More of the same old IRV "gas"....

Like I have written in numerous postings, I knew when the Democratic US Senate race went to runoff, there would be more of the same old tired calls for IRV. And I even said that these claims would be couched as "a better way".

Sure enough - here comes another such bogus claim in the form of an AP wire story printed in the Daily Reflector: - it should be called the Daily Mirage!

Is there a better way than primary runoff for NC?

The Associated Press

Sunday, June 27, 2010

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A turnout of 4.5 percent of the eligible voters was better than expected for North Carolina's second primary last week, raising the question of whether runoffs have outlived their usefulness.

I think the only people raising that question are people trying to push IRV and their friends on the editorial boards.

Fifty years ago, when North Carolina was a one-party state, nearly as many people would vote in a statewide Democratic runoff as the first race, because their votes likely would choose the eventual winner of the general election. Today, in a competitive two-party state, turnout at the local firehouse on the day of the runoff may not be much more than the poll workers themselves.

Then a primary in a one-part state wasn't really much of a primary, was it? If, as the promoters of IRV claim, more choice is supposed to be better and leads to greater voter turnout - why aren't more voters taking part in non-presidential year primary elections?

That's led some election reform advocates to argue there's got to be a better way to choose only a handful of nominees who didn't win the first time.

"One way or another, it seems like the runoff election systems for picking a party's nominee in a statewide election is outdated," said Bob Hall, with the election reform group Democracy North Carolina.

This is interesting that Bob Hall claims that runoffs are outdated. The solution he proposes is also advocated by groups who want to make political parties irrelevant: make all races non-partisan.

But remember our state motto: Esse quam videri (to be rather than to seem). Just because a runoff seems outdated to Bob Hall or to other IRV/RCV advocates, it doesn't mean that runoffs have ceased to serve a valuable purpose.

Save for experiments in two municipalities with voters ranking candidates on the first election day, North Carolina lawmakers don't seem interested in changing the runoff system. Some like it because it ultimately declares victory to the candidate who receives a majority of votes.

There were three experiments in two municipalities: one in Cary in 2007 where 25% of voters didn't know they'd be expected to rank their choices and 30% didn't understand IRV, and two in Hendersonville (one in 2007 and one in 2009) where 33% of voters didn't know they'd be expected to rank their choices. Only in one district race in Cary was IRV used to determine a final winner, and the tabulation process was so messed up that, in the end, the winner only got 1401 votes out of 3022 - not a majority.

"I realize turnout's low and it costs a lot of money, but it still keeps people in the process," said Rep. Phil Haire, D-Jackson. He's a past critic of legislation that would reduce or eliminate the 40 percent threshold a candidate must surpass in the first primary to avoid a runoff. "I believe in elections."

Interestingly enough, before the threshold was dropped to 40%, the number of races that went to runoff was higher - but so was the turnout! Dropping the threshold decreased the number of races that went to runoff and also decreased the turnout. So if you believe in upholding the will of the People, you have to give them a chance to tell you want they want - and they do that by voting.

North Carolina is one of only nine states - all in the South - where runoffs are used regularly in all races, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The leading vote-getter must receive a majority of all votes cast to avoid a primary or general election runoff in each one except North Carolina, where the threshold fell to 40 percent in 1990 after some argued that it was preventing minorities from becoming nominees.

It was also done to decrease the number of runoff elections in the hope of lowering costs - but that doesn't matter if the runoff is in a statewide race.

if 42 other states don't have runoff elections, why not just get rid of them? If all you care about is saving money, why not just have a primary election and give the nomination to the person who gets the most votes?

State Rep. Mickey Michaux, who came out on the losing end of a 1982 congressional primary runoff, said the primary runoff is outdated and puts the winner in a tough position entering the general election against the opposing party's nominee.

"It's too expensive and it doesn't do the (candidates) any good to beat up on each other," said Michaux, D-Durham.

Some African-American candidates feel differently - and have used the runoff to their advantage much more recently than Michaux's race 28 years ago. Durham's Stella Adams, 1st Vice Chair of the NC Democratic Party, feels that runoffs are a good thing - and IRV is a bad thing. So much so that she threatened legal action if Durham adopted IRV. African American municipal office candidates in Rocky Mount and Wilmington benefited from runoffs in 2007 - the first year of the IRV pilot program. Rocky Mount was one of the communities that voted "no" on IRV that year!

Unofficial elections data show 212,833 registered voters cast ballots in last Tuesday's runoff out of a potential 4.7 million who were qualified to vote in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary, three GOP races for Congress, a state Senate race and local races.

Recent history shows runoff turnouts ranging from 1.8 percent in 2008 to as high as 8 percent. Gary Bartlett, executive director of the State Board of Elections, had estimated the turnout would be on the low end of that range, but the percentage improved as the U.S. Senate runoff between Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall attracted more than 158,000 votes. Marshall won the nomination.

Marshall won the nomination with a clear majority of the votes cast in the June primary, not a smaller number of votes in an IRV round which was less than the number of votes she would have needed to win the first round. A traditional runoff also allowed the two remaining candidates more time to communicate with the voters compared with trying to do so in a field of 6 before the May primary. It also gave the other candidates in the May primary a chance to endorse one of the two remaining candidates - something that was impossible for them to do in a traditional runoff. Candidates also didn't have to tell voters how to rank them in with other candidates, wasting time and diluting their main message.

Bartlett estimated the costs for all 100 counties to put on the elections at between $3.5 million and $5 million. Counties want the General Assembly to eliminate the runoff elections, citing the expense, said Todd McGee with the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.

What counties what the GA to eliminate the runoffs? And replace them with what - IRV elections that are more confusing for voters, more complex to administer, and more costly all around?

Think $3.5 to $5 million is expensive? Try $20 million to implement IRV statewide, and $3 million for voter education every year there is an election. You'd NEVER break even with IRV!

State Republican Party officials also used the runoff to their advantage in the 8th District race, where Tim D'Annunzio finished first in the May 4 primary but received 36 percent of the votes. They took the unusual position of actively backing second-place finisher Harold Johnson after documents from D'Annunzio's divorce revealed past drug use and bizarre religious claims. Johnson cruised to the runoff victory.

And with IRV/RCV, D'Annunzio would have most likely won an IRV race, because over 95% of IRV races ultimately are won by the first place finisher in the first round. Republicans would have been stuck with this guy! Voters would have been robbed of the chance to learn vital information about one of their candidates that was only made available after the primary election. In traditional runoffs, the second place finisher flips and wins the runoff 33% of the time. Which seems more "democratic"?

An alternative to primary runoffs could include making the parties choose between the two leading vote-getters at a party caucus or convention. The state also could require parties to pay for their runoffs.

The General Assembly agreed in 2006 to let some towns and cities use "instant runoff voting" for municipal elections. Voters in Cary and Hendersonville have used the method, where voters rank their order of preference among listed candidates. A runoff winner is chosen by counting the top choice for the two top vote-getters on ballots of voters whose first-choice candidate was eliminated. Those choices are added to the original counts of the two leaders. The candidate with the most combined votes is the winner.

NC's one and only election decided by IRV (because there wasn't a first round majority winner) was the Cary District B election. 3022 votes were cast in 8 precincts, in early voting and via absentee by mail balloting. It took the Wake BOE an entire day to set up, sort, stack and count those ballots. It was not done according to published rules that called for overhead projectors for observers to make sure ballots were sorted properly, and for only board members to handle ballots. Instead, ballots were split up among board members and volunteers and were sorted in a mad rush, denying observers a chance to see not only if the ballots were sorted properly, but also to see if voters had problems ranking candidates properly. The process was so confusing for board members that one had to swap his duties with the volunteer tally sheet writer.

At the end of the day, the BOE had a different total than the observers had. They discovered a calculator error, then decided to do a full-blown non-public recount of the votes in the office of a staff member. No candidate or observer was present for the recount, or even notified. more missing votes were discovered, but I guess we'll just have to trust this secret recount. In the end, Don Frantz had 1401 out of 3022 votes. In other words, Frantz won with 1401 IRV votes when he would have needed 1512 to win the first round.

North Carolina State University professor Michael Cobb said surveys he assembled on voters of both towns showed an overwhelmingly majority found it easy to understand. It also saved another trip to the polls.

"Instant runoff voting isn't necessarily the best method but it certainly has a lot of positive features," Cobb said.

What positive features?

Does it cost less? No - other jurisdictions that have done a more thorough cost accounting of IRV have shown that IRV costs more than traditional elections - in some cases more than a regular election and a runoff. Pierce County, WA discovered that IRV doubled the cost of their elections. Minneapolis discovered that one single IRV election cost them $365,000 more than holding two elections 4 years earlier - and that was even adjusting for inflation.

The MD Legislature has done two detailed fiscal studies of IRV (which is two more than our legislature has done) and come up with some costs for IRV - an increase of $3.10 to $3.50 per registered voter that does not include the cost of new election equipment because there is no federally certified voting equipment that will handle IRV. Add to that a pitiful $0.48 per voter for voter education.

MD is a state that's a little smaller than NC, but has a similar diversity in population. Applying those costs to NC would $20 million to implement IRV statewide (not including certified equipment to tabulate the vote - which doesn't exist) and $3 million for voter education every year there is an election. You'd NEVER break even with IRV!

Does it increase voter turnout? No - turnout in the 2009 MN IRV election was the lowest in over 100 years! In San Francisco, turnout is down 100,000 voters since they first began using IRV in 2004.

Joyce McCloy, founder of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting, said instant runoff voting requires intense voter education but still leaves an unacceptable percentage of voters confused.

"I don't really hear any demands from voters or political parties to end the runoffs," McCloy said.

Is IRV confusing for voters? Yes - the numbers provided by Dr. Cobb's survey show that 25% of Cary voters and 33% of Hendersonville voters didn't know they'd be expected to rank their choices in the 2007 IRV elections. This were numbers from an exit poll conducted by IRV advocates. Some of those folks failed to follow instructions for educating voters on the way in - in order to provide a more positive outcome for the survey. So it's very likely that a greater percentage of voters might not have understood or been ready for IRV.

Another survey done in 2008 by the Town of Cary (no IRV advocates asking the questions) showed that 30% of voters didn't understand IRV.

It looks like a majority of people understand IRV and were ready to rank candidates, but those numbers are shocking for several reasons. IRV disenfranchised 25% of those Cary voters and 33% of those Hendersonville voters who bothered to show up. 30% of Cary voters didn't understand IRV - so how many people are going to take part in an election they don't understand or know they have to rank candidates in? If we want more voters to participate in elections - we don't want to make it so complicated that voters will stay away.

And these two experiments took place in communities where they have a very educated and literate voting population. Across our state, NC has some terrifyingly low rates of adult literacy in many of our counties. Do we really want to make voting more complicated for the very people that have the greatest stake in voting to elect the right people to make public policy choices to help get these people better education, jobs and opportunities in life?

Is IRV easy to count? No - in fact there are no certified voting systems we can purchase here in NC that are able to tabulate IRV ballots. Our own NC State Board of Elections said as much in March 2007 when they said it was too risky to use IRV in the May 2008 primary election unless we have certified upgrades.

The stuff we have won't do IRV unless we jury-rig the hell out of it and violate all sorts of election law and regulations. There is no way to do all the vote counting at precincts which our law now requires.

How would we tabulate IRV ballots cast on DRE touchscreen voting machines? Simple - you load the 2nd and 3rd column votes into an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (no federal certification for election use - and how do you verify it's been done right?) and then let the machines do the work. It's impossible to duplicate this procedure by hand as required by NC election law. And whether you vote on paper op-scan ballots or on a DRE machine - each IRV election would have to be done totally separate before doing another one - and recounts would have to wait till ALL IRV contests are settled. Recounts and election audits would be so complicated and expensive that we'd be finding reasons NOT to do them - and then changing our laws to eliminate the need for them.

Election integrity advocates worked very hard to get the Public Confidence in Elections Act passed in 2005, over the objections of electronic voting advocates and others who were also pushing IRV. IRV advocates claim they are only advocating electoral reforms that make the process more democratic, but IRV's complexity tends to incentivize more complex and costly electronic voting equipment that makes IRV easier to administer but less verifiable.

So why are all these editorial boards pushing IRV when it doesn't deliver on promised benefits? Or can't they do critical thinking and just want to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Now Terry Bouricius has no shame: falsehoods about IRV cost-savings in North Carolina!

When I realized we'd be having a statewide runoff for the Democratic party nominee for US Senate, I knew I'd be reading a lot of editorials, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, blogs, etc., calling for IRV because it's cheaper and saves time. And I knew I'd be refuting the intellectually misleading and (in some cases) dishonest claims supporting IRV - I had already done it it after the 2008 statewide primary runoff.

But some of the claims are just outrageous nonsense! Especially the claim on FairyTaleVote's IRV Factcheck posted by Terry Bouricius at 10:03 AM today about cost savings in Cary NC in 2007 :

Cary (NC) and Hendersonville (NC) are two cities that have participated in a state pilot program similar to the program envisioned in the New York legislation – a law first passed in 2006 and extended and expanded for three more years in 2008 after two IRV elections in 2007. The Wake County Board of Elections director Cherie Poucher estimates that IRV saved Cary $280,000 in its election in 2007, and would have saved as much as four times that amount if the mayor’s race had gone to a runoff.

Terry - this is totally wrong. Cherie Poucher claimed that IRV only saved $28,000 in the election of 2007 because there was only one district of 8 precincts that needed to use IRV tabulation.

Your claim of saving four times $280,000 (somewhere around $1.2 million) if the mayor's race had gone to a runoff is also bogus. Your own buddy Bob Hall of DemocracyNC (one of your front-line troopers pushing IRV in NC) made a different claim:

How much money is IRV expected to save?

About $62,000. That's what the Town of Cary would have had to reimburse the county if they had to hold a second election, open all 36 precincts, print ballots, pay staff and so on. All elections are paid for by local governments.

And it gets better. Here are the dollar amounts for the entire Town of Cary and Wake County from the Wake BOE Chair Dr. John Gilbert and BOE Executive Director Cherie Poucher:

Gilbert said the instant runoff would save the county about $62,000. The savings will come because polling places, and workers to staff them, will not be needed in Cary in November.

For a full countywide election, the savings could be about $337,000, Poucher said. That amount is what the board has budgeted for second primaries, currently the closest comparison the county and state have to runoffs.

Terry - are you math-challenged? Don't you realize that $62K for the ENTIRE Town of Cary is a lots less than the $280,000 savings you claim for 8 precincts and the $1.2 million you claim for the entire Town! Cherie Poucher said that IRV for the entire county would save only $337,000 - which is a lot less than the amount you claim for the entire Town of Cary.

Geeze - if you can't get those basic facts right in a blog called IRV Factcheck, what the hell good is it?

NOTE on June 26, 2010: I checked the IRV Factcheck blog and the extra zero had been taken out, bringing the figure down to $28,000 - in keeping with the figure provided by Wake BOE ED Cherie Poucher. But they still haven't fixed the totally false claim for a savings of four times the amount of the single District Race. 4 times $28K is $112,000 - still $50,000 more than the amount alleged by Dr. John Gilbert for the Mayor's race. Furthermore, nothing has been done to tally up the value of the in-kind services provided to the IRV pilot program in Cary by non-profits by FairVote, FairVoteNC, DemocracyNC, the League of Women Voters, NC Center For Voter Education, and the pro-bono work by commercial businesses.

Until the value of the in-kind services provided by non-profits and pro-bono work done by commercial businesses, any amount of money claimed to have been saved by using IRV cannot be taken seriously.

Hendersonville has implemented IRV with little cost, and while no runoffs have been avoided, savings would have been immediate if there had been runoffs. After voting unanimously to use IRV for a second time in 2009, the Hendersonville city council in 2010 voted to explore how it could make IRV a permanent part of its elections.

Geeze Terry - are you lying or can you not check your own FairyTaleVote archives? The 2009 Hendersonville vote was not unanimous - it was 4 to 1!

Council approves instant runoff for next city election

By John Harbin
Published April 10th 2009 in Times-News

The Hendersonville City Council voted 4 to 1 to use the instant runoff voting method in this year’s election.

The person who voted against using IRV was Councilman Steve Caraker:

“I was elected under the process,” Councilman Steve Carker said. “In information I have received since then, I feel this system needs more trial. I will vote against it.”

Yet another official elected under IRV who doesn't like it - just like Don Franz from Cary.

Part of the problem with these claims for saving money is the way that IRV has been implemented both in Cary and Hendersonville is that it was done under the table and off the books. All the cost savings have been shifted of the taxpayer's books. So we will never know exactly how much IRV cost Hendersonville in 2009. But with IRV, you pay for all the extra costs (whether on or off the books) even if you don't have the instant runoff. You always pay more for IRV whether you need it or not!

IRV advocacy organizations like FairVote (and their local FairVoteNC affiliate), DemocracyNC and the League of Women Voters performed "in kind" work that was not valued properly. FairVoteNC hired a part-time worker named Elana Everett, who ironically was the daughter-in-law of the Wake BOE Chair Dr. John Gilbert, who was one of the biggest advocates of IRV in the state. She was the former head of the NC Green Party, which pushes IRV across the state and nationwide.

Elena, along with Bob Hall and many others, performed many hours of work to promote IRV and do voter education. They even helped design the ballots set up the procedures for doing the IRV tabulation. Some mysterious outside PR firm did work on the IRV pilot in Cary, but no one will name that firm. Elena even called me a liar and claimed I made up the detail about the PR firm until I provided a copy of an e-mail from her father-in-law referring to that PR firm.

What was the value of the services performed by FairVote's Dianne Russell, the paid Director of IRV America when she not only provided voter education for Cary voters but also did exit polling when they came out of the polling place? She admitted in writing that she boiled down her voter education instructions to something quick so that voters would get it and have a positive experience with the system - then presumably tell her how great it was on the way back out. Should we trust exit polls that were influenced by pollsters trying to push something? Then - Russell admitted she faked a southern accent while she was interviewing voters. I presume that voters being interviewed by Russell on the way out would notice if she had a Maine accent on the way into the polls - does that mean Russell faked a southern accent the whole time she was "working" for FairVote in NC?

No one has ever kept track of or placed a value on those hours. If they had done that - would there have been any money saved?

The MD Legislature did fiscal studies of the costs of implementing IRV, and found that IRV would not be cheap. I analyzed those costs, and applied them to NC, and found that it would cost $20 million to implement and $3 million for voter education. There is no way you would break even with IRV - it would always cost more.

And when IRV was used in real elections and all the costs were accounted for (not done under the table and off the books like in NC), IRV DOUBLED the costs of elections in Pierce County, Washington.

And you may have read my blog posting about the higher costs of IRV in Minneapolis during the 2009 election that also had the lowest voter turnout in over 100 years!

So Terry - either you made a mistake by including an extra "zero" you shouldn't have, or you meant to exaggerate the cost savings for IRV. Which is it?

And that's not the only bogus claim you made in that IRV Factcheck posting, but I'll deal with the rest of them at a later time.

But please - if you can't check your facts accurately, stay the hell out of my state. We already have enough people who play fast and loose with the facts here.

More incorrect information on IRV in NC!

Well here's more claims that IRV saves money:

Runoff Election Comes With A Price
Tuesday - June 22, 2010
Written by Josh Ellis/David Horn

RALEIGH) -- Tuesday’s runoff election in North Carolina is expected to cost between $4 million and $5 million. That is according to State Board of Elections director Gary Bartlett.

Bartlett said in many ways, the runoff election is just like any other election. "You've got to open up the same polling places. You have got to do ballot coding, ballot printing. You have got to have absentee meetings done by the county boards and then the biggest expense is that you must have the manpower to run the election," said Bartlett.

Of course a runoff is like any other election. It's a separate election where you start out at ZERO.

You can see an interview with Gary Bartlett where he talks about the low turnout runoff and possibilities to change our election laws to decrease the need for low-turnout runoffs. He claims the voters aren't as engaged nor do they consider this as important as a general election. The parties and the general assembly should get together to get more voters to participate in the primary process.

One wonders why in NC, where we have party primaries and so many crybabies claiming that runoffs aren't needed, we just don't do away with thresholds and have winner take all primary elections? The candidate who gets the most votes wins - end of story. 41 other states don't have runoff elections. If we don't want to pay for primary runoffs, why not just get rid of them?

North Carolina Center for Voter Education director Damon Circosta said the high cost of runoff elections could be avoided. "We need to find a way, while we've got people at the polls, to make sure we record what would be their choice in a runoff election, hence the instant runoff voting," said Circosta. "All it is is a system where when you have people at the polls the first time, you record what their choice would be in a runoff scenario and then you don't have to bring them back for a second time and open the polls again."

Damon (and I presume the Center For Voter Education) continue to claim that once that IRV would save the high costs of runoff elections. And where are they getting this information to make the claim that IRV saves money when there is ample evidence from real world elections that IRV not only doesn't save money - it actually costs MORE than having two separate elections (primary & runoff, primary and general election, general election and runoff, etc.).

And yes it is very easy to say that IRV is just a system where you have people at the polls one time and you record their additional choices so they don't have to come back a second time. Problem is, our election equipment in NC won't handle IRV without some risks - risks that our State Board of Elections has been aware of since 2007 when they were first pushing IRV.

I have asked Damon and NC Center for Voter Education President Wayne Goodwin if the Center supports IRV, and if so, why? I still haven't received any response directly addressing those questions. Damon texted me at 11:54 AM today:

Board of cve never taken official position on irv. Cve always seeks to improve elections.

Does this mean that the Board of the CVE feels that IRV improves elections, or is it just the staff that feels that way? If it's just the staff that feels that way, does the Board of the CVE and other non-profit electoral reform groups support the actions of their staff to promote IRV without taking an official position on IRV?

I know why groups like FairVote and DemocracyNC support IRV. But I don't know why other groups support IRV, unless there is some sort of requirement that non-profit groups support each other's agenda no matter what?

And what would be wrong with just going with winner take all in the primary? Or with a sliding scale threshold? Let's keep the 40% threshold. If someone gets greater than 40% - they win outright even if one gets 45% and the other gets 44% (according to both Gary Bartlett and Don Wright of the NC State Board of Elections).

But let's say that the leader got between 30% and 40%. Did the second place finisher get between 30% and 40% - or at least within 10 points? If so - hold a runoff. If not - the leader wins. That way you don't have the expense of a runoff.

The thing about runoff elections is that in a traditional top-two runoff, the second-place finisher "flips" and wins the runoff 33% of the time. In an IRV election, the 1st round winner wins the IRV tabulation in greater than 90-95% of the time. Which seems more democratic?

Note: the story was updated after both Joyce McCloy and myself contacted NCNN to present other information about IRV:

A grassroots group called, "NC Voter" maintains that Instant Runoff Voting is not the solution. The group questions exactly how IRV would be counted. Advocates with the group say the process does not end up saving money and it "does not provide a majority, but awards winners with less than 50 percent of the ballots cast." "NC Voter" references from other states at ncvoter.net.

Let's hope that before our General Assembly considers all the information on IRV before they get conned into extending the existing IRV pilot program (already extended to 2011 from the original 2009 cut off date) or getting rid of the program altogether and making IRV an approved voting method. From what I heard today both from the SBOE and various legislators, there is no movement to bring up IRV during this short session. But, as one legislator told me, that could change....

I knew it was coming - calls for IRV in statewide NC races!

As soon as I knew that there would be a runoff in the Democratic Primary for US Senate, I knew that various people would be calling for Instant Runoff Voting. Here is one of those claims - from Damon Circosta of the NC Center for Voter Education:

High Cost, Low Turnout Likely for Runoff Elections

By Damon Circosta
Published: June 14, 2010

RALEIGH - Most people don’t equate summer with election season. When one conjures up visions of voting the images are typically of a crisp autumn day. Or perhaps for primary voters Election Day might involve sprouting trees and the blooms of a North Carolina spring.

Summer, for both voters and politicians, is usually a quiet time. The public’s attention is on other things like vacation plans and kids camps. Candidates are usually out of the spotlight and quietly amassing resources for the fall campaign.

But every so often, election season extends into the dog days of summer.

This year, for many voters across the state, there is an opportunity to engage in democracy. But with so much else on the minds of the electorate, most of us won’t be braving the heat to head to the polls.

Really - summer is not a season for elections? Who says so? We have always known that runoffs occur after an election. Knowing that elections require a runoff vote - why should this be a surprise for an informed electorate? Or for someone who works for the Center For Voter Education?

Shouldn't the "Center For Voter Education" be among the chief drum-beaters trying to get people out to vote, instead of lamenting why people aren't getting out to vote - thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy?

North Carolina law provides for a runoff to be held if no candidate achieves more than 40 percent of the vote in a primary election. In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, as well as in Republican primary contests for congressional districts 8, 12 and 13, no clear winner prevailed. These races are headed for a June 22 runoff election between the top two candidates.

When the threshold used to be higher, we had more runoffs, and higher turnout for those runoffs. When we lowered the threshold, we didn't need as many runoffs, and we ended up having lower turnout for the runoffs we had.

Perhaps the remedy for low-turnout runoff elections is not to lower the threshold but to raise it?

Turnout projections are exceedingly low for these runoffs. In a state with about 6 million registered voters, fewer than 100,000 will likely show up to the polls. Nevertheless, the expense of holding a statewide election remains relatively constant. It doesn’t matter if two people or 2,000 people show up at a precinct. It must be opened and staffed all day.

While it is correct that there are over 6 million registered voters in NC, there are not that many registered Democrats who could vote in the runoff. According to the NC State Board of Elections as of 11:40PM on June 20, 2010, there are only 2,750,763 registered Democrats who could vote in the Statewide Primary for US Senate in the Democratic Primary.

Unaffiliated voters could vote in either the Democratic or Republican ballot in the May primary, they would have to vote the same ballot in the runoff election. I am not sure how many of the state's 1,410,324 UNA voters voted the Democratic ballot in May and thus would be eligible to vote in the June runoff.

In the Democratic Senate primary, some people expressed concern when Cal Cunningham, the second-place finisher, called for a runoff. Citing concerns about the $5 million expense of holding a statewide election and doubts about his ability to overcome frontrunner Elaine Marshall, these critics said it was an irresponsible move. While reasonable people may disagree about his prospects, it sets a dangerous precedent when we ask candidates to bow out of elections to spare the state the expense.

While I agree that some people expressed concern that Cal ran, it was his right under the law to call for a runoff because he was the second-place finisher and the first-place finisher didn't cross the threshold.

And I agree that it sets a dangerous precedent when we ask candidates to bow out of a runoff election to spare the state the expense. But I don't agree that we should endanger election integrity and public confidence in elections in our state to experiment further with Instant Runoff Voting.

Administering elections can be a costly enterprise. Accessible polls and accurately counted votes require resources. While everyone likes to see our government operate as cost-effectively as possible, scrimping on the very mechanism we use to hold our government accountable doesn’t make sense.

There are ways to achieve more citizen input in a less costly manner than holding a second primary election. Some municipalities in North Carolina and other states have experimented with something called instant runoff voting.

Yes - some municipalities have experimented with IRV. Some do not like it. Cary and Hendersonville tried it in 2007. Cary had the state's only election where IRV was used to count voter's second and third choices when no one won the election on the first choice alone. The Wake County Board of Elections couldn't follow the complicated hand sort/stack and counting procedures, and made some calculator errors that necessitated a secret count the next day with no outside observers or candidates knew about or attended. That secret count found some votes that had been missed the previous day. And out of the original 3022 first column votes, the winner of that race got 1401 votes - 111 votes short of the 1512 votes he would have needed to win in the first column of votes.

Hendersonville tried it, but had winners using just the first column votes. Hendersonville tried IRV again in 2009, and also had winners using just the first column votes. They never needed to count the additional voter choices, and there is no evidence that the Henderson County BOE could have accomplished that task using their DRE touchscreen voting machines.

Quite simply, the voting equipment that North Carolina uses is not certified to tabulate IRV ballots. That's why all the IRV experiments have either used complicated and confusing hand-counting methods like in Cary, or hybrid and jury-rigged counting methods proposed for DRE machines that involve somehow porting voting data over to Excel Spreadsheets, where the tabulation will be done all by machine with little to no possibility for outside observers to verify the tabulations.

The idea is that during the first primary election, voters are offered the opportunity to select whom they would vote for if there were to be a runoff. It’s not perfect and would require spending some money to make sure that the instant runoff system was accurate and secure. But such a system could save money in the long run and also make voting more convenient, hopefully increasing turnout.

Studies done by legislatures that take their responsibilities seriously (as our NC legislator fail to do when it comes to IRV) and real world experiences of places like Pierce County, WA and even Minneapolis MN have shown that IRV does not save money - it actually costs more money.

The MD legislature performed fiscal studies on IRV in 2006 and 2008, and costs per registered voter in MD ranged from an additional $3.08 to $3.50 per registered voter to implement IRV, and an extra $0.48 per registered voter for voter education each and every year there was an election. Applying those very reasonable costs to our state's 6 million voters - it would cost between $18 to $20 MILLION to implement IRV right up front and $3 million each and every year for voter education. Using those very reasonable costs, we'd never break even with IRV even if we needed a statewide runoff every two years!

Pierce County WA found their costs DOUBLED using IRV. IRV cost Minneapolis voters more: a primary and general election in 2005 was $1.12 million (adjusted 2009 dollars) vs. $1.46 million for one single IRV election. Furthermore, Minneapolis found that turnout for their first IRV election was the lowest since 1902 - in over 100 years! IRV has been used in San Francisco since 2004, and costs have gone up while turnout has gone down!

And another problem with continued calls for using IRV in NC is that our own State Board of Elections stated in 2007 (before the first communities decided to use IRV) was that IRV was too risky to use for statewide primary elections (like in 2008 and 2010) because it would violate state and federal election laws. There simply were no certified voting systems (machines and software) that was federally certified to do IRV elections in 2008 - nor in 2010.

Under the system used for certifying voting systems, the voting system companies have to get the whole system tested - not just the machines and software, but even the documentation and the manual procedures. Companies have to submit the whole system for federal certification which they have to pay for. And since there are many different IRV vote counting methods and each is much more complicated than single-column elections, few (if any) companies want to foot the bill. So should we lower our standards for claims of savings and increased turnout that haven't materialized in the experiments done so far?

That's the experimental side - the IRV pilot program in NC. It was originally supposed to run from 2007 through 2009 (inclusive) where only two communities used it in 2007 - but 4 communities voted "no" on IRV: Asheville, Atlantic Beach, Raleigh and Rocky Mount.

So even though no one could use IRV in 2008 because it was deemed "too risky", some of the same advocacy groups pushing IRV now came out right after the June 2008 Democratic Labor Commissioner Runoff to call for extending the IRV pilot - citing mainly the need to save money. They got the pilot program extended until 2011, but only one community - Hendersonville where they never really put IRV to the full test - used it in 2009.

Where IRV was mandated as an election method that must be used, it has also fallen short on promises. IRV was dumped in Burlington, VT by a larger majority and a larger turnout of voters than in the referendum that voted to use IRV. 67% of Pierce County WA voters voted to dump IRV after only one try. Aspen CO voters gave IRV a no--confidence vote after only one try, and now the Aspen DA is investigating whether or not the IRV election violated state election laws.

Short of implementing instant runoff voting, there are other changes we could make, such as rethinking the requirement that a candidate must get 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. Our election system is not set in stone. Using the democratic process, we are free to alter the system to make it more effective.

Not really sure that lowering the threshold is the right way to go, since turnout has only gone down in runoffs since the threshold has been lowered. Perhaps set a sliding threshold based on where the top vote getter placed compared with where the second-place finisher did - and factoring in how many other candidates there were? And not sure we want to say that it's more effective to us a confusing and complex vote counting method that we claim saves money but really doesn't?

The fraction of registered voters who will carve out some time on June 22 to vote, or who cast a ballot using the early voting system, hold a considerable amount of sway in this election. It’s time to consider ways of changing the election process so more of us will get involved.

Yes it is true that we need to get more people involved. So let's raise the thereshold for winning a primary election, so that more elections go to runoff and we get more bang for our runoff buck!

And by all means, let's not have our local Boards of Elections do things to discourage people from voting. They should be encouraging people to wait in line to be the first to vote like people wait in line to buy concert tickets - instead of trying to run people off!

But we in North Carolina are fortunate in many ways that our election administration systems are better than in many other states. After passage of the Public Confidence in Elections Act in 2005, NC was ranked #1 in election audit accuracy in 2006 by the non-profit Brennan Center. The same group ranked NC as being one of the 8 states best able to run the 2008 general election. Election integrity advocates have worked hard to get NC where we are today, and we have to be vigilant to make sure that we know enough about so-called "electoral reforms" like IRV before we decide whether or not we want to implement them.

North Carolina has better elections than South Carolina. SC has open primaries (where you can cross party lines and vote for candidates in other parties even if you are not an Unaffiliated voter). Their elections are run on paperless DRE touchscreen machines that were decertified for us in other states. They can't even tell whether or not there was any election fraud in their Democratic US Senate primary, because to check for fraud in that one race might challenge the integrity of ALL SC elections. Those same machines are used in the SC general election - including for US President - so how could we possibly trust them to correctly record and count any election. And add to that mess the fact that some folks are pushing for National Popular Vote for President to abolish the Electoral College and you can see why we shouldn't be pushing for ANYTHING that will further complicate election integrity.

It's now official: Rob Richie and FairVote have no shame!

On his astro-turf IRV Factcheck blog, FairVote's Rob Richie attacked NC Verified Voting advocate Joyce McCloy, claiming she was behind the wave of anger directed at Richie after Richie published a tribute to election integrity advocate John Gideon claiming that Gideon supported IRV.

Richie is getting to be a one-trick pony: he can't help but work something about IRV into everything he writes! But his half-assed denial of dragging Gideon's name into the whole IRV debate was also an attack on an election integrity advocate who not only does the Daily Voting News but also got an election integrity award named after John Gideon himself!

To say that some people were pissed is an understatement. You all know how I feel. Brad Friedman of BradBlog wrote to Richie and demanded an apology:

Subject: Shame on you, Rob. You owe Joyce a BIG apology
From: Brad FriedmanDate: 5/29/2010 5:46 PM

Rob Richie -

I have done my best, publicly, to stay out of the public and well-funded Internet and lobbyist-whisper-campaign jihad that you and Fair Vote have waged on those who have an honest, and very reasonable, opposition to IRV and the serious dangers it poses to transparent, citizen-overseeable democracy. Vigorous, fair minded, public debate of differing opinions is, after all, at the heart of democracy.

But now you've simply, and outrageously, gone too far. You owe an immediate and sincere apology to Joyce McCloy for the insinuations in this article and in its inappropriate headline.

You compare McCloy's advocacy for transparent, citizen-overseeable elections to "McCarthyism", which is obnoxious enough, but then you go on to write (seemingly without any self-awareness or irony whatsoever):

I suspect it was her effort in the wake of verified voting champion John Gideon's death last year to spread the allegation among his friends that I was seeking to use his death to promote instant runoff voting.

You "suspect" that, do you? Do you have any such evidence of same? Or are you just hoping to use *McCarthyite* tactics to defame her, in hopes of supporting your own cause, in a public space?

For the record, there were MANY within the Election Integrity Movement (no, not the "election security movement" as FairVote's chair recently, embarrassingly, described it -- revealing an extraordinary lack of understanding and/or concern for EI), who decried what seemed to be your opportunistic invocation of John Gideon's name after his death.

For the record, no, he did NOT support IRV, nor was he 'neutral' on the subject, contrary to your blog post above. He opposed it, at least as made clear to me during many of my daily conversations with him. If he did not express that publicly, (don't know if he put his position on public record or not), he certainly expressed many times to me his concerns about it, and the idea that it was an insane notion, given our current electoral system mess.

Nonetheless, I am unaware of evidence to suggest, as you do, that it was McCloy's "effort in the wake of verified voting champion John Gideon's death last year to spread the allegation among his friends that I was seeking to use his death to promote instant runoff voting." But yet you use to suggest as much.

That is appalling, Rob. Simply appalling.

Your shameless attack(s) against McCloy -- and the similar, recent, embarrassing attack against the EI movement as a whole by your chairman -- would suggest that the positive values of IRV in elections, whatever they may be, are not enough to support your advocacy for them. Instead, you feel it necessary to attack a fellow (if unpaid, unlike yourself) democracy advocate -- one who recently won an award in John Gideon's name, btw(!) -- simply because she has the temerity to public disagree with your position, and proffer a case to support her reasons for doing so.

Shame on you, Rob. Or, as Joseph Welch famously said, since you were kind enough to (ironically enough) quote it: "I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. ... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Please retract, correct, apologize for what you've done here, and then reign in FairVote's reckless, embarrassing chair person for the obnoxious, disrespectful and ill-informed blog comments recently posted as well.

And, after you do the above, I hope you will inform yourself and your chair person, about what the Election Integrity Movement is, and what "transparency" and citizen oversight actually mean. No, contrary to your post above, it has nothing -- nothing -- to do with your well-funded group's praise-worthy support of a "right to voice in the Constitution".

Once again: Shame on you, Rob. I hope you show the sense of decency to set things right this time.

Brad Friedman

Creator/Publisher The BRAD BLOG, http://BradBlog.com

How did Rob Richie respond to Brad's message to him? Well, he changed the original attack posting against Joyce McCloy which was sort of an apology to Joyce. Here is the archived original attack post on Joyce, and here is the edited version which is at the original link.

It wasn't much of an apology. For Brad, that was the last straw. Here is Brad's next note to Rob:

EMAIL # 2

Subject: That's it? Seriously?
From: Brad Friedman
Date: 6/01/2010 3:53 PM

That's it? That your transparent correction and retraction and apology for comparing a fellow democracy advocate to McCarthy? You simply made your post disappear?

It's apparent that not only does FairVote not give a damn about transparent, citizen-overseeable elections, it also doesn't give a damn about transparency advocacy for so-called Instant Runoff Voting!

Little surprise then that real Election Integrity heroes like Joyce McCloy and so many others are fighting so hard against IRV as well as the deceptive propagandizing that FairVote has been doing in favor of it.

And while you delete the post and offer an "apology" for an "inaccuracy" of one aspect of your item, you didn't see fit to have the decency to apology for comparing her to Joseph McCarthy even as you, yourself, used nothing less than a McCarthy-esque tactic to disparage her and her efforts in the very same breath.

Since you determined to delete your original offensive post, refuse to allow comments at your so-called "IRV Fact Check" blog, and refused as well to post my reply to it, as requested, I'm CC'ing Joyce here and asking her to post my comment in full at any of her blogs, to any of her mailing lists with or without your original offensive post as she she's fit. (Joyce, please feel free to include the above text as well).

Repeated dishonest and deceptive tactics that I have witnessed over the years by both you and FairVote have now officially equaled the dishonesty and deceptive tactics I've seen by voting machine companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia. For that, you and your group have officially earned a spot in the Democracy Hall of Shame. While I have endeavored to work with you over the years, even where you and I did not always see eye-to-eye, you have finally crossed the line. If you and FairVote were looking for a war with the Election Integrity community, don't be surprised if you've finally brought one on. Folks like Joyce do not give up in their fight for transparent, overseeable democracy, and neither do I…

Brad

Brad Friedman Publisher/Editor, The BRAD BLOG http://www.BradBlog.com Twitter: @TheBradBlog.com

Brad Friedman is the publisher of www.BradBlog.org , The Green News Report, a 2010 Project Censored Award Recipient. a winner of Politics Site of the Day, winner of 2004 and 2005 Kofax awards, a 2008 weblog awards finalist, a March 2010 Buzzflash Wings of Justice honoree, and a member of the Velvet Revolution Election Protection Strike Force.

Welcome to the fight! I've been at war with FairVote and other groups for years over how IRV threatens election integrity. I've had FairVote employees and fellow travelers call me a "liar" for years. I've had election officials in my own party who get flown around the country by FairVote to promote IRV call me a "Republican" when I took on 4 of them and defeated IRV in Raleigh back in 2007. For the record, I am a very partisan Democrat when not dealing with verified voting matters.

I had the husband of the leader of the local League of Women Voters get in my face and almost punch me out for the work I've done to defeat IRV in my own state. The original IRV pilot bill calls for up to 10 municipalities and counties to try it between 2007 and 2009 (inclusive). In 2007, 7 communities considered it but only 2 used it, and only one contest needed IRV to determine a winner beyond the 1st column. That IRV tabulation was botched by the state's best county Board of Election because they were too vested in making IRV look "...as easy as 1-2-3!"

In 2008 - no communities used it because it was too risky to use - a violation of state and federal election laws and regulations. But IRV advocates took advantage of a low-turnout statewide primary runoff to call for and get an 2 years of the original IRV extension pilot. But that allowed election integrity advocates to include requirements that the IRV pilot follow election laws and regulations - something not included in the original pilot program legislation.

In 2009, IRV advocates really pushed Cary NC to participate in the pilot again, but Cary turned them down cold. It was then that election integrity advocates learned, while there were legal requirements for hearings if communities were going to consider switching legal and tested election methods, there was no such requirement for communities considering election pilots.

In the 2009 legislative session, election integrity advocates were able to amend the IRV pilot program to include a requirement for a public hearing before a community could participate in the pilot - a big win for election integrity advocates, because so far IRV has been a less than transparent program. And in 2009 - only one community used IRV needlessly because they had first-round winners in every contest.

I am used to it now, but it still amazes me that Rob Richie and the "Knights of the IRV Table" still feel the need to attack election integrity activists like Joyce McCloy - it must mean we are turning the tables on them! Although they are getting a few more communities to consider using IRV, they aren't going down the referendum route and going directly to municipal boards, in some cases traveling with elected officials and hanging out in their motel rooms to better indoctrinate them on the many virtues of IRV. This helps keep them from doing research that might show them that IRV isn't as popular as they claim it is or does all they say it will do.

But some municipal officials are taking note of the work of election integrity advocates when they speak out against IRV at public hearings. The fact is that the more IRV is talked about at public hearings, and the more a community has a chance to find out about it from BOTH sides, the less likely a community will use it.

This new blog is the latest IRV con job!

Friends! Have you heard the latest "good news" about IRV? There is a new blog out there called IRV Factcheck.

Don't take my word for what the site is supposed to do - read it for yourself:

IRV Factcheck

This site is designed to allow election reform activists, charter commissions and election officials who are looking at instant runoff voting (also called "ranked choice voting" and "alternative voting") to find answers to questions that have been raised about it. You'll find news about important developments and detailed refutations of misrepresentations.

Well this reads like it might be a very valuable site full of facts that aren't available anywhere else written by people who don't publish anywhere else......wait a minute, take a look at those names at the bottom of the page:

Terrill Bouricius
Rob Richie
Jeanne Massey
Bob Richard
Jack Santucci
Greg Dennis

Wait - I recognize some if not all of those names as people that are affiliated with FairVote.

• Terrill Bouricius - Senior Analyst at FairVote
  
• Rob Richie - Executive Director at FairVote
  
• Jeanne Massey - Executive Director of FairVote Minnesota
  
• Bob Richard - on the board of Californians for Electoral Reform, and very closely allied with FairVote: A small portion of membership dues are sent to FairVote.
• Jack Santucci - former FairVote analyst
  
• Greg Dennis - current Google test engineer, and former PhD student at MIT and still responsible for the http://www.somervilleirv.org web site. Some of his work is cited on FairVote's main website.
  

Hmmm - this makes me wonder. Isn't FairVote already doing a pretty heavy-handed job of providing information on IRV to election reform activists (other than those already working for FairVote and their fellow travelers), charter commissions, and election officials? When you "google" IRV, don't you always get most of the stuff from FairVote anyway?

Isn't FairVote and their state organizations, the New America Foundation, and other groups already doing a bang-up job of answering questions raised about IRV?

Aren't all the employees, interns and volunteers already making friends with all the right people in the news media to trumpet the important developments and refute in detail the misrepresentations of those scurrilous anti-IRV people (myself included)?

Does FairVote really need another site devoted to promoting IRV - unless of course they want a site that doesn't appear to be yet another production of FairyTaleVote.org, so that it can appear to be a fair and balanced (like Fox News) attempt to educate election reform activists, charter commissions and election officials without having to link directly to FairVote?

So it looks as though the http://irvfactcheck.blogspot.com is just another attempt by Rob Richie and his co-horts to hog more of the Internet in their desperate attempt to con election reform activists, charter commissions and election officials into believing that IRV is a great electoral reform and that anyone who opposes it is a liar and/or a tool of special interests.

It's an indication that those of us verified voting activists who oppose IRV are having some success if so many of the leading IRV pushers created a website to pretend to appear to be separate from the main IRV advocacy groups that in some cases (like with Rob Richie) they helped to start in the first place. Sort of like a faux astroturf group.....

I've already downloaded and saved all the pages they have - especially the BS about IRV in NC, and the MD fiscal reports, and I will refute it in detail as I have time.

But if you are looking for a few laughs, keep checking back with the Rob and the rest of the FairVote crew on their brand-new blog that of course is totally separate from whatever else FairVote is doing!

Latest IRV con in NC!

As I worked the polling places on May 4, I wondered how many races were going to require a runoff. I also wondered how long it would take before some folks would be pushing Instant Runoff Voting again.

Sure enough, one of my precinct voters told me that he heard DemocracyNC's Bob Hall talking about IRV on WUNC radio. I will find the link soon.

But sure enough, the first of what I assume will be many letters to the editor pushing IRV in very simplistic terms came out today - from Adam Sotak of DemocracyNC:

As your May 6 article noted, a high-cost, low-turnout statewide runoff is on the horizon. I remember one of these runoffs a few years back at which I was only the fifth person in my precinct to vote - and that was at 6:30 p.m.! There's got to be a better way. In fact, there is.

Instant runoff voting provides a cost-effective and simple solution. Voters go to the polls and rank their choices for an office: 1, 2, 3. (Nobody has to rank more candidates than he wants to.) In the first round of counting, only the first choices are tallied. A candidate who gets the prescribed threshold of first-choice votes (in this case 40 percent) is declared the winner.

If a virtual runoff is needed, all candidates except the top two vote-getters are eliminated, just as in the current system. If your first choice is in the runoff, your vote stays with that candidate. If your first choice was cut, your vote goes to the runoff candidate you ranked best. The candidate with the most votes wins.

Some cities in North Carolina have already successfully used IRV. It's time to expand this idea for statewide races.

Mr. Sotak is wrong when he states that IRV provides a cost-effective and simple solution to runoff elections. And now there is a new phrase to describe IRV - "Virtual runoff". That's a good idea, because you aren't having a real runoff. Nor does IRV give you a real majority.

IRV advocates would have you believe that having one election is always cheaper than having a traditional election and a runoff. That's not quite true. If you wanted to do IRV in NC, you would need entirely new voting systems because our current machines won't handle IRV without some serious jury rigging that makes our elections less transparent and verifiable. And our own State Board of Elections stated that IRV was too risky to use in the 2008 primary elections because they couldn't be made to comply with state and federal election regulations. So what's changed now, other than wanting to take short-cuts?

Voter would need voter education for the complex and sometimes confusing IRV method each and every year. That's not cheap. Other states have done fiscal studies of IRV and they have found that IRV would be a more costly voting method than having runoff elections. The Maryland legislature studied IRV twice and both times found it to be more expensive. If you took their cost and applied them to NC, it would cost us $18 million to implement and $4 million each and every year for voter education. All that just to save $3 million this year - and you'd never end up saving money with IRV!.

With more than 3 candidates in an IRV race, there's a chance that a voter wouldn't vote for a candidate who made it to the final count. So that voter's votes wouldn't help any of their candidates. And in an IRV race, the top finisher in the first round has a greater than 90% chance to win any subsequent round. So all IRV does is delay the inevitable. In a traditional runoff election, the second-place finisher in the first round goes on to beat the first-place winner 33% of the time. So Cal Cunningham would be more likely to lose with IRV than in a traditional runoff election, where voters would have a real chance to make another choice, based on any number of factors: endorsements from opponents in the primary, new information that comes out, more debates - all things that voters DON'T know about with IRV. IRV is hardly as democratic as a real runoff - even Roberts Rules of Order favors traditional runoff elections over IRV - or what they call "Preferential voting".

And it turns out that in over 90% of IRV elections that are settled beyond the first round, the "winner" doesn't even get as many votes as they would need to win the first round. That happened in Cary in 2007, where a winner was declared with only 1401 out of 3022 votes. Hardly the 1512 votes they would have needed in the first round. And there were many problems with IRV that one single time that we used it to count those 2nd and 3rd column votes!

Furthermore, IRV is only allowed in a limited number of cities per year as part of an election pilot. Only 2 cities used IRV in 2007 - Cary and Hendersonville. Cary Town leaders didn't like the confusion caused by the problems counting the 3022 IRV ballots, and didn't want to be lab rats in 2009. Hendersonville voters ranked their choices on IRV ballots in 2007 and 2009, but voters lucked out - winners were determined in the first round, sparing voters, candidates and election officials the fun of counting ranked votes from DRE touchscreen voting machines and then transferring them over to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for the final tally - a method that is not only not very transparent, but most likely untested for accuracy and is definitely uncertified.

There would be no way to count these votes in a statewide election without hauling all the ballots to Raleigh to have them counted. And even if there was, in a big primary election like we had in 2008, it would have taken so long to count the ranked votes that the results wouldn't have been tallied until AFTER the results of the traditional runoff election was known, So much for IRV being instant.

And many other places that got talked into using IRV are dumping it, some after only one try:

• Aspen, CO (where there is now a criminal investigation as to whether some election laws were broken in order to do IRV in Aspen, including the illegal certification of the election by a private company that didn't have the power to certify an election);
• Burlington, VT where more people voted to dump IRV than voted to pass it a few years before;
• Pierce County, WA - where 63% of voters didn't like IRV and the costs for IRV were HALF of the county election budget.

I talked to other poll greeters for Republican candidates about the possibility of runoffs in their races, and told them to watch out for people pushing IRV. When I described how IRV works, and told them about my experiences observing the 2007 Cary IRV election and vote counting, they shook their heads in wonder - and heard more than one person say that this sounded like a con game. IRV doesn't work and it has many more problems than our current methods.

Brad Friedman - the well-respected blogger and election expert - wrote that IRV stands for "Instant Runoff Virus" I call it "Instant Runoff Voodoo"!

It's ENRON vote counting, and we don't need it here in NC.

Has the Aspen Election Commission certified the May IRV elections?

And if not - why not?

For Mayor - http://www.aspenpitkin.com/pdfs/depts/38/Aspen%20Mayor%20Round5.htm
CANDIDATE THIS ROUND TOTAL STATUS
Mick Ireland (4) 0 1273 ELECTED -- 4th round

For Council Seat 1 - ttp://www.aspenpitkin.com/pdfs/depts/38/Aspen Council Seat 1 Round4.htm
ROUND 4 -- Jack Johnson (2) has been DEFEATED -- transferring all votes.
CANDIDATE THIS ROUND TOTAL STATUS
Derek Johnson (8) +40 1273 ELECTED -- 4th round

For Council Seat 2 - http://www.aspenpitkin.com/pdfs/depts/38/Aspen%20Council%20Seat%202%20Round3.htm
ROUND 3 -- Michael Behrendt (5) has been DEFEATED -- transferring all votes.
CANDIDATE THIS ROUND TOTAL STATUS
Torre (4) +200 1273 ELECTED -- 3rd round

Report on the 3/12/09 Cary Town Council Public Hearing on IRV

On 3/12/09, the Cary Town Council held the second meeting where the 2009 IRV pilot was addressed.

There was about a two to one ratio of pro-IRV speakers to anti-IRV speakers. Andy Silver, Perry Woods, Don Hyatt and myself spoke out against IRV. Don Hyatt, a Republican from Cary, used similar words used by John Hollingsworth (former president of the Wake County Progressive Democrats):

"The IRV math doesn't make sense!"

Here is Andy Silver's report:

Chris, Perry, I, and a couple other people spoke against having a second IRV pilot in Perry at the Town Council meeting tonight, and about twice the number spoke for. Then Erv Portman made a motion for IRV, and spoke for it, but Don Frantz gave a devastating account of the problems of counting the ballots in 2007, followed by comments against IRV by 3 or 4 other members. Finally, Erv withdrew his motion and another motion to use plurality to decide elections was passed, meaning only that allowing plurality elections will be discussed again, and I think there will be an open forum on it April 15. This does not rule out IRV, which can be discussed again at the same time (really complicated, in parliamentary terms). Several members wanted to get clearer information from the BOE (not sure whether Wake or state) on possibility of counting the second and third rounds of votes by optical scan - also whether the sorting before those counts could be done by machine.

Some remarks were made about disappointment with the BOEs for not providing analysis and conclusions about the 2007 pilot election - otherwise what is the point of having a pilot?

I thought that the discussion by council members was amazing - could provide an excellent civics lesson on IRV and its pitfalls. I look forward to their posting the video of the proceedings on the town website.

It was clear from talking to some town council members before the meeting that they were impressed by our side's information. The pro IRV people commented mostly on the reported ease of voting, and how Cary voters liked it according to the exit poll. They seemed to feel that our side had the most reasoned arguments.

So at the meeting I wasn't surprised at the pro-IRV arguments I heard. The same old stuff was trotted out - IRV ensures majority winners (it did not do so in Cary), it costs less (not if you keep track of all the costs and don't do it under the table and off the books), and people like it (but do they really understand it?), etc. The Cary Town info officer showed some information was cheaper, but I suspect that was not including other costs that other legislative groups have factored in.

In fact the whole issue that Cary is still claiming that IRV elections are cheaper disturbs me, given that there is overwhelming evidence from many sources (San Francisco, VT, MD, and now Pierce County WA) that IRV elections are more expensive than traditional general elections and runoffs once all the costs are considered. But Cary continues to claim that a single IRV election is always cheaper than a traditional runoff election.

From the http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pio/biennialsurvey/html/2008BiennialSurveyReport.htm

The respondents were next asked their support for using the Instant Runoff Voting Method using a 9-point scale from not supportive at all (1) to very supportive (9). The respondents were also informed the use of the method would save Cary taxpayers approximately $28,000 by not having to hold a physical runoff election.

No one really kept track of all the expenses in the 2007 pilot - including keeping track of the value of all the volunteer work done by FairVote and DemocracyNC that they actually have to keep track of in the 2009 pilot guidelines. So since the pilot was done so haphazardly in 2007, maybe they shouldn't claim that IRV saved money over traditional elections?

They should ask the question a couple of different ways:

• If using IRV in a single election cost more than holding a traditional general election plus runoff, would you favor using it in Cary?
• If using IRV meant we had to pay for the cost of voter education and an exit poll, and that cost more than holding a general election and runoff election, would you favor using it in Cary?

Another thing that was amazing about this survey was that the results showed there was a difference in how people answered the questions based on age, race, gender, income, education level, and where they lived (apartment, house, condo, etc.) - something that the original exit poll did not reveal. Could that be because Cary actually hired a professional polling organization that didn't have a dog in the hunt?

Respondents who were registered voters were subsequently asked their understanding of the Instant Runoff Voting Method (Table 63). A 9-point scale was used ranging from do not understand at all (1) to understand very well (9). The results indicate there was a level of misunderstanding among the respondents. The mean was 5.83 with 58.6% on the “understand” side (above 5) of the scale and 30.6% on the “not understand” side (Figure 19). This includes 22.0% who indicated they do not understand at all. Overall this indicates a degree of misunderstanding among the respondents.

And here is more interesting information:

There were several subgroups indicating considerably lower levels of understanding including apartment dwellers (3.65), 0-1 year Cary residents (4.10), and those with no internet access (4.62). Also exhibiting a degree of misunderstanding were $30,001-$50,000 income level (4.96), 18-25 age group (5.00), 2-5 year Cary residents (5.25), townhouse/condo dwellers (5.33), 6-10 year Cary residents (5.52), $70,001-$100,000 income level (5.52), and those without a college degree (5.55).

So clearly IRV is not the wonderful thing unaffected by socio-economic boundaries as claimed by FairVote!

But after all that - it was obvious that everything presented by the Town of Cary and IRV supporters dealt with the front-end of elections - the voting. Although a good chunk of people didn't understand IRV, and 25% of voters in the FairVote survey didn't know they were supposed to rank their choices, none of the info dealt with the back-side (or ass-end) of elections - the election administration and vote-counting.

And on this point, having two sitting council members (Frantz and Robison) who attended the 2007 IRV tabulation along with Perry Woods and myself was a major factor in why three other council members (Adcock, Robinson and Smith) had such problems with it.

First off, they didn't like the fact that Cary was once again being asked to be a guinea pig for IRV - why not let someone else do it? There was no information on what was proved in the 2007 pilot - which was something I had been asking to be done even before the election. So if they had no idea what the 2007 pilot proved, why then do another pilot in Cary? Good points for sure!

Then Frantz and Robison stated quite cleary something that I have been stating all along - the IRV tabulation procedures are lousy! As simple as some claimed they were, the Wake BOE couldn't follow them - and this was the council members saying it on the record, not just me. So if they couldn't follow them in 2007 - how could they be sure the same procedures would be used and followed in 2009? The big problems were with the hand-sorting by board memners and volunteers with no overhead projectors, along with the math and calculator errors - and of course the secret non-public recount that no one (not even the candidates) were invited to!

Add to that some last-minute plan to somehow use M-100s scanners to count the hand-sorted votes that had no details to it, and the council members were not very impressed. They wanted more details - and I suspect those details either don't exist yet, or if they do - using the M-100s in that way might not be legal. The Council members weren't impressed by any plan that still used problematic hand-sorting. So they decided to ask for more information from the Wake BOE and deal with it at another meeting in two weeks.

Other than some things that I heard from one particular council member that I couldn't believe he actually said and believed himself, that was the end of IRV at this particular meeting. Then the Council voted 6 to 1 to consider switching to the lower cost plurality election method - which will be cheaper still than using IRV with any method. Especially since IRV only delivers plurality victories based on the total number of votes cast in the 1st round - which if IRV supporters are going to be intellectually honest about it - is all that should count if they want to stick to their claims that IRV is one single election. You can't go changing the denominators of an election to manufacture a majority win if you want to still claim it's a single election.

But this did remind me of the 2007 Raleigh City Council meeting where I went up against Bartlett, Gilbert, Poucher and Hall on IRV. The Raleigh City Council decided to wait two weeks to gather more info, then came back and couldn't even gather support for a motion to use IRV - it died in chambers. When municipal leaders really have the time to study IRV, and they have access to all the information - it goes down in flames.

That is what happened in 2007. And last year when the City of Wilmington was considering a special law to allow them to use IRV (before there was a pilot extension bill), they backed out of it because they found out about the back-side problems as well as the majority failure issues and costliness. It was also because someone wrote the bill to require the use of IRV, not give them the option.

It's just like it says on my 2nd plate at the Flying Saucer: "VAX IS USSR" (anagram)

Chris Telesca