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Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Instant Runoff Voting Lie, as told to Cary, North Carolina

IRV was sold to Cary North Carolina as providing a 50% + 1 majority win, along with the other false but clever claims.

From the 2007 powerpoint presentation given to the Cary Town Council to persuade them to volunteer for the IRV pilot
From Page 4:
"It preserves majority rule by ensuring winners must have 50%, plus one."
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Cary_IRV_Powerpoint

In a May 2007 press release, see the claims reiterated:
"Instant Runoff voting increases convenience to voters; preserves majority rule by ensuring winners receive more than 50 percent of the votes; and saves taxpayers and candidates money by holding only one election."
http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Cary_may%202007%20Press%20Release0001.p\df
The results? Don Frantz won with a plurality of votes.

October 9, 2007 Cary District B City Council contest won with 46.36% of all votes cast. Cary participated in an IRV pilot that year.

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. He was declared the winner after receiving 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.
COUNCIL MEMBER C-B 1 CARY MUNICIPAL DISTRICT B
Don Frantz . . . . . . . . . . 1,151
Vickie Maxwell. . . . . . . . . 1,075
Nels Roseland . . . . . . . . . 793
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 3
http://msweb03.co.wake.nc.us/bordelec/downloads/2007OCT_summary-official\.htm

The total number of ballots cast in Dictrict B was 3,022.
You can get an engineered majority when you remove Nels Roseland's 793 votes and the 3 write ins.

Here are results only showing vote tallies for top two candidates Frantz and Maxwell
http://msweb03.co.wake.nc.us/bordelec/downloads/cary_irv_results.htm

Once pro IRV groups learned that we had proven the majority claims to befalse, they revised their talking points to say that IRV provides a "better plurality". At least that was what they were saying to Durham NC.

What does Cary City Council member Don Frantz say about IRV?

"When our town agreed to IRV in 2007, it was kind of rush job..There was a lot of pushback, the public wasn’t involved … I do not like instant runoff voting and have given my reasons as to why many times. I'll take in elections over funny math and 30% voter confusion any day." ~ Don Frantz Cary City Council member.

There are lots of false claims for that aren't true either, but are clever distortions. http://www.ncvoter.net/irvfactsorfiction.html


Joyce McCloy
Director, NC Coalition for Verified Voting
www.ncvoter.net
Instant Runoff Voting Facts V Fiction
www.instantrunoffvoting.us


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