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?
I find it hard to believe that these machines couldn’t be programmed to count “ranked” votes. Let’s say that there are three candidates for Mayor — can the machines really not make a report that looks like:
OFFICE 10
MAYOR – FIRST CHOICE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LUTHER W 150
SUSAN B 170
MICHAEL K 160
BLANK 10
OFFICE 15
MAYOR – SECOND CHOICE
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
OF LUTHER W
SUSAN B 60
MICHAEL K 80
BLANK 10
OF SUSAN B
LUTHER W 130
MICHAEL K 35
BLANK 5
OF MICHAEL K
LUTHER W 90
SUSAN B 40
BLANK 30
Now, cross-endorsements and each additional candidate over 3 would make the report much longer, but these machines aren’t abacuses for chrissakes!
The plurality thing is interesting, but the statute seems to let municipalities pass laws to change the standards for non-state offices:
@Mattw,
I have emailed the Secretary of the State’s Office and Press Secretary for information to back up the Secretary’s statements.
Its possible that the AccuVote-OS could be programmed to report as you describe, but unless its already in the firmware, it means that Dominion would have to reprogram it and pass Federal and State Certification. It maybe legally more complex than it seems on 1st blush since there are a lot of little items to be handled precisely that may be subject to debate and variation in each state (or municipality where not specified by state law), such as: What if somebody votes for one candidate twice, skips a level, votes twice at the same level etc. – each moderately easy to program and test, yet all the nuances must be consistent and agreed to state by state.
On the other hand, the report might get quickly out of hand. One of the purported benefits of IRV would be a significant increase in the number of candidates running. With your example of just three candidates in a vote for one office the tape print for the office has gone up by a factor of four. For four candidates, the second level would have four entries, the third level would have twelve entries.