different municipalities, one using instant runoff voting and one not. In the Cary, North Carolina 2007 experiment, the winner of an "instant runoff" in the District B Town Council contest took office with less than 40 percent of the first-choice votes cast, and less than 50 percent of the votes of people who showed up on Election Day. Only voters who ranked either of the top two candidates had a say in the "runoff". It is possible that in a one-on-one contest, where voters would know who the top two candidates were - the outcome would have been different.

In Rocky Mount, where there was a traditional runoff on a separate day, more voters had a say than would be possible with instant runoff voting. In Rocky Mount's October election, City Council member Lois Watkins trailed a better-funded challenger, Tom Looney, by 12 votes. In a November runoff between the two, 448 more voters came to the polls than had in the October election. Watkins won the election with the votes of 60 percent of all those who showed up. This would not have been possible with instant runoff voting.

In San Francisco, the value of IRV may be questionable: In 2007, many SF Voters did not utilize the option to rank choices. 94% of absentee voters did not list 3 choices on their ballots in the November municipal election, even though the field of candidates for mayor was large.
There was confusion over ranking. According to a Nov 8, 2007 Electionline report . "Voters also questioned the value of ranked-choice voting." "There are a lot of people who only mark one [candidate] or the same person three times," "I don't want to vote for a second one, I want this one."

Instant Runoff Voting is no solution, says election official who was there Debra Goldberg • Asheville Citizen Times August 27, 2008. Debra Goldberg, a former Wake County NC Election Official observed: "In the Cary IRV pilot, I can tell you that many voters left their backup choices blank, and that many other voters wrote in backup candidates with names such as 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Donald Duck.' This is direct evidence that many voters did not understand or accept IRV. Candidates involved in the IRV pilot in Cary have voiced doubts about the process."

Other election methods that do not damage election integrity:

Besides the traditional election + runoff method - thresholds can be adjusted, or other voting methods such as Fusion, Approval or other can be considered.
The state of Oregon just adopted Fusion Voting, a system that allows political parties a say in the process by way of endorsing other parties or candidates on the ballot. This method does not complicate vote tallying, and can be used without any modifications to voting systems including voting machines, levers, or hand counted paper ballots. Fusion voting was legal in Oregon and much of the country in the 19th century, and the Unity Party, Oregon's branch of the Populist Party, often fused with the Democrats in electing populists to office. New York, Delaware, Connecticut, South Carolina and Vermont all have some form of fusion voting,

IRV does not help racial minorities and may even impede them

"Instant runoff voting is really really bad....it has eliminated the opportunity..." ~ Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (Video). Stella Adams - Vice Chair of North Carolina Democratic Party and Housing Chair and Economic Empowerment Coordinator at NC NAACP threatened legal action if the city of Durham adopted IRV: "I am absolutely to the core opposed to instant runoff voting. And I believe that the issue of Instant runoff voting has clouded the discussions. And I want to make it very clear that that will cost the city money, not save the city money. Because I promise you that I will be protecting my right to vote, with legal action should you choose to do that. "
The Center for Range Voting has studied IRV races and says "It has sometimes been stated (falsely) by IRV-propagandists, that IRV helps minorities. But in fact, the available evidence indicates it hurts them." IRV may have depressed racial minority representation in Australia (used for decades there) or Takoma Park Maryland, home town of Fair Vote Director Rob Richie. In San Francisco, the only racial minority candidate to be assisted by IRV was Ed Jew, who was elected City Supervisor of District 4 in 2007, a district that he did not even live in. On election day, 73.8 percent of the voters in District 4 expressed a preference for someone other than Ed Jew. In late 2008, Jew pled guilty to both extortion and perjury charges, and was sentenced to 64 months in state prison for extortion, and a year in county jail for perjury "


IRV may negatively impact the disabled. The Scottish Disability group "Capability Scotland" - has a report on the blundered May 2007 Scottish election and how IRV (or STV) impacted disabled voters. Several changes were implemented all at once, including using STV on one of the 2 ballot papers given to each voter. A “Polls Apart” survey specifically asked respondents for their views on the 'single transferable vote' system, with 36% stating that this made it more difficult to vote

See our news page for the latest problems with IRV and efforts to implement it.
IRV is marred with problems, creates new costs and procedures, and requires voters to put their confidence in a handful of experts, rather than in a transparent election process. If the objective of an election process is to discern the will of the voters, then that process must be the simplest, most transparent and most enfranchising method for all voters. That is not IRV.

To those who value democracy and honest elections:

Election integrity watchdog Brad Friedman has an important warning about Instant Runoff Voting to folks who value democracy and honest elections. We can't even count votes the plain old vanilla way yet, but we are told we should adopt IRV and make elections more complicated. Brad has some sharp words.

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 6/2/2009 1:38PM
'Instant Runoff Voting' (IRV) Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County
Joins 'Internet Voting' and 'Vote-by-Mail' schemes as the latest bad ideas poised to further cripple American democracy

...the last thing this county needs is to complicate the math even further by confusing matters with IRV's complicated scheme of ranked choice voting where voters are asked to select a first and second place choices, etc.

For that matter, unless, and until, we can simplify our election procedures such that any and all citizens are able to oversee and verify the accuracy of their election results, no jurisdiction in this country should employ schemes like IRV, no matter how well-meaning supporters of it may be in hoping to allow a broader range of candidates and parties to have a shot at winning an election.

Along with the emerging nightmares of Internet Voting and Vote-by-Mail, IRV is yet another one of the horrible wack-a-mole schemes being endlessly advanced by advocates and profiteers who put winning elections and making money off them, over the idea of transparent, verifiable, secure democracy and self-governance expressed of the people, by the people and for the people....

For more about instant runoff voting see our website Instant Runoff Voting in the US.

About Instant Runoff Voting Facts Vs Fiction
We study the impact of instant runoff voting on voters rights, election administration and election outcome. Our goal is to ensure the dignity and integrity of the intention of each voting citizen. We welcome inquiries from the media, public officials, voter advocacy groups and concerned citizens.For more information or to obtain interviews with election experts contact Joyce McCloy, Director of InstantRunoffVoting.US via phone 336.794.1240 or email info (at)instantrunoffvoting.us

Single Transferrable Vote Defeated Fair and Square in BC - Pro and Con Groups Funded by Provincial Govt Equally

Was the campaign against STV in British Columbia fought fair and square? Why was STV overwhelmingly defeated with 61% vote for FPTP? Some advocates for Single Transferrable Vote in British Columbia think they were out spent or out-maneuvered. Blogger "Mathew 5000" writes "I would conclude that the ubiquitous TV and print advertising opposed to STV, much of which was deceptive, was a major factor in the referendum results." Anthony Lorenzo, head of the Coalition for Instant Runoff Voting writes "the opposition in BC was much better funded this time."

WAS the opposition to STV better funded? NO!

May 12, 2009 B.C. voters reject single transferable vote for the second time By Stephen Hui According to Straight Talk

The provincial government gave $500,000 to two groups, British Columbians for BC-STV (aka Fair Voting B.C.) and No STV, which ran the official “yes” and “no” campaigns for this year’s referendum

There you have it, for once, both the groups FOR and AGAINST were equally funded. Usually, at least in the United States, groups pushing Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) are funded and groups in opposition usually are not.

What is Single Transferrable Vote (STV)? It is similar to Instant Runoff Voting except that STV is intended for multi seat contests.

From the Electoral Reform Referendum Office of BC:

Voters would vote by ranking preferences for as many candidates as they wished to support (1, 2, 3, etc.). To be elected, a candidate must reach a certain threshold (or quota) of votes.

All voters’ first preferences are counted, with further rounds of counting used to transfer voters’ second, third, etc. preferences from candidates that are elected with a surplus of votes, or that are dropped from the ballot because they have received the fewest votes, to candidates that are still on the ballot. The counting process continues until all the seats in the district have been filled.

Very few places use the Single Transferrable Vote:

Supporters of the single transferable vote (STV) frequently refer to its uses elsewhere in the world, but there are few such places. Apart from some municipalities, STV is used for the Australian Senate, Ireland, Malta and Tasmania. The first past the post (FPTP) voting system currently used in BC, is used throughout Canada, throughout the United States (federally and in state elections), the United Kingdom and India. More of the world's population uses FPTP than any other system.

Places that Have Ditched Instant Runoff Voting or are Moving to Ditch It

THESE JURISDICTIONS ARE MOVING TO DITCH INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING OR HAVE ALREADY DITCHED IT:

*UPDATED ON May 30, 2010*

MOVING TO DITCH, ASPEN COLORADO.
Aspen Instant Runoff Voting--Up for Repeal in November 2010
Aspen to reconsider Instant Runoff Voting this November - City Council cite problems with May election (blog) Aspen voters to vote on how they vote — again Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Carolyn Sackariason The Aspen Times Aspen, CO Colorado (news article). Also see Aspen Election Review May 5 2009 IRV single ballot audit unit

DITCHED. *Update. Burlington rejects instant runoff voting March 3, 2010 ...“a system which, on paper, persuaded people to give it a try but in reality resulted in a very confusing and poor system.” Repeal IRV reports that "2005/2010 Voter disapproval of IRV increased in every ward in the city"
MOVING TO DITCH. BURLINGTON VT. Voters in Burlington are pushing to get IRV repealed. There is a petition drive to get the repealing of IRV on the next possible ballot. WCAX News.

DITCHED. *Update. ON NOV 3, 2009. PIERCE COUNTY WASHINGTON.Majority of Pierce County voters reject Instant Runoff Voting on Nov 3 Instant runoff voting was rejected by an overwhelming majority of Pierce County Washington Voters. 44,145 of 64,106 voters said yes to ditching instant runoff voting, also called ranked choice voting. That is 71.76% for eliminating IRV and 28.24% who wanted to keep IRV. Pierce voters ditch instant runoff voting - save $500K for taxpayers immediately
MOVING TO DITCH. PIERCE COUNTY WASHINGTON. The voters will get to reconsider this issue in November. 63% of Pierce County WA voters don't like Ranked Choice Voting. That is 56,751 out of 90,738 Pierce County voters who answered a questionnaire included with their ballots that asked, “Did you like this new Ranked Choice Voting method?” December 7, 2008 The News Tribute. The county could save $600,000 if they scrapped instant runoff voting now.

DITCHED. BRITISH COLUMBIA (2ND TIME) 61% of the voters gave a thumbs down for STV, Single Transferrable Vote, a ranking method in British Columbia. May 12, 2009.

DITCHED. CARY NORTH CAROLINA Cary North Carolina rejected a second go at IRV, voted to keep current election method WRAL News Apr. 30 2009 Cary, N.C. — The Cary Town Council voted against a proposal Thursday to change the current election method. WRAL News and Protect NC Elections Stop IRV Blog . Also see Cary NC tries IRV, then says ‘no more’

DITCHED. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. February 21, 2009 Georgetown University ditches Instant Runoff Voting - cites problems The Hoya and No IRV in NC Blog

Instant runoff voting was invented in 1870 by American architect William Robert Ware yet has not been widely adopted. IRV has also been rejected by a few jurisdictions that used it. Perhaps the problem is that IRV is loaded with the potential for perverse outcomes and is difficult to count in a transparent fashion (since it it not additive and votes are redistributed).

Instant Runoff to hide campaign cash in Minneapolis Elections

The adoption of instant runoff voting has opened up a real can of worms for Minneapolis MN. Yet another complication with IRV - campaign disclosures not required for IRV elections. IRV has already complicated elections for Minneapolis: a citizens group has taken a case against the constitutionality of IRV to the Minnesota State Supreme Court, MN's voting machines can't tally IRV so it could take weeks or months to get election results for just muni elections , new (but not yet certified) machines may cost $6,500 each - and now here's another problem: no one thought about IRV's affect on campaign finance and disclosure!


Chris Telesca writes at his blog: June 6, 2009 Instant Runoff Virus hides campaign cash!

"Well I have to admit that I was wrong about Minneapolis doing proper due-diligence on IRV before they pushed it. Here's a story where even IRV supporters say that they made a mistake. So if there is any effect of big money in this election - we won't know about it until late October - just before voters head to the polls." ...

According to the Minnesota Star Tribune in Run-off voting delays finance disclosure:
"candidates won't have to file the usual pre-primary report around Labor Day showing who has contributed to their campaigns."

MN is not alone in muddling this. San Francisco also had a campaign finance problem when they first implemented IRV. Yet another aspect of how IRV bumps up against current systems. It turns out their campaign finance laws forbid a candidate to pay for advertisements that endorsed another candidate as 2nd choice on ballot.

From a NY Times article:

San Francisco's New Election System Runs Into an Obstacle By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: October 17, 2004 "...several campaigns have been advised by the Ethics Commission staff that city and state laws appear to ban cooperation among candidates if it involves the expenditure of campaign funds." IRV supporters wanted instant runoff voting, instantly, and they got a can of worms.

For now, Instant Runoff Voting will make it harder for voters to know exactly who is influencing the candidates. Even if the laws in Minnesota are changed to provide for a more timely disclosure of campaign finance for Instant runoff elections, it may be too late for this election. Considering some candidates will endorse each other, the waters may be even further muddied.

Unholy Alliance of Instant Runoff Group and Internet Voting Vendor

Will the push for Instant Runoff Voting incentivize Internet Voting? One thing about Instant Runoff Voting - it is so complex to count that advocates are desperate to find a system that can handle it. Jurisdictons that adopt IRV find that their voting machines can't count it. That has led to places like Pierce County Washington and San Francisco CA to the use voting systems that don't meet their state standards. How can IRV be spread if it is so darned hard to count?

So what to do if spreading IRV is your #1 objective? Fair Vote, the number one advocate for Instant Runoff Voting has partnered with the internet voting company "Everyone Counts" (E1C). Brad Friedman, long time verified voting activist and journalist wrote about the company "Everyone Counts" that just ran the internet election in Honolulu Hawaii here:

5/28/2009 12:20PM Virtually Voting: Bush's U.S. EAC Chair Cashes In to Head Company Running 'All-Digital' Elections Paul DeGregorio's 'Everyone Counts' was paid to carry out fully unverifiable, unsecure Internet, phone election in HonoluluVoter participation plummets 83% to boot...

Yesterday Brad blogged about how the spread of Instant Runoff Voting threatens democracy by making elections more complex in a time when we still can't count simple votes. Brad mentions internet voting in this blog too.

*Brad Friedman * on 6/2/2009 1:38PM 'Instant Runoff Voting' (IRV) Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County Joins 'Internet Voting' and 'Vote-by-Mail' schemes as the latest bad ideas poised to further cripple American democracy

For that matter, unless, and until, we can simplify our election procedures such that any and all citizens are able to oversee and verify the accuracy of their election results, no jurisdiction in this country should employ schemes like IRV, no matter how well-meaning supporters of it may be in hoping to allow a broader range of candidates and parties to have a shot at winning an election.

Along with the emerging nightmares of Internet Voting and
Vote-by-Mail, IRV is yet another one of the horrible wack-a-mole
schemes being endlessly advanced by advocates and profiteers who put winning elections and making money off them, over the idea of transparent, verifiable, secure democracy and self-governance expressed of the people, by the people and for the people.

Indeed, it would be much easier to hold IRV elections over the internet. Fair Vote helped the Arizona Libertarian Party run their primary over the internet in 2008. Computer scientist Dan Wallach blogged about it at Freedom to Tinker:

Internet Voting By Dan Wallach - Posted on February 4th, 2008 (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love having the whole world know exactly how I voted)

The recent push for internet voting prompted yet another public warning by computer scientists : See OP at Huffington Post where Dr. Barbara Simons rebuts a pro internet voting piece published by Huffington Post ("America's Newest State Holds America's Newest Election").

Barbara Simons: The Internet and Voting: Worth Doing Right (co-written with Dr. Justin Moore).
...It was written by E1C executive Aaron Contorer and is effectively a marketing piece for E1C that exaggerates the scope of the election, overlooks or insults other election methods, and glosses over the formidable technical challenges and dangers posed by the electronic submission of voted ballots.

...In response to multiple efforts to allow voting over the Internet in major elections, many of our nation's prominent technology experts have signed a statement cautioning against adopting Internet-based voting systems without first understanding and guarding against the numerous and well-documented dangers...

Instant Runoff Voting has incentivized computerized vote counting where there was none - like in Scotland and encouraged the use of uncertified software in some US jurisdictions. A nightmare like tabulation system has been proposed for the IRV pilot for Hendersonville NC for the 2008 multi seat contest.See July 17, 2008 Instant Runoff - If I Were Crazy, I'd Count Votes THIS Way

Its hard to count IRV. At the 2008 Federal Election Assistance Commission Roundtable, Fair Vote Director, Rob Richie advised that: "for instant runoff voting, or preferential voting methods, it often bangs up against the fact that voting equipment isn't flexible enough to handle these voting methods....

Instant Runoff Voting Fails to Meet its Hype , violates the KISS principle, increases the information burden on voters, and makes the election process less transparent. If the objective of an election process is to discern the will of the voters, then that process must be the simplest, most enfranchising method for all voters.

BradBlog: IRV Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County

There's an election virus going around, its called Instant Runoff Voting. Brad Friedman, nationally known election issues blogger has a major posting up Instant Runoff Voting, Internet Voting, and Vote by Mail. Some of us have been fighting our lonely little fights in our own states, but now we are not alone, we have the Paul Revere of e-voting with us:



Blogged by Brad Friedman on 6/2/2009
'Instant Runoff Voting' (IRV) Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County Joins 'Internet Voting' and 'Vote-by-Mail' schemes as the latest bad ideas poised to further cripple American democracy

PLUS: IRV count fails in Aspen's first instant runoff election

...Gautum Dutta, of the Democratic-leaning Asian American Action Fund blog notes a recent L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting which "discussed a study on the cost of special elections and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)" ...

While speaking to the Board of Supervisors, RegistrarRecorder/County Clerk Dean Logan testified how low voter turnout and high costs have plagued our special elections. ...If IRV had been used instead of special runoff elections, taxpayers could have saved up to $3.6 million.

Note to Messrs. Dutta and Logan: Taxpayers could save even more money if we simply allow you two to just decide for us who gets elected!

As Logan, chief election official of the nation's largest voting jurisdiction (larger than 43 states combined) has had more than enough problems with the current voting system which can't even add one plus one plus one accurately, such that it is virtually impossible for anybody to verify the accuracy of results, the last thing this county needs is to complicate the math even further by confusing matters with IRV's complicate scheme of ranked choice voting where voters are asked to select a first and second place choices, etc.


For that matter, unless, and until, we can simplify our election procedures such that any and all citizens are able to oversee and verify the accuracy of their election results, no jurisdiction in this country should employ schemes like IRV, no matter how well-meaning supporters of it may be in hoping to allow a broader range of candidates and parties to have a shot at winning an election....
more at the link - including Aspen's recent IRV meltdown.


Please post a big thank you to Brad Friedman over at the comments section of his blog for covering this important issue. DREs and paperless voting aren't the only risky election schemes.There's a new "bad idea for election reform" born every day. Lets not be caught by surprise. IRV is another distraction from serious election integrity work. Please forward this blog to others concerned with election protection.

Aspen Instant Runoff a Lemon? IRV Leaves Bitter Aftertaste

Here's a letter to the editor about Aspen Colorado's recent instant runoff voting election. The writer wonders if instant runoff voting is truly good for the voters and if the tallying software has even more flaws than found so far. One flaw caused 28 votes to be miscounted in the final round. 28 votes doesn't sound like a lot unless you consider that sometimes an election is decided by even less than that number. Computerized vote counting is not as trustworthy as the average layperson assumes that it is.

IRV leaves bitter aftertaste

Dear Editor: As a proponent of instant run-off voting I continuously made the point that any software needed to be rigorously tested to ensure that it was error-free on Election Day. Despite good faith reassurances from the city staff, if now becomes clear that such was not accomplished. The software used by Aspen was obviously code generated for Cambridge (and thus satisfying a different set of rules), ostensibly modified to fully meet our requirements.

Post-election hand counting and reconciliation to the software generated results have revealed one error. There may be more buried in the code and unknown until a data set of votes forces a deviation from the voting rules. We simply have no reason to be entirely confident that using this software the next election will flawless, as it should be.

Overarching any “mechanical” problems of the software is the need to pragmatically evaluate this experiment and determine if it is better as a means of choosing our elected officials. Is it superior to a traditional run-off with the top two mayoral candidates squaring off? In the case of a large field of council candidates is the elimination system that was used better than others (like single elimination), or are we better suited to halving the field and having a run-off?

In sum, Aspen’s first taste of IRV may have resulted in the correct end result, but it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of many. There is more to be done, and we should not wait until the next election looms over us, as was the case this year.

Neil B. Siegel
Aspen

Is Great Britain Mulling the Instant Runoff Voting Scam?

Instant runoff voting for the UK? I was worried when I saw Rob Richie, Director of Fair Vote's recent article at Huffington Post titled "Britain may adopt instant runoff voting for next general election."

Turns out the title is misleading. It should read "Rob Richie really really wishes that hopefully maybe a small coalition can stir up enough interest to get a national referendum held on IRV/alternative vote."

It's all just more of Fair Vote's smoke and mirrors. There is not at this time a national referendum on IRV/alternative vote in the works for the UK. Right now there's a small coalition called Vote For Change pushing for a national referendum on Instant Runoff Voting or the Alternative Vote. This coalition consists of some musicians, artists, actors, journalists, a comedian, some activists and a retired politician. Nice folks but not who I would consult on election administration matters.

Britain may adopt instant runoff voting for next general election
Rob Richie, Executive Director of Fair Vote May 31, 2009

blah blah blah....same old same old....

In his article, Rob Richie has the usual talking points about how IRV will fix everything that is wrong with the UK's political system, just by ranking choices. He does everything but offer free ponies. At least he never claims it will grow hair on heads. RR rambles on so much that I'm just going to post the title and link. Oh, don't even think about trying to post a comment to RR's article, as usual, RR has "comments" turned off. For Pete's sake, its Huff Po! Turn the comments back on!

Will the UK buy the instant runoff voting aka alternative vote talking points? Lets hope the answer is no, and that UK citizens will ask tough questions and insist upon straight answers. Rob Richie's article title was overly optimistic.

If somehow interest can be ginned up to hold a national referendum on instant runoff aka the alternative vote - UK voters can strongly reject it as did British Columbia. Just this May 12, 2009 voters in British Columbia defeated a provincial referendum on the Single Transferable Vote proposal with 61% vote for FPTP. This was the second time in recent history that British Columbia rejected IRV/STV.

Like the talking points promoting Instant Runoff Voting or the Alternative Vote, this is just more smoke and mirrors.