Instant Runoff Voting

I hope Burlington voters will appreciate the irony in the title of the blog.

Burlington voters voted to ditch IRV today. The measure to repeal instant runoff voting won by a healthy 4% margin. This is a case of a David verses Goliath, grassroots activism verses well funded out of state interests. Congratulations to the grassroots activists.

The grassroots message was "KEEP VOTING SIMPLE - VOTE YES TO REPEAL IRV" . Because one thing IRV does is make voting more complex and the results can bizarre.


Here are the election results:

Channel 17's Coverage

BALLOT QUESTIONS: ALL TOWNS
BURLINGTON - All Wards Reporting

5. Charter Change to Eliminate Instant Runoff Voting for Election of
Mayor

YES 3972 52%
NO 3669
TOTAL 7641

Some background:

My Turn: If Bob Kiss is for IRV, I'm against it
Burlington's municipal household is in horrible disarray. The pie-in-the-sky hallucination called Burlington Telecom is turning into a shambles of misgovernment, while for all we know, plans for the Moran plant and the northern section of the waterfront may be heading in the same direction. Let the spring cleaning begin.

People will tell the politicians how we want to vote! This is a citizen initiative and we have the power.

It's a funny business I've only within the last year changed my mind about IRV. My distaste for the whole IRV process began when I was still the Ward 6 Election Clerk

Avoid a Tampering of Ballots on March 2: Vote in your Ward! Don't vote at City Hall or by Absentee! The ballots are stored at City Hall and can be opened and changed!

Burlington instant runoff voting:-If you didn't vote for Kiss or Wright, then you didn't vote??Say what? (with video) "Repeal IRV" Blog says that even the instant runoff voting experts admit some votes just don't count...

Burlington - Instant Runoff Voting Interviews (fascinating video)Voters who supported implementing IRV have changed their minds.

Dean and Sanders don't know the facts on instant runoff voting, says blogger BurlingtonPol. And Dean commits a major gaff:

Dean and Sanders Fail on IRV  Thursday, February 25, 2010 Failure from the two top Burlington pols this week on the IRV question.

First from Dean speaking to reporters on Church Street along side a representative from the League of Women Voters. He said that the 'Hinda Miller' election did not use IRV, and that it had only been used once- in the most recent election. Before and after that embarrassing gaff, on which he was immediately corrected, he did a good job of spitting out the textbook arguments for IRV. But that flub kinda killed the whole press conference for him, it seemed to me. Kinda killed his credibility on this issue. I mean, did he not vote in the 2006 mayoral election? Maybe not.

Then yesterday I received a flyer in the mail with Bernard Sanders's picture on it...

... more at the link. (Be sure to read the comments, they are fascinating)

Keep voting simple, vote yes on #5 to eliminate instant runoff voting in Burlington Vermont.

Also see

Sunday, February 28, 2010 City voters will decide repeal question Politicians, FairVote Maryland, vpirg - BACK OFF!

Burlington instant runoff voting:-If you didn't vote for Kiss or Wright, then you didn't vote??Say what? (with video) "Repeal IRV" Blog says that even the instant runoff voting experts admit some votes just don't count...

Burlington - Instant Runoff Voting Interviews (fascinating video)
Voters who supported implementing IRV have changed their minds.

ASPENISTAN MAYOR HOLDS ASPEN BALLOTS HOSTAGE PT 2

Another lampoon of Aspen's May 2009 Instant Runoff Voting election and questions about public's quest to view the ballots. By BetterBadNews "Political satire anchored by a surly moderator with 'issues'. Half true more or less 100% of the time."

ASPENISTAN MAYOR HOLDS ASPEN BALLOTS HOSTAGE PT 2

Embattled Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland loses his temper as he takes the gloves off in his fight to defeat election quality advocates demanding election transparency in Aspenistan.

The BetterBadNews panel takes advantage of a cease fire among waring factions of rival warlords awaiting a court ruling on a voting rights dispute of national importance including:

1. Did Aspen's instant runoff election violate the city charter and open records law?

2. Was the Aspen city election commission illegally dismissed for questioning election irregularities in a recent municipal election?

3. Can the city of Aspen forbid the public from inspecting ballots?

A group called Better Bad News lampoons Aspen Colorado's instant runoff election held this May.  The election was rife with questionable or amateurish antics.  Early voting began way before it was supposed to and there really was a ballot box just outside the mayor's office during early voting was not a joke.

ASPEN ELECTION NOT OUT OF CONTROL
produced by Better Bad News

Instant runoff elections Aspen style sparks a voter revolt on BetterBadNews. The panel hears testimony about how a clever politician in Aspen Colorado, gamed an instant runoff election by hiding the ballots to protect voter piracy.

Can ballots photographed for verification of voter intent be hidden from public view because somebody in city hall forgot to shuffle the ballots?

In Colorado early voting is taken very seriously. A ballot box set up near the mayors office gives voters something to do while waiting for their appointment with the boss.

A judge ruled that there was probable cause that the St Paul Better Ballots Campaign broke the law when sending out endorsement claims in a campaign mailer promoting instant runoff voting. St Paul DFL activist Chuck Repke filed two separate complaints about the last minute mailers that likely affected the outcome of the election. The IRV ballot measure won by only 1%. The misleading mailer may have given the pro IRV group the 1% they needed to barely win.

St. Paul Politics/Judge rules instant-runoff campaign should go on trialVote-no group accuses vote-yes group of lying about endorsements

11/08/2009 A judge ruled Friday that there is probably cause to believe an allegation the campaign behind the successful instant-runoff voting ballot question in St. Paul broke state laws by claiming endorsements of President Barack Obama, the state Democratic Party and the St. Paul League of Women Voters.

The ruling by Administrative Law Judge Kathleen Sheehy sends the matter to a three-judge panel, which will hear arguments similar to a trial.
...
Chuck Repke, a St. Paul activist who filed a complaint shortly before the election with the state Office of Administrative Hearings, has another take. "This campaign won by lying about it and I think they knew it," he said.

Repke, the leader of the vote-no No Bad Ballots group, accused the Better Ballot Campaign of knowingly making false statements on pre-election mailings that claimed the endorsements of Obama, the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the St. Paul League of Women Voters.

State law says candidate literature cannot carry endorsements of someone without the expressed written consent of purported endorser, and Repke said the Better Ballot group lacked such permission — at least, as it applied specifically to Tuesday's St. Paul ballot.

St_Paul_Prob_Cause_Nov6
St_Paul_Notice_Evidentary_Nov6

211B.02 FALSE CLAIM OF SUPPORT.A person or candidate may not knowingly make, directly or indirectly, a false claim stating or implying that a candidate or ballot question has the support or endorsement of a major political party or party unit or of an organization. A person or candidate may not state in written campaign material that the candidate or ballot question has the support or endorsement of an individual without first getting written permission from the individual to do so

League of Women Voters to pro-IRV: Take our name off your litBy City Hall Scoop on October 29, 2009

The co-presidents of the St. Paul League of Women Voters are asking instant-runoff voting supporters to "correct" an "error in their literature."That lit would be mailers the Better Ballot Campaign has sent out that list the League under "endorsed by..." implying the League urges a vote of "yes" on Tuesday's ballot question of whether St. Paul should take up the alternate voting method

Some jurisdictions that recently implemented instant runoff voting have developed buyers remorse. They tried IRV and they didn't like what they saw.

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

MOVING TO DITCH. BURLINGTON VT.
After the Burlington Vermont 2009 IRV mayor election , reports showed that the election suffered from just about every pathology in the book: thwarted-majority, non-monotonicity, spoiler effect & other failures.
Voters in Burlington began a push to get IRV repealed. WCAX News reported April 29, 2009 of a petition drive to get the repeal of IRV on the next possible ballot. WCAX News. The movement to repeal IRV is gaining traction. See Nov 5, 2009 Burlington IRV repeal picks up momentum
The controversy over Burlington Telecom finances has energized the effort to repeal instant run-off voting, say those involved in the petition drive to put the issue on the city ballot in March...."A lot of people think the mayor's race was invalid, that we have an invalid mayor,"

DITCHED ON NOV 3, 2009. ASPEN COLORADO.
November 3, 2009 Aspen rejects Instant Runoff Voting — by six votes.
The city of Aspen launched its first-ever IRV election this past May. Shortly thereafter, doubts among elected officials and some residents surfaced as to whether the method was the best way to elect a mayor and City Council members.
Also see Aspen Election Review May 5 2009 IRV single ballot audit unit

DITCHED 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
Nov 10 2009... Voters' repeal of Ranked-Choice Voting last week also freed-up $500,000 would have been needed to implement the voting system for the 2010 election.
Also see Voters changing their minds on ranked-choice
Background: A poll from 2008 showed that 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).

To learn more about Instant Runoff Voting problems see our website
Instant Runoff Voting in the US

Mayor Perata of Oakland, California is raising concerns about whether the county is ready to implement ranked choice voting aka instant runoff voting in next years elections. His opponent, City Councilwoman Jean Quan slings mud at him claiming Perata is afraid RCV would help her to win. But Perata is wrong wrong wrong, if San Francisco's track record with IRV/RCV is right. IRV/RCV is complex, costly, confusing and in non partisan elections acts as incumbent protection. Many jurisdictions that have actually implemented instant runoff voting have ditched it or are moving to ditch it.

Perata questions ranked choice voting in Alameda CountyBy Chris Metinko Oakland Tribune 10/29/2009
Three years after Oakland voters approved instant runoff voting for city elections, one Oakland mayoral candidate is questioning whether or not the city, county and voters are ready for it.

In a letter to Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi, former state Senate leader Don Perata brings up a variety of questions and concerns about the possibility of using instant runoff voting in next year's city elections.

Oakland voters approved instant runoff voting under Measure O in 2006. ...
The measure called for such ranked choice voting to start in 2010. However, in Perata's letter he questions if there is enough time to educate voters on the new system, if the new system is safe and secure and the cost of using such an "experimental voting system."

"This is our most sacred right," Perata's campaign manager, Larry Tramutola, said. "We need to make sure it's done right and not something that's just rushed.

"Too many times in Oakland, things just get thrown out and then someone has to go clean it up," Tramutola added, pointing to the recent controversy over city parking meter hours.

If Mayor Perata were truly self serving, he would WANT instant runoff voting, aka ranked choice voting. All you need to do is look at San Francisco, the one California jurisdiction that has administered several IRV/RCV elections. It has served as incumbent protection there.

Just In Case You Were Wondering....Some Ideas on How To Vote on 11/3
... So there's an election going on next Tuesday, but I think this off-year must have set a record for Most Boring Election Ever.

...Remember how we were told that voting for so-called "instant runoff voting" was going to usher in this big future where under-funded candidates could be freer to challenge The System and all that?
...
The problem this year is that we have two incumbents, each running unopposed this year. This is nothing new - three years ago I wrote about this very same phenomenon and offered up then what I'm offering now - Fun With IRV Ballots.... Fill out your ballot with your own favorite characters. If all of this seems silly, well it is. So is the fact that all the promises made about IRV never came true. We're left with paying for an expensive system that hasn't lived up to its promises.

If someone is a lame nobody running for office, they still lose. Just because we played games to fit the needs of a handful of ideologues whose true agenda has yet to be revealed, doesn't mean anything is different.Incumbents are always re-elected, and the candidates who have the most support always win. It's even easier when no one bothers to run against them!

Perhaps IRV should more aptly be renamed Incumbent Return Voting.

"IRV is a damaging and expensive solution in search of a problem. Vote 'no' on Nov. 3." An Op Ed by two local DFL activists and two St Paul Minnesota City Council members urges St Paul voters to vote "no" on instant runoff voting, this November 3. The group asks St. Paul voters to learn from the experiences of others who have tried IRV and found it flawed. Statistics show that instant runoff voting tends to disenfranchise vulnerable segments of the population and that the IRV's formula prevents some voters from participating in the final "runoff".

More complicated, confusing and expensiveBy Chuck Repke, Angie Kline, Kathy Lantry and Dave Thune
Pioneer Press 10/28/2009

St. Paul voters should vote 'NO' on IRV if they care about having transparent, timely, and cost-effective city elections.

IRV doesn't deliver on what it promises — and will result in confused voters, lengthy waits for election results, and added expense for St. Paul taxpayers. IRV may seem like a new idea, but it has been tried in other places, and we can learn from their experiences.

Problems from complicating the ballot have been documented in IRV elections. In Cary, N.C., 22 percent of the voters polled admitted to not understanding IRV. In Pierce County, Washington, 63 percent of 91,000 voters indicated that they did not like using IRV. Several studies by San Francisco State University on San Francisco's Ranked Choice Voting indicate that older voters, those with English as a second language, and those with less income and education were less likely to understand IRV.

Statistically, the voters who don't fill in second choices are disproportionately senior, low income and from communities of color. IRV advocates say it is a voter's "choice" to not make a second selection when using IRV. We take issue with the complexity of a voting process when the voters "choosing" not to take full advantage and less likely to understand the system are voters who come disproportionately from these communities.

If the perceived benefit of IRV is to have a winner with the majority of votes, our current election system already does that. In IRV, votes are counted in rounds. The candidate with the smallest number of votes each round is dropped and his/her voters' second choices are redistributed to other candidates. In practice, about 15 percent of voters make no second choice, so there are fewer ballots counted each round. In 10 of 11 IRV contests in San Francisco, the winner did not receive the votes of a majority of those who voted that day, only a majority of the votes still being counted.

IRV will cost St. Paul taxpayers more. Because, by the terms of what we're voting on next week, IRV can be used only in municipal elections for mayor and city council, it will still be necessary to conduct school board primaries during the same year that we have mayor or city council races. Voter turnout for school board primaries will be abysmal. The city will need to prepare two different ballots in November for two separate elections.

St. Paul will also lose the economies of scale that are possible by using the same equipment and voting method used throughout Ramsey County. To date, there is no certified voting equipment to handle the tabulations required in IRV. This means for any election where there is not a winner with 51 percent of the vote on a first run-through, hand counting will be required — at an approximate cost of $10,000 per day in a typical mayoral election. Minneapolis predicts it will take extra staff, hand-counting ballots, six days a week, to be able to announce their results by Dec. 22nd.

IRV makes it impossible to have an informed electorate without candidates spending big money to convey their messages. This year's mayoral races are excellent examples. In St. Paul, because we had a primary, there are just two mayoral candidates with access to free media, and both have been highlighted in articles and editorials. In Minneapolis, where they are using IRV, there have been no mayoral debates and little access to the press for the 10 new candidates. With limited press coverage and no excitement, this year may set a record for low turnout in Minneapolis. San Francisco voters had a similar experience in their last IRV mayoral election when voter turnout dropped by 9 percent from their standard mayoral election in 2003. Takoma Park, Maryland, has seen its voter turnout using IRV drop to the lowest level in 12 years.

For these reasons, three of four cities that began using IRV in the last two years are considering repeal. Cary has dropped IRV, and Aspen, Colo., and Tacoma, Wash., have repeals on the ballot. Tacoma's repeal language reads "...the cost of running the IRV portion of the 2008 General Election was $1,692,663; and...the IRV portion ... proved to be expensive, complicated and confusing and the results ... were not available for weeks following the election..." That's a strong rebuke from the same elected officials who agreed to spend $1.6 million to implement IRV the previous year.

St. Paul voters should learn from others' mistakes and not switch to an expensive, complicated and confusing election system. Free, fair elections are the hallmark of democracy and every voter deserves to be treated equally. Using IRV is far too likely to confuse and inhibit voting. IRV's voting system will leave too many voters without a vote in the final "round" of voting. Taxpayers will pay more to wait weeks for results. It seems to us like IRV is a damaging and expensive solution in search of a problem. Vote "no" on Nov. 3.

Angie Kline and Chuck Repke are local DFL activists and co-chairs of the No Bad Ballot committee, which opposes IRV. Kathy Lantry and Dave Thune are members of the St. Paul City Council. Lantry is council president.

Roberts Rules DOES NOT recommend Instant Runoff Voting. Period. What they recommend is not IRV as implemented everywhere, nor as proposed by FairVote. There is a crucial difference, and that difference is relevant.

What Robert's rules "describes" (not "recommends") is not what is described as Instant Runoff Voting. It is similar, but different, in an important way that points out how the claim that IRV always elects a majority winner is a tautology. It*creates* a "majority winner" in some cases by discarding ballots, by excluding them from the majority.

From the list of election-methods FairVote on Robert's Rules of Order and IRV
Abd ul-Rahman LomaxSat, 20 Dec 2008

Robert's Rules are pretty clear: avoid making decisions, including elections, without a majority vote, and they don't fall into the trap of thinking that one gets a majority by excluding ballots without a vote for the top two.
...
But what they describe as "preferential voting," while the rules are single transferable vote, do not elect by plurality, they merely make it easier to find a majority, and they suggest that voters be made aware that if they do not rank enough candidates, the election might fail to find a majority "and must be repeated."

FairVote has radically misrepresented this section of RRONR, and that misrepresentation has been taken up and repeated by election officials in places which have implemented IRV or RCV. The method described in RRONR is indeed "better than election by plurality," but what is being implemented is, in some of the applications, no better than plurality: it is plurality, almost always. That's with nonpartisan elections. There are subtle but crucial differences between what RRONR describes and what is being implemented: the most important is that election by plurality is allowed, and the dirty little secret is that IRV usually, with nonpartisan elections, where full ranking is not obligatory, does not find a majority if one did not exist in the first round; further, it only rarely -- no examples so far in the U.S. with nonpartisan elections! -- finds any winner other than the first round leader.

In other words, with all the jurisdictions that have implemented IRV, with nonpartisan elections, no results have been shifted from what Plurality would have obtained. But results almost certainly have shifted: most of these jurisdictions were ones that required a runoff election if a majority wasn't found, and runoff elections, depending on rules, do find a real majority, at least in some senses, and even when the method is open to write-in votes, majorities are normal.

IRV is replacing top-two runoff, not Plurality, usually, so the comparison with Plurality is a false one. And top-two runoff, while certainly not perfect, is different from IRV in a number of important ways. Regardless of theory, it seems that about one out of three TTR elections results in a "comeback" where the first round leader loses to the runner-up. Since IRV is not presenting us with these, in nonpartisan elections, we can be fairly sure that IRV is changing results from TTR (better) to Plurality (worse).

FairVote, in describing or giving examples of how IRV works, focuses on partisan elections, where vote transfers follow some relatively predictable pattern. Not as strong a pattern as they or voting systems theorists often predict, but still strong enough to shift results. So the Green candidate is eliminated and some of the votes go to the Democrat. Not all. Usually, it turns out, there are enough exhausted ballots that a majority still is not found. IRV is a form of election by plurality, merely a slightly more sophisticated one that can sometimes fix the spoiler effect.

And who benefits from that? Mostly the major parties, which is why IRV, where it is significantly used, is associated with strong two-party systems. What voting system is associated with multiparty systems? ...

Greg Dewar, a writer and consultant for Greens and Dems says this year's muni election is "Most Boring Election Ever."

Just In Case You Were Wondering....Some Ideas on How To Vote on 11/3...

So there's an election going on next Tuesday, but I think this off-year must have set a record for Most Boring Election Ever. Aside from some mail I've received about Prop. D, and a mailer from the local Democratic Party, this election has been a snoozefest. That may be a good thing since next year you're going to see elections from Governor on down to Supervisor that will more resemble something out of Braveheart.

...
Fun with the Waste of Time That Is IRV This Year
Remember how we were told that voting for so-called "instant runoff voting" was going to usher in this big future where under-funded candidates could be freer to challenge The System and all that?

Yeah, I know. Worked out well so far, right (insert sarcasm tag here).

The problem this year is that we have two incumbents, each running unopposed this year. This is nothing new - three years ago I wrote about this very same phenomenon and offered up then what I'm offering now - Fun With IRV Ballots.

I mean, the city went to all the trouble to print "IRV style" ballots, the least we can do is use them. So, while we all like ya, Mr. Herrera and Mr. Cisneros, and you did get my vote, I decided to enter in a few names for 1st and 2nd who will most assuredly lose. This year I used the names of favorite TV characters:

For City Attorney:

1. Don Draper
2. Bert Cooper
3. Dennis Herrera (Winner!)

For Treasurer

1. Hank Moody
2. Greg House
3. Jose Cisneros (Winner!)

Fill out your ballot with your own favorite characters. If all of this seems silly, well it is. So is the fact that all the promises made about IRV never came true. We're left with paying for an expensive system that hasn't lived up to its promises. If someone is a lame nobody running for office, they still lose. Just because we played games to fit the needs of a handful of ideologues whose true agenda has yet to be revealed, doesn't mean anything is different.

Incumbents are always re-elected, and the candidates who have the most support always win. It's even easier when no one bothers to run against them! So have fun. Besides, Don Draper is cool.

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

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

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.

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....

more at the link, including Aspen's recent instant runoff election meltdown...please stop by and post a thank you to Brad in the comments section of the article.

HuffPo is running a  piece promoting internet voting, written by an actual executive of a company that sells Internet Voting services.  For some awful reason, Huffington Post is running this as if it is objective reporting rather than advertising for a commodity, written by someone with a vested financial interest in said commodity. HuffPo is acting so Fox news like, eh? 

May 14, 2009 Aaron Contorer Chief of Products and Partnerships, Everyone Counts, Inc.  America's Newest State Holds America's Newest Election

Instant Runoff Voting Retreats in North Carolina