Category: Instant Runoff Voting

IRV: Is it legal in Connecticut? Can our scanners compute it?

Recently we posted and commented on an article in The Day, covering the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) proposal for New London. The article quoted Secretary of the State Bysiewicz on the constitutionality of the IRV and if our AccuVote-OS scanners could be used for an IRV election. The post prompted comments and the need for more complete answers. We queried the Secretary of the State’s Office and Jeff Silvestro, General Manager of LHS Associates. Mr. Silvestro responded:

Recently we posted and commented on an article in The Day, covering the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) proposal for New London.  The article quoted Secretary of the State Bysiewicz on the constitutionality of the IRV and if our AccuVote-OS scanners could be used for an IRV election.  The post prompted comments and the need for more complete answers.  <read>

We queried the Secretary of the State’s Office and Jeff Silvestro, General Manager of LHS Associates.  Mr. Silvestro responded:

There are two parts to this answer:

1. Yes, the AVOS can handle IRV. We currently run similar elections in Cambridge, MA and have previously run IRV elections in Burlington, VT. Burlington no longer runs IRV since the citizens voted to move away from this method last year.

2. No, it cannot be done in CT. In order for the AVOS to handle an IRV election we would need to use software other than GEMS, currently GEMS is the only software certified for use in CT. Also an older version of firmware would need to be installed in each AVOS unit, this older firmware is also not currently certified in CT. Lastly, the ballot layout for an IRV election would not match the current specification used for ballot layout in CT.

The Secretary of the State’s Office responded:

When the Secretary served as Chair of the Government Administration and Elections Committee in the Legislature, she was open to conducting hearings on this issue. During her tenure as Secretary, she has remained opened to exploration of the various types of run off voting that have been put forward by various groups. While the office would defer to the Attorney General for an interpretation of law, we do believe that there are constitutional and statutory issues that would need to be examined and addressed, such as minority representation, in implementation. Additionally, the current certified voting machines cannot accommodate preferential voting, and changes to firmware would be required, along with new certifications, both federally and at the state level.

In summary, it is clear that legally our machines cannot support fully counting IRV elections for the foreseeable future. And there are several Constitutional issues and statutory issues which may well make IRV illegal or unconstitutional at this time.

There are two parts to this answer:
1. Yes, the AVOS can handle IRV.  We currently run similar elections in Cambridge, MA and have previously run IRV elections in Burlington, VT.  Burlington no longer runs IRV since the citizens voted to move away from this method last year.
2. No, it cannot be done in CT.  In order for the AVOS to handle an IRV election we would need to use software other than GEMS, currently GEMS is the only software certified for use in CT.  Also an older version of firmware would need to be installed in each AVOS unit,  this older firmware is also not currently certified in CT.  Lastly, the ballot layout for an IRV election would not match the current specification used for ballot layout in CT.

IRV New London: Residents, Registrar, and Candidate concerns

“Instant Runoff Voting is a well intended idea, but does not work as advertised in real life elections. For that reason, several jurisdictions have rejected IRV after one or two implementations.”

“There’s no point to it, Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”

A Registrar of Voter’s and Citizens Views: An article in the Day: <read>

Complex voting proposal in charter criticized
By Matt Collette Day Staff Writer
Registrar raises issue of legality in two changes

New London – Several residents expressed concern – or at least confusion – over a proposed system where voters would rank mayor candidates at a public hearing Tuesday night on proposed charter changes.

Registrar of Voters Bill Giesing said he was concerned that the rank voting plan – which would allow for instant results rather than a runoff election at a later date – as well as one that would have four city councilors represent specific wards, would violate state law.

“I just want to bring this to your attention,” Giesing said. “I think this is something serious you should address.” He said communities are prohibited by state statute from defining wards.

David Hayes, who lives on Ocean Avenue, called rank voting a “totally unacceptable” way to determine who will be the mayor.

“There’s no point to it,” Hayes said. “Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”

Charter Review Commission Chairman Robert Grills said rank voting would allow for the mayor to be selected by a majority of voters in the main election, when turnout is higher, than in runoff elections. It would also ensure that the winner would be the candidate supported by the majority of voters, not just the largest plurality, he said.

The meeting was supposed to start with an overview of the proposed changes, but the hearing began without a formal presentation because computer problems prevented Grills from loading a PowerPoint presentation.

“Most of you, it seems, have read most or all of the charter as we have put it forward,” Grills said before moving directly into the public hearing.

Grills said he expected that the commission would have another meeting to address concerns from the public hearing before handing its draft over to City Clerk Michael Tranchida and the City Council, which may put charter revisions up for a vote by the November election.

“I don’t think this should be rushed to the ballot in November,” said Dorothy Mansfield, another Ocean Avenue resident. “I’d rather see a fine, finished product with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”

One member of the commission, Minerva Dudley-Cook, said she hoped the charter review process would not be rushed toward a November vote and instead take the full 16 months it was given to consider changes to the city charter.

“I don’t think we are where the chairman says we are,” Dudley-Cook said. “I think we should take the full 16 months.”

Winning Candidate’s View: Voting integrity advocate describes experience of a winning candidate in North Carolina in letter to New London:

Honorable New London City Councilors:

Complex voting proposal in charter criticized
by Matt Collette 07/28/2010
http://www.theday.com/article/20100728/NWS01/307289880/1019&town=

Please accept these additional comments regarding regarding New London’s consideration of adopting instant runoff voting to elect your mayor.

I am writing to you from North Carolina, where IRV was tested in 2 cities in 2007 and 1 in 2009.

Instant Runoff Voting is a well intended idea, but does not work as advertised in real life elections. For that reason, several jurisdictions have rejected IRV after one or two implementations. Instant Runoff Voting was implemented and rejected by Sunnyvale, California, Burlington, Vermont, Pierce Co Washington, Cary North Carolina. . Aspen will put a measure offering to repeal IRV in Nov. Aspen Colorado (will hold another vote in Nov 2010 to make repeal binding) http://instantrunoff.blogspot.com/2010/05/instant-runoff-voting-rejected-by.html

*Don Frantz, the only person elected by instant runoff voting in North Carolina speaks out *

Don points out that with instant runoff voting there is voter confusion, lack of confidence in the system, and often the result of IRV is a plurality “win”. Don, the only person ever elected with IRV votes says IRV is not worth it. Don says “To me the number one concern is election integrity. If we can’t trust the election process we’ve got, I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what the turnout is.” Cary ultimately reverted back to majority 50% + 1 and traditional runoff elections.

(Don Frantz is currently a Cary Town Council Member running for a state legislative office… New London may or may not experience the technical difficulties of IRV that Cary NC did, there are other issues to consider. such as majority, transparency, and confidence in the outcome of the election. Cary has the most PHDs per capita in our state for a city its size )

*Statement of Donald Frantz, Member of Cary Town Council*

March 12, 2009 Meeting of Cary Town Council
Transcribed by Andrew Silver from video recording at http://www.townofcary.org/med/video/video1.htm

I’d like to preface my comments just letting folks in the audience know that I was elected utilizing instant runoff voting. I’m actually the first candidate in the state of North Carolina to ever be elected utilizing instant runoff voting. So if you ever play trivial pursuit and that’s the question, then you know what the answer is. So I kind of know a thing or two about it and unfortunately I was the guinea pig. And It wasn’t really the best experience I ever had to go through. But those were the rules and we all played by them. There’s actually a gentleman sitting in the audience whom I do respect quite a bit that believes I won my election because of instant runoff voting, and while I would argue with him – you know – tooth and nail, he’s entitled to his opinion and I’ve got mine, and I really didn’t think there was much broken with our current system. But, you know, Hank, we always have to try something new.

There’s a number of factors to consider – very important factors to consider – when deciding what type of election we want to go with. There’s cost, voter turnout, participation, time. . .whatever. To me the number one concern is election integrity. If we can’t trust the election process we’ve got, I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care what the turnout is.

Instant runoff voting – the machines count the first vote. We all know on the first go round who got what. But then the votes are transported to the board of elections. They’re taken out of their locked box. They’re put in little baggies and sorted. and then when it’s time to count the ballots, they’re actually all pulled out of the bags and put on the table, and a bunch of different hands are in the pile, and you’re moving one over here and one over there. You’re getting the first and second place finishers out. You set them in one pile. You go through and you get the third place finishers, fourth place finishers. If they didn’t pick a second and third candidate, you put them in another pile.

You end up with all these piles on the table. And then you try to narrow it down to the non-top two vote getters that did pick a second or a third. And then you start trying to count those by hand. My election district, B, it’s a very small district in town. I’ve got 8 precincts. A little over 3000 votes were cast. And it took the better part of a day to hand count those ballots, and it took all of a day to hand count them and get the math right. When I left the process, I had won by 48 votes. An hour later to find out I was up by 25 votes, because somebody didn’t clear out a number on a calculator. To find out the next day I was up by 49 votes.

The numbers kept changing. I wasn’t very confident in what I was experiencing. I would feel a lot more confident about IRV if the machines could actually count the ballots, first, second, and third. When – after the ballots were hand counted and sorted and all that initial stuff was done, they go back in their baggies and back in their little boxes and what not. And then the elections director, by herself, recounted all those ballots in a room. No observers – I didn’t get to observe, put it that way. So, that was a big concern of mine, you know. I’m glad the – I mean I respect Cherie Poucher a lot. I had a great experience with her. I’m glad she doesn’t hate my guts, because I probably wouldn’t have won if she did.

We’ve heard that the machines can now somehow count the ballots, but they couldn’t count them two years ago. We’ve heard that the state is going to allow that. I’ve still got questions as far as – you know – where’s the software coming from? Who’s providing it? Is it something that Fairvote’s come up with? Is it something designed by a special interest group? Has it been tested, or are we a guinea pig now on can the machines count the ballots? I don’t know, but I don’t know that I want to subject three of my colleagues to this experiment. And actually I took exception to the word “experiment.” That just rubs me wrong.

I think IRV treats voters ballots unequally. Some ballots get counted twice. Some only get counted once. In 2005, in the primary election, I voted for one candidate. But as the runoff went on, I changed my vote. I voted for a different candidate come the final election, because I heard some things that changed my mind. I saw people in a different light. With IRV, I don’t have the option to change my mind. It assumes I am going to come back and cast my ballot for the same candidate. I can tell you the time that I didn’t do it.

There is some confusion as evidenced by our biennial survey. Obviously the majority of Cary citizens did find the experience pretty easy to understand and didn’t have that many problems with it. *But over 30% did find it somewhat confusing and over 20% found it very confusing *– or did not understand at all, I think is what it says here. When you come to show up to vote and you just have one box to mark I don’t know anybody that finds that confusing. So to me – even if you just confuse 10% of the people, that’s 10% too many. When we’re confusing 20% of the people, that’s really too many.

I do have some concerns with special interest groups that have been diving into this issue. I just – I appreciate the Cary citizens that have shown up to speak tonight. There’s issues of manipulation involved. My next election I’m worried about one of my opponents – I get one of my well-liked buddies in the community to run and we do this whole run on us “Vote for us 1-2” campaign, ensuring at least one of us wins. It actually happened in my race. One of the candidates contacted my other opponent to see did they want to run 1 and 2 together. Now thankfully that opponent said “Heck, no.” and then we talked about it and we decided that was not something we wanted to do. That concerns me.

Voter turnout. The argument for that is really weird. It’s we want to increase voter turnout, so let’s play with the way we elect people. Let’s change the process. Quite frankly – we just saw it in the last presidential election. If you want to increase voter turnout, get some good candidates to run. Most of the time you are voting for the lesser of two evils. The majority of candidates that we have to choose from these days suck, you know. The candidate is the one that motivates people to get out of bed or get off the couch and go to the polls and cast a vote. I’m not going to show up at the polls and go “Whoo! I get to mark 3 bubbles now instead of one.” It’s not inspiring me to vote, you know. But like we just saw Barack Obama. He inspired folks. He motivated folks. He got people to the polls. That was pretty impressive. I agree with Mr. Smith’s comment. You know, we want to increase voter participation, but yet we hold our elections in October when nobody’s looking for an election, and then we hold them in off years when we’re not running with state candidates or presidential candidates. “Election – what, that was yesterday?” Nobody knows. So if you want to have 50% voter turnout in the Cary council election let’s do it the same time as state races. We’ll do it in November.

Cost is a concern to me. Especially this year, given the budget, you know. We’re all going to have to make some really tough decisions. IRV is considerably cheaper than traditional runoffs. But, seeing that, in my research – trust me, I have researched it. When I had to go through this I had no idea what I was getting myself into, so I did a lot of research on IRV. Basically – I would estimate 90% of the elections I studied, the person who won the first go round won the second go round. It did not change the outcome. So if you really want to view the right election, give citizens one voice, one vote – do plurality. You know, you show up and you mark one bubble and you go home. The person with the most bubbles wins. If there’s a concern over 8 people running for the same office, then maybe we should consider setting a threshold. Instead of saying, “OK, well 50% – well, OK maybe you have to break 35 or 40 percent on the first go round, and if a candidate does, no instant runoff, no runoff. The election’s over. You got the most votes, you win.” But if there’s 5 people running and they all get 20% and one got 21% – I can see the need for some form of runoff system. I really can, and yes, instant runoff is going to be the cheapest, but with the other concerns I have, I just, I don’t know if it’s the way to go.

Durham is currently – the Durham board of elections is currently trying to convince their city council to go back to plurality elections. Ronald Gregory, who’s the chair of the Durham board of elections states *“The plurality method is the only method that ensures one vote, one election voting process,” *and he also (inaudible). My preference is to go to plurality elections. If there is some form – have a concern with multiple candidates and no clear winner then maybe we should look at some kind of threshold that they have to break.

# # #

Note – Cary, North Carolina ultimately decided to keep their majority elections with traditional 1-1 runoffs. They considered plurality but decided they wanted what they had before IRV.

April 13, 2009 Cary to Hold Public Hearing to Consider Changing Election Method

A Cary City Council election goes to traditional runoff in November 2009, no one from Cary says they wish they had IRV:

November 6, 2009 Jennifer Robinson Wins Run-Off in District A

http://www.carycitizen.com/2009/11/06/jenninfer-robinson-wins-run-off-in-district-a/

As previously reported, the October 6 election for Cary Town Council (District A) ended in a run-off between incumbent Jennifer Robinson and challenger Lori Bush. In October, Ms. Robinson garnered 49.9 percent of the vote to Lori Bush’s 42.3 percent. On November 3, Jennifer Robinson won her third term representing Cary’s largest district.

November 3 results:
Jennifer Robinson 53.76% 2,337 votes
Lori Bush 46.12% 2,005 votes
Write-in .12% 5 votes
Congratulations go out to Jennifer Robinson.

http://instantrunoff.blogspot.com/2010/07/don-frantz-only-person-elected-by.html

Best regards,
Joyce McCloy

As we have often repeated, IRV sounds good, but has unintended and unanticipated consequences.

<IRV: Not So Fast, No So Simple> <earlier New London Commentary>

Printer-friendly version – TheDay.comComplex voting proposal in charter criticized
By Matt Collette Day Staff Writer
Registrar raises issue of legality in two changes
New London – Several residents expressed concern – or at least confusion – over a proposed system where voters would rank mayor candidates at a public hearing Tuesday night on proposed charter changes.
Registrar of Voters Bill Giesing said he was concerned that the rank voting plan – which would allow for instant results rather than a runoff election at a later date – as well as one that would have four city councilors represent specific wards, would violate state law.
“I just want to bring this to your attention,” Giesing said. “I think this is something serious you should address.” He said communities are prohibited by state statute from defining wards.
David Hayes, who lives on Ocean Avenue, called rank voting a “totally unacceptable” way to determine who will be the mayor.
“There’s no point to it,” Hayes said. “Why go to something like this? Most people don’t understand it. Most people don’t want it.”
Charter Review Commission Chairman Robert Grills said rank voting would allow for the mayor to be selected by a majority of voters in the main election, when turnout is higher, than in runoff elections. It would also ensure that the winner would be the candidate supported by the majority of voters, not just the largest plurality, he said.
The meeting was supposed to start with an overview of the proposed changes, but the hearing began without a formal presentation because computer problems prevented Grills from loading a PowerPoint presentation.
“Most of you, it seems, have read most or all of the charter as we have put it forward,” Grills said before moving directly into the public hearing.
Grills said he expected that the commission would have another meeting to address concerns from the public hearing before handing its draft over to City Clerk Michael Tranchida and the City Council, which may put charter revisions up for a vote by the November election.
“I don’t think this should be rushed to the ballot in November,” said Dorothy Mansfield, another Ocean Avenue resident. “I’d rather see a fine, finished product with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed.”
One member of the commission, Minerva Dudley-Cook, said she hoped the charter review process would not be rushed toward a November vote and instead take the full 16 months it was given to consider changes to the city charter.
“I don’t think we are where the chairman says we are,” Dudley-Cook said. “I think we should take the full 16 months.”

The Day, Susan Bysiewicz, and we agree: No IRV for New London

The Day points to the complexity of issues for voters with several charter changes combined, especially Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), while referencing the Secretary of the State’s objections that IRV cannot be counted by our optical scanners and that IRV is currently illegal in Connecticut.

New London is considering a charter revision to include an elected strong mayor, Instant Runoff Voting, and other changes.  We oppose IRV because it is complex to calculate for multi-district elections, confusing/misunderstood by many voters, and does not provide the touted benefits. Others point to the added costs. The Day points to the complexity of issues for voters with several charter changes combined, especially Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) , while referencing the Secretary of the State’s objections that IRV cannot be counted by our optical scanners and that IRV is currently illegal in Connecticut.

The Day: Make elected mayor clear charter choice on ballot <read>

Please New London, don’t make the same mistake twice.

Two years ago the city missed its chance to give voters a fair say on whether they wanted an elected mayor in place of a contracted city manager, sullying the ballot question with other divisive issues.

Now, it looks like the same thing could happen again. Don’t allow it. Just ask voters plain and simple – do you support an elected mayor as chief executive officer of the city? That’s all it takes. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as a Rubik’s Cube. But that’s what it’s turning out to be…

The charter review panel, headed by Robert Grills, did thoroughly examine the directly elected mayor concept and endorsed it, but they mired it with a boatload of other recommendations. And while the charter group has been a diligent, dedicated and progressive-thinking commission, its work will be for naught if it is not quickly reined in…

Questionable proposals include the so-called “rank voting” or instant run-off system for electing a mayor. Yes, commissioners endorse the idea of electing the city’s chief executive to a four-year term and giving the mayor veto and appointment powers, but they’ve muddied it by tying it to rank voting rather than using the traditional system in which the person with the most votes wins.

Allowing voters to rank mayoral candidates one, two, three, etc., may be a progressive and even noble idea, but Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz thinks it is illegal. State statutes only require a winning candidate to garner a plurality of votes, said Ms. Bysiewicz. On top of that, rank voting doesn’t work on the state’s new optical scan machines; poll workers will be manually counting ballots.

Election officials in Connecticut have shown they are not up to the challenge of accurately counting votes during the post-election audits. How well would they do in a charged atmosphere of a close IRV election?

New London cure? – Something old and something new: Strong Mayor and Instant Runoff Voting?

We don’t know enough about the operation of New London to know if a strong mayor or council manager form of government would work best, but we note a tendency for people, when they are dissatisfied with their government or the results of the last election to try any cure that sounds like it would help. Something akin to “fighting the last war”.

TheDay:  Strong mayor idea gets revived <read>

For the third time in the past decade, the strong mayor question is back, but there are also new questions on how New London should potentially choose its first elected chief executive since the 1920s.

In an “informal” meeting with the City Council Monday, the Charter Revision Commission reintroduced the change to a strong mayor form of government with broad powers that could be on the November ballot.

The change to a strong mayor form of government was twice defeated at the polls, in 2006 and again in 2008, due to technicalities in voter turnout, and what some thought was a complicated ballot question.

Some councilors expressed concern Monday that a new twist the commission plans to add to the potential election of a mayor could doom this attempt.

The commission plans to recommend to the City Council a strong mayor that would be elected by instant-runoff vote, if the first-place candidate does not receive more than 50 percent of the vote.

Voters would rank the candidates on the ballot in order of preference.

If there is not a winner with a 50 percent majority, the last place candidate would then be eliminated and have their second place votes distributed to the remaining candidates.

The process would continue until there is a clear majority winner.

Commission member Steven Skrabacz said the ranking vote system would open the mayoralty to third-party candidates and ensure the mayor would not be elected with a minority vote.

But more than one councilor found the system, which according to the commission is not used by any Connecticut town, to be perplexing.

“That could be something that confuses people,” Councilor Michael Buscetto III said.

Councilor Michael Passero, who called the city manager form of government “a failed experiment” said the strong mayor should be presented to voters with the least amount of changes and supported keeping the traditional voting method.

The commission also plans to keep the City Council at seven members, but have four of them elected from four new voting wards and create three at-large seats.

The voting wards would be drawn according to population not according to number of electors, as is the current system.

The charter commission process will includes a public hearing. The council must approve the ballot questions by the first week of September in order to be placed on the Nov. 2 ballot.

We don’t know enough about the operation of New London to know if a strong mayor or council manager form of government would work best, but we note a tendency for people, when they are dissatisfied with their government or the results of the last election to try any cure that sounds like it would help.  Something akin to “fighting the last war”.

As readers of CTVotersCount are aware, we have concerns with Instant Runoff Voting. It sounds good on the surface, yet there are unintended consequences.  Councilor Buscetto has hit on one of our three main concerns:  it is confusing for voters.   Read more of our concerns and the story of IRV’s rollback in our neighbor to the north: <read>

Hearing On Public Financing – Ad Hoc Testimony On Voting Integrity Issue

I debated testifying. The hearing was about the Citizens Election Program. IRV [Instant Runoff Voting] was really off topic. However, this was the first time to my knowledge that IRV has come up in the Legislature. Perhaps with a few words I could express an alternative view before a large number of legislators take a position; so that they would know that there are alternative views and significant concerns.

Yesterday the Government Administration and Elections Committee held hearings on proposed fixes to the Citizens Election Program which has been ruled unconstitutional and is currently under appeal.  You can read the details at CTMirror and CTNewsJunkie.  As the systems stands now there is great uncertainty.  For now the program continues under the current law, but the appeals court could rule at anytime confirming the law or more likely ruling it unconstitutional.  In the event the law is ruled unconstitutional the legislature would have seven days to fix the law to maintain the program, but  the fate of a fix and its details would remain unknown leaving uncertainty until it is fixed.

Officially the state’s position is that the law is constitutional. The Legislature and Governor can act now to fix the law, yet that would seem to have the same effect as a ruling that the law is unconstitutional.  The result is ongoing uncertainty for candidates now as they contemplate what might happen if they choose to participate in the program.

Ad Hoc Testimony On Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

We went to the hearing to listen, with no intention of testifying.  We focus our efforts on voting integrity.  While I personally support the Citizens Election Program we see no voting integrity implications positive or negative.  However, Representative Linda Schofield brought up the issue of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in her testimony.  She urged the committee to consider adding IRV to the bill and stated the benefits she found in research on IRV.  After her testimony I gave her my card and asked to discuss the reasons some are concerned with IRV.  Later another advocate expressed support of IRV in his testimony.  A committee member,  Representative Peggy Reeves, asked Representative Schofield an important question:  Could our current optical scanners handle an IRV election?

I debated testifying.  The hearing was about the Citizens Election Program.  IRV was really off topic.  However, this was the first time to my knowledge that IRV has come up in the Legislature.  Perhaps with a few words I could express an alternative view before a large number of legislators take a position; so legislators and advocates would know that there are alternative views and significant concerns.  I was the last speaker after a long day, accepting the Chair’s generous offer for anyone to testify who had not signed up.  My goal was to be brief and not waste anyone’s time. Hopefully we will have a transcript in a few days.  I made the following points:

  • Like many people, I initially thought IRV was a good idea – something that would promote democracy and improve participation.  Yet, after more reading and understanding I found significant concerns.
  • It is difficult to determine the winner and verify the result particularly when votes are close.  It may be feasible for races in a single district or a single small jurisdiction, yet gets much more difficult and complicated when elections cross jurisdictional boundaries.
  • IRV requires more work and knowledge on the part of voters.  Imagine a several page ballot replacing what we now fit on a one-sided ballot.  Where IRV has been used, voters do not understand it. (Not to mention quite a bit of extra work and knowledge required of election officials as well).
  • There are theoretical problems with IRV actually delivering the desired/claimed benefits.  In practice such problems have frequently occurred.

For more background and details on concerns with IRV refer to our post, IRV: Not So Fast, Not So Simple.

Update: Rep. Schofield called me the next day; we had a very good discussion. She was completely open to considering additional information, as I am.

IRV: Not So Fast, Not So Simple

Tutorial information about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and associated concerns.

We have several concerns with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).  At first it seems simple and appealing, however, a closer look reveals concerns and unappreciated consequences, including:

  • IRV can be confusing and difficult for voters to understand.  It can result in a much bigger ballot, requesting voters to rank multiple candidates and not make a mistake.  A single race may take an entire ballot that today can handle an entire municipal election or a combined state and Federal election.
  • IRV does not solve the problems it is intended to fix.  It claims to prevent the “wrong” candidates from being elected by providing a runoff until one candidate has over 50% of the votes.  In reality, sometimes it does and sometimes it does not.  IRV can cause different candidates to be elected than real runoff voting and different candidates to be elected than when the leading candidate  from the first round is selected.  Often IRV awards a race to a less popular candidate than these other methods.
  • IRV is complex and time consuming to count, especially in races covering multiple polling places.  This is because  elimination requires exact information on each ballot ranking be centrally counted or each round centrally counted.  Each round is critical to the final result, thus each round may require all absentee ballots and provisional ballots be counted and perhaps require a manual recount to determine the eliminated candidate.

This last point is covered in an editorial from Minnesota – counting a municipal race my take eight weeks and involve spreadsheet calculations <read>

Minneapolis won’t have the assistance of scanning machines to tabulate votes if no candidate receives over half of the first choices, delaying results for up to eight weeks. Since Minnesota does not certify machines that can count ranked choice ballots, and because cities are prohibited from using non-certified machines, city elections workers must hand-count each ballot. Fortunately, the city attorney has assured elections officials that they can use Microsoft Excel to help tally. Otherwise, votes would still be being sorted well into 2010.

Update: It did not take 8 weeks to count.  Perhaps because of IRV voters stayed away: <read>

What if they gave an election and nobody came? Well, almost nobody came to the City Election last Tuesday. R. T. Rybak got 73 percent of the vote for Mayor, but that was only 33,217 votes. That’s the smallest amount a winning candidate has gotten running for Mayor since 1910. Rybak’s total was less than 15 percent of the number of registered voters. In the last three municipal elections the LOSING candidates for Mayor polled almost as high as Rybak’s winning total

Update:  But it is eight days and some races are still being counted <read>

Several races may be announced Wednesday, the paper says, but the closest council races, in the Fourth and Fifth Wards, won’t come until a later batch of counting.

Update:  17 days past the election and still counting<read>

But the biggest surprise for O’Connor and the elections staff has been how quickly the hand count process has gone. Originally, O’Connor expected that they wouldn’t be ready to announce unofficial winners until December. But they’ve been able to do so several weeks earlier than planned.

Here are some video’s that graphically explain IRV:

  • A clear explination of IRV, what could go wrong, what the MN Supreme Court said and what happened in Aspen Colorado <video>
  • A more detailed version of how a candidate can loose by gaining support <video>
  • We often think of IRV for a single candidate, but it can be used when we vote for several people for town council. Yet its not simple.  Here is one way of counting the votes <video>
  • Third parties tend to like the idea of IRV.  Watch this video to be disapointed <video>

Update: 3/3/2010 Burlington voters repeal IRV <read>

A raucus celebration at Norm’s Grill in the new North End Tuesday night marked a victories end to the YES on 5 campaign in Burlington. A mix of Democrats and Republicans celebrated the defeat of Instant Runoff Voting.

After a debate that brought out big names like Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean urging a NO on 5 vote, Burlington residents voted to repeal IRV by a vote of 3972 to 3669, a margin of only 303 votes.

“It was a grass roots effort and we’re really proud of the people that worked on this, we’re ecstatic,” said IRV opponent Chuck Seleen while celebrating the victory.

Wards 4 and 7 were the only two to vote YES on 5. Both had much higher voter turnout than the other wards. Mayor Bob Kiss says that is a sign most of the city still supports IRV and he suggests the city continues the discussion and possibly have yet another vote on IRV.

“This is a modest voter turnout. I think a bigger voter turnout might have a different result and particularly in the case because if you have two wards that are voting very heavily and I think other wards are more modest so if we heat up that debate we might get a better view of Burlingtonians’ real view on IRV,” Kiss said at City Hall moments after the results were tallied.

Several city councilors and election observers have suggested the IRV vote is a referendum on Kiss and his administration, as it tries to deal with the mess of Burlington Telecom. Kurt Wright, who was elected back to the city council, Tuesday, by defeating incumbent democrat Russ Ellis, says it is time Kiss gets the message.

Two comments:

Saying “Wards 4 and 7 were the only two to vote YES on 5. Both had much higher voter turnout than the other wards.” is pure spin. With equal lack of usefulness one could say that say that if more voters had come out in other districts it might well have gone down further.

Apparently Howard Dean changed his mind from his statement on this video.

Update: Report: Ranked Choice Voting Causes Confusion, Fatigue In SF’s District 10 <read>

The new system produced some surprising outcomes, and in the wake of the results there has been a flurry of criticism and praise of how RCV plays out for voters.

Aspen Ballots, An Issue For Us All

We side completely with the activists, they are on the side of democracy, integrity, and transparency of government. Beyond a CD ballots should be made available to the public, the actual ballots should be made available to the public.

05/17/2013 [Most] ballots [finally] made available: Ballot images from 2009 election online for public inspection <read>

Marks, who on Thursday said she has not spent much time examining the images posted online, wondered why the city withheld 129 ballots and if officials plan to attempt to make contact with voters who cast them since it’s illegal to make distinguishing marks on a ballot.

“How did they get counted in the first place?” Marks asked. “The idea of a secret ballot is that no one — no one — should have an identifiable marking.”

One of the city’s main arguments against releasing the ballots is that it could encourage the practice of voters leaving marks on their ballots in a corrupt cash-for-votes system.

The city had previously fought disclosure of the ballot images all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. Marks won a judgment from the Colorado Court of Appeals in September 2011, which found that the ballot images qualified as public records.

The Court of Appeals directed the City Clerk to withhold ballots that contained markings that could identify a voter, including all write-in votes.

12/28/2009: Letter to the editor: One dozen excuses <read>

Mayor Ireland just sent an intriguing e-mail to the “voting rights community” titled “Why we don’t need your help in running our elections and why a recount is not needed.” It probably wasn’t written to amuse, given the personal attacks in it, but recipients surely chuckled…

4. Election-integrity advocates are destructive nitpickers! Although the pre-election software test tabulated the candidate with the fewest votes as the winner, 15 hours was plenty of time to reconfigure the software before the polls opened…

10. The early voting ballot box at City Hall, accumulating 32 percent of the votes, was sometimes unlocked. Why audit these ballots now? Any possible mischief already happened. An audit now would be meaningless.

12/19/2009: Bev Harris makes the case for public access to ballot images <read>

Concealed vote counting systems have been deemed unconstitutional by the German high court, which ruled in March 2009 that no public election can conceal any essential step in the election from the public. The German Constitution was formed according to requirements provided by the U.S. after WW II. Principles of public sovereignty over government are embedded into our Declaration of Independence (the document which provided much of the argumentation for women’s suffrage), and are also recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…

a precedent will be set which can alleviate some frustrations with computerized voting processes.

9/17/2009: Good news ballots will not be destroyed just yet <read>

9/1/2009 Aspen heats up.  From the RedAnt <read>

Aspen citizen Millard Zimet  filed the formal complaint  with Aspen’s Election Commission questioning whether Aspen conducted a secret ballot election in May 2009.

Reading the complaint, it seems that Mr. Zimet has a strong argument that it was not a secret election.

The post also points to a series of emails between Aspen Mayor Mick and Kathy Dopp who has articulated the inadequacies of Instant Runoff Voting as used in Aspen.

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Aspen Colorado held an IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) election.  A CD was made of all the ballots.  Activists would like access to the CD to perform a post-election audit, but the city objects.  An editorial by activitst leading the charge <read>

If there is a law that actually says we the people cannot see our anonymous ballots, and if it says the permanent record of this groundbreaking and unique election in Colorado history should be destroyed, then such a law should be changed. If somehow the laws to which the City has alluded apply, we are confident that election integrity advocates will lobby to change them. The public will and we hope the City Council will understand the need to view a disk of the ballots, at any time for any reason…

The City of Aspen is trying to translate the requirement for destruction as a message about how dangerous the ballots are. These ballots are only dangerous to a small group- anyone who might fear the revelation of fraud or non-accidental error. After the write-in handwriting and any stray marks are removed or redacted, reviewing ballot images can only safeguard, not endanger voter privacy and confidence. .

Aspen wrote in its election press release: “By making the rankings and all other election data public, everyone had the opportunity to double-check the IRV tallies themselves.” We like the sound of that. Will Aspen now look for ways to hide that data from the public instead of enthusiastically joining the general trend towards more transparency in government?

Another article from the Aspen city public relations director <read>

After thorough and significant review, the city attorney has concluded that the release of the ballots, or their images, would violate state law. Colorado, along with every other state in the country, began to guarantee the secret ballot to its citizens at the end of the 19th century. Every state and almost all jurisdictions have adopted laws and rules to ensure that ballots are cast in absolute privacy and remain secret even after the election is completed.

The editorial refutes this position:

You alone might be able to recognize your own ballot from the way you have voted, if you remember the many rankings on your ballot. The protection of the anonymity of the ballot is demanded by the Colorado Constitution as the city has pointed out. If the city has counted any ballots containing identifying marks in any election, it has violated the law. Should the voters be able to learn whether this has happened? The city says you are not allowed to find out- by law. The city says trust: but don’t verify.

Our opinion:

We side completely with the activists, they are on the side of democracy, integrity, and transparency of government.  Beyond a CD ballots should be made available to the public, the actual ballots should be made available to  the public.

  • The ballots are the actual public record of the vote.  The public needs assurance that the CD matches the actual votes.
  • We believe activists are correct in their interpretation of ballot secrecy – if it is identifiable then its not a legal vote.
  • We have the same issue in Connecticut and many other states.  Here ballots must be kept under seal by law for 14 days after the election, then stored for twenty-two months (federal elections) or six months (other elections), and then destroyed.  There is no explicit opportunity in the law for the public to access the ballots.
  • Meanwhile there are indications that the ballots in Connecticut may show that the reported election results for third parties were incorrect.  That Working Families Party cross-endorsed candidates were short changed.  That the Green Party candidate for President was also short changed.  Only the ballots can say and provide satisfaction that the election was correctly reported.
  • Where laws don’t allow public review of ballots, they should be changed.

Some states provide access.  Here our hats are off to Ohio law.  It made possible the investigation by citizens of questionable results.

Update: 02/25/2010:  <read>

What can we say but “Good Grief, Aspen!”

The memorandum by the Defendant appears to seek to impair the discovery of facts in the course of the litigation.  The Defendant is arguing that the Plaintiff is attempting to contest the election outside of legal time constraints and making suggestions about that motive.  Defendant is also appears to be making the argument that benefit to the public interest is not among the possible  reasons to inspect ballot images, and that testimony by TrueBallot may show “errors and irregularities” which may be of interest, but not relevant to the case at bar. On the other hand, the possibility of learning about “errors and irregularities” does seem to me to be a reason to inspect the ballot images.

Update: 3/11/2010 – Case Dismissed – Public Cannot See the Ballots. Harvey Branscomb’s Comments <read>

Civilized society normally keeps ample records of how it makes decisions–much more so now with inexpensive digital record-keeping–allowing historians as well as the general public to help policy makers with productive improvements. Election policy too would benefit from guidance by similarly complete historical records. Instead, hundred year old laws are being interpreted to require consistent destruction of all records…

The court appears to have decided that Marilyn Marks, the plaintiff, has no viable argument, yet the court has not yet heard that argument. The judge acted only two days before a vital deposition was to be taken. This blocked a long-fought-for opportunity to obtain valuable information from the election contractor TrueBallot. That deposition would have informed the court and the public on the relationship of ballot images to the paper originals. It would have given a good indication of how beneficial to the public those images could be.

Update: 4/18/2010: Criticism of Caleb Kleppner Guest Editorial in Aspen Times Sept. 17, 2009: Aspen Election Transparency <read>

Two views of election transparency:  An OpEd, Annotated:

[Caleb Kleppner]Whether you like IRV or hate IRV, Aspen’s election was a model of transparency and verifiability, and American elections would be improved if they incorporated elements of Aspen’s election.

HB[Branscomb]>; I do not agree that Aspen was a “model” but I do agree that American elections would benefit from  more transparency and verifiability such as what Mr. Kleppner’s company provides.  For Aspen to become a model for a superior election, it is necessary to look at the details and come clean about the defects of this innovative election and to avoid making these mistakes again, whether you like or hate IRV.

Caleb Kleppner is a vice president at TrueBallot Inc., which has run elections for municipalities, labor unions, associations, state Democratic and Republican parties, and others over the past 15 years.

HB>; Harvie Branscomb is a Board Member of Coloradans for Voting Integrity, a Trustee of the Colorado Voter Group, and appointed by the Democratic Party to be Eagle County Canvass Board member.

Update 10/25/2010: Aspen Daily News: Do Away With IRV <read>

IRV: A Grain Of Truth, A Ton Of Bulloney

Could IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) avoid recounts? A slew of stories from Minnesota claim that recounts are a headache and that IRV is the cure.

Recounting Is Not A Problem – Its A Symptom Of Election Integrity in Minnesota

Could IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) avoid recounts?  A slew of stories from Minnesota claim that recounts are a headache and that IRV is the cure.  Two examples:

The Star Tribune <read>

Instead, the $40 million-plus campaign continues to permeate our headlines and limit our forward momentum. The Coleman-Franken race is now in a contentious recount and is almost certainly headed to the courts from there. The recount and its aftermath will be a protracted and high-priced affair, and no matter the outcome, most voters will be left wondering if there is not a better way to express our preferences.

Instant-runoff voting (IRV) would have produced an entirely different election.

The South St. Paul Examiner <read>

In a contest so close as the one that has unfolded in Minnesota, a hand recount is likely the only alternative to determine who is number one and who is number two to figure out how number three’s (Dean Barkley) votes are alloted. The election between Landslide Al Franken and Landslide Norm Coleman is an anomoly. It may go down as the closest race in the history of the United States, but IRV would save us the indignity of staring at Big Goof and Little Goof’s ballots and the money a hand recount costs in almost all other instances.

IRV Defined

From the Examiner:

First choices are counted (one, two, or three). If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is defeated, and those votes are transferred to the next ranked (one or two) candidate on each ballot. The votes are recounted.The process continues until one candidate has a majority of the votes and is declared the winner.

Many believe that if IRV was used in Florida in 2000 then Ralph Nader would have received many more votes and that Al Gore would have easily won the state and the Presidency.   If employed nationwide many believe that George Bush I would have been elected President in 1992.

A Grain of Truth

The articles are likely correct, that if Minnesota had used Instant Runoff Voting for the Senate race and if there were only three candidates, then the winner would likely have been determined much sooner, on election night, and a recount would have been unnecessary.

Several Doses Of Reality – The “Cure” Makes Makes The “Problem” Worse

There are several issues that are glossed over in these one-sided simplistic articles:

  • Recounts are necessary when counts are close. Minnesota has dramatically demonstrated that the careful counting of votes by hand is crucial to actually approaching the ideal of counting every vote and following the voters’ intentions in the declared result.
  • IRV does not eliminate recounts. Ultimately, an IRV race comes down to two candidates, if the final margin is 0.5% or less, the voters deserve a careful recount.
  • IRV actually makes recounts more likely.   In an IRV election at each stage, there is the possibility of a close margin demanding a hand recount.   Worse there are multiple reasons a hand recount may be necessary at each stage:   The difference between two candidates to be potentially eliminated may be close, the order of elimination can effect the final result.  The difference between the required winning margin of 50% and the highest candidate count may be less than 0.5%, the victor may change if another round of elimination is required.
  • IRV will change the nature of the election. One of the differences with IRV would be more candidates competing and more votes for third parties.   Like many people, I see this as a potential advantage of IRV.    However, glossed over is that this means that voting and counting of elections gets more complex.  Today we have, including write-ins, three to five candidates for President in each election.   With IRV, expect six to twelve or more!  In Connecticut we can expect similar numbers for Senate races.  These numbers also add to the rounds and add to the frequency of recounting.
  • IRV will make recounting more complex and expensive. The order of voter preference will be critical – recounting an IRV race is straight-forward, but much more time consuming than recounting under the current voting system.

Recounting Is Not A Problem – Its A Symptom Of Election Integrity

CTVotersCount  does not share the concern with the time and cost of recounting.  In the overall scheme of things the expense of recounting is small compared to what is spent in running elections, what is spent on campaigns, and the billions at stake in the decisions and actions of a Senator.  Who cares if the winner is declared on Nov 4th or Jan 31st?   If its important that Minnesota have two Senators on Jan 6th.   Then its even more important that Minnesota have the voters choice as Senator for the six years after Jan 31st.

From the Examiner:

Minnesota and its reputation for good government have taken some hits from the Senate brouhaha. It’s too late to duck that punch or the ones we can expect in the weeks — and maybe months — yet to come. It’s not too late, though, to make sure we don’t get into this situation again.

It’s time for Minnesota to consider adopting IRV and preserve its tradition as a leader in electoral integrity and good governance.

The author has it all backwards.   Minnesota’s leadership in electoral integrity is why   manual recounts are required.  Looking objectively at the care taken with every aspect of the recount only enhances Minnesota’s reputation for good governance.

As A Cure, IRV May Be Worse Than The Problem

IRV sounds great.  We want a vibrant democracy.   Wouldn’t it be great if we could vote for our favorite candidate and still have our preference expressed in the result.   We could vote for Pat Buchannan, Ross Perot, Ralph Nadar, or Dennis Kucinich, yet still see Al Gore or Bob Dole elected President.  Who knows, perhaps in a few years we would have a third viable party.

I live in a condominim, IRV might be a very good way for us to elect directors.

How could anyone possibly object?    Consider that the cure may be worse than the disease:

  • IRV means a more complicated, huge ballot. Consider a ballot with an average of four candidates for each of five offices (similar to November in CT, with a few candidates added because of IRV).  Instead of five bubbles to fill in, a contentious voter would need to fill in fifteen bubbles (A ranking of three choices out of four for each of five races).   In a municipal election, voting for six out of say 18 candidates for town council, instead of 6 bubbles, we would fill in 17 bubbles – instead of 18 bubbles  on the ballot there would be 324 (18 x 18), for just this one race.   The ballot would be large, voting would take more time,  more knowledge, and more voter education.
  • IRV means more complicated and slower election accounting. For my condo or the local mayor’s race it may be worth it, its not that complicated.   How would we handle a state wide race for Senate with ten candidates?   We would have to know the order of votes on each ballot or have a count from each precinct of each possible combination (4,838,400 not including various combinations of over votes and under votes) – every vote would have to be maintained and accumulated electronically, votes that are counted by hand today would have to be input electronically as well.  Once again, this only considers the complexity added for just one race, the whole process is even more involved.
  • Recounting would be complex and time consuming. It would be straight-forward.   One way would be to count each round separately – each round costing about the same as the Minnesota recount.  Perhaps there is a way to speed it up?  Even to count all the 1st and 2nd choices of each voter in our ten candidate race would mean 10o possible combinations (10 x 9 + 10 more for votes for only one candidate)
  • Post-Election Audits would be more complex and time consuming. Once again, it would be straight-forward.
  • There would be pushes for more electronic voting, less recounting, less auditing. Pre-election testing would be less adequate, more complex, and more expensive.  The whole process of election integrity would be more difficult for election officials to comprehend and execute well.

So there we have it.   Instant Runoff Voting – a ready cure for many real election concerns – yet, risky, complex, and time consuming, quite likely causing more and greater problems than those it is intended to cure.

PS: Here in Connecticut there is no requirement for a hand recount.  From what we saw in the Courtney/Simmons 2006 recanvass, we question if hand counting votes here would result in the same level of scrutiny of each ballot and each rejected absentee ballot we have seen in Minnesota.  Would we come anywhere close to the detail and objectivity apparent in Minnesota?

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Update 3/23/2009:   Party Looks At Sample Ballot, Reverses Course On IRV <read>

“Anyone who could look at that and not think that the average voter is going to find that totally frustrating is totally out of touch with the average voter in the City of St. Paul,” Repke said.

On another flier distributed by IRV opponents: mucked-up ballots from the contest between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. During the Senate recount, goofy ballots such as one endorsing “€œflying spaghetti monster” got most of the attention. But much more common were routinely botched ballots in which a voter’s intent simply couldn’t be discerned because of unusual markings.

Thune believes IRV would only compound such problems and disenfranchise voters. “While this may seem like a wonderful thing in Cambridge for a bunch of Harvard professors, we’ve got a general population that has trouble filling out one oval in a Coleman-Franken race,” he says.