Alert: Threat to NC's Election Integrity resurges, please read

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Alert: Threat to NC's Election Integrity resurges, please read

Fair Vote, a national organization, and Fair Vote NC are pushing hard to get groups in North Carolina to endorse Instant Runoff Voting, also called IRV. The NC Coalition for Verified Voting opposes this voting method for many reasons, documented below. Please share this with others.

NC Democrats will be discussing resolutions this week at "town halls" and voting on them at the NCDP state convention on June 21.

*If you are not a democrat, please read this anyway, because it will affect your elections regardless.

***IRV directly threatens NC's hard fought for Public Confidence in Elections Act, our law that requires paper ballots, audits and set strict standards for voting vendors. Our law would have to be gutted in order to weaken standards enough to allow for uncertified, untested voting software needed for IRV. Standards requiring vendor responsibility would also have to be removed. This would be a major reversal of our hard work.****

Other North Carolina voters and leaders oppose IRV because of voter confusion and also because it is so difficult to count:

Eugene Weeks, Chair of the Wake Voter Education Coalition says: "We feel that IRV will disenfranchise certain segments of voters-especially the challenged and impaired voters. The ballot that is being used now is already confusing to some voters, yet you want to antagonize and confuse the voters more by asking them to not only vote for one candidate, but indicate a second and third choice before leaving the voting booth. Where is the voter's rights in this process?"

Janice Sears of Wake County said: "If the best board of elections in North Carolina had this much trouble counting 3,000 votes, this is too dangerous to try statewide....The claim that 'voters like it' does not impress me because whether they like it or not has nothing to do with whether it is an accurate and effective way to conduct an election and count votes"

A Hendersonville voter said "It doesn't make any sense I call it instant confusion."

Rueben Blackwell, Rocky Mount City Council Member and co-chair for the NC Justice Center advised that: "To cast out an instant runoff speculative experiment in communities that have had historic voting rights violations issues is absolutely wrong…"

Is IRV worth the damage to our verified voting law, is it worth the expense, the voter confusion? In San Francisco, the largest IRV jurisdiction in the US, in 20 contests the results were the same as if a plurality contest were held. In other words, the final winners were still the candidates with the most votes in the first round of voting. So all of this complicated maneuvering still didn't change anything.

Does IRV Improve Elections?

* DOES IRV SAVE MONEY? NO. IRV would require new voting machines, more expensive programming, additional voter education, and increased ballot printing expenditures. Candidates would need to spend time and money educating voters

* CAN NC'S VOTING MACHINES COUNT IRV? NO. According to the State Board of Elections Voting Systems Manager Keith Long, "There are no provisions on ES&S equipment to tabulate IRV." Cary, NC had to manually tally the IRV election. One small error cascaded into a miscount that had to be corrected at another date.

* DOES IRV INCREASE TURNOUT? NO. San Francisco, the largest IRV jurisdiction in the US, saw turnout drop by 100,000 voters in the 2007 IRV mayoral election compared to the traditional mayoral runoff in 2003.

* DOES IRV PROVIDE A MAJORITY WINNER? NO. In Cary, the winner of an "instant runoff" in the District B Town Council contest took office with less than 40 % of the first-choice votes cast, and less than 50 % of the votes of people who showed up on Election Day. In the 20 IRV elections in San Francisco held since adopting IRV, any elections going into a "runoff" were won with less than a majority.

* DOES IRV CREATE CHAOS? YES.
Some voters in the Cary IRV experiment ranked the same candidate more than once. Some came to the polls facing an unfamiliar voting method. Some did not rank choices.

1. If you are a registered democrat, please contact your county and district party chairman ASAP, ask them encourage the delegates attending the State Convention (June 21) to vote YES for the Resolution OPPOSING Instant Runoff Voting.

County Party Chairman:
District Party Chairman:

2. Speak up at one of the town hall meetings this week.

The North Carolina Democratic Party Resolutions and Platforms Committee has 2 Town Hall meetings this week, one in Raleigh this Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - 7:00pm, the other in Greensboro on Thursday, June 12, 2008 both at their county party headquarters. The meetings are open and the Committee invites participation from all Democrats as they review and consider the Committee's recommendations to the State Convention. You can encourage discussion about the Instant Runoff Resolutions being considered for a vote at the state convention.

Vote YES for Resolution Opposing Instant Runoff Voting: The 2nd and 13th districts have passed resolutions in opposition to Instant Runoff Voting(IRV) because of it endangers the Public Confidence in Elections Act that we worked so hard for and that passed in August 2005.

Vote NO for Resolution Supporting Instant Runoff Voting: The 11th district Dems have passed a resolution in favor of Instant Runoff Voting.

Delegates will be attending the NCDP State Convention this Saturday, June 21st at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center, 203 S. Front St., New Bern, 28563 at 10:30 am.

Support the resolution OPPOSING Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

Resolution to restore Election Integrity by Opposing Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)

WHEREAS, supporters of Instant Runoff Voting (hereinafter "IRV"), a form of Ranked Choice Voting (hereinafter "RCV"), succeeded in getting an IRV pilot program passed in 2006, allowing IRV to be used in up to 10 municipal elections in 2007 and up to 10 county elections in 2008, and that said law further requiring that the State Board of Elections set up closely monitor the program and report on the results to the General Assembly;

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the North Carolina Democratic Party and elected and appointed Democratic officials urge the North Carolina General Assembly not to extend the IRV pilot project beyond 2008, and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the North Carolina Democratic Party and elected and appointed Democratic officials urge the North Carolina General Assembly hereby withhold any further endorsement of IRV and oppose IRV because it has endangered Public Confidence in Elections in North Carolina.

3. Ask your non political group or organizations to adopt their own resolution opposing Instant Runoff Voting and share that with the NC Coalition for Verified Voting, via [e-mail]

For more information please read Jan 14, 2008 Point of View: Worrisome realities mar instant runoff voting

Learn more about IRV in North Carolina at http://www.ncvoter.net/irv.html and also at
http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us

The North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting is a grassroots non-partisan organization fighting for clean and verified elections. NCCVV has consistently fought for increasing access, participation and ensuring the voter franchise. For more information contact Joyce McCloy, Coordinator, N.C. Coalition for Verifiable Voting, via email at [e-mail] website www.ncvoter.net

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. "IRV" does not help or aid ballot access, it takes legislation to get access

The OP is about the harm "instant runoff voting" does to election integrity and
transparency.

Your complaint about ballot access is aimed at the wrong party, the State Board of Elections is an administrative branch of govt, and does NOT make the laws.

If you do not like the ballot access laws, then you need to persuade lawmakers to change the laws.

As for IRV:

instant runoff voting actually stifles third parties, has coincided with greatly decreased turnout in San Francisco, and requires more complex technology. It isn't simple to count, simple to audit or simple to recount.

With IRV, whoever gets the most votes - wins, usually whoever gets the most
votes in the first round ends up winning even after the mechanics and rigamarole
of "counting" the 2nd and 3rd rounds. So it doesn't help third parties.
http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/majority.html

Countries that have long used a form of ranked choice voting find that the two parties
have a monopoly on the power.

See Australian Politics - the "Disadvantages of the Preferential System"... promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents.

http://australianpolitics.com/elections/features/preferential.shtml

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

3. Oh and welcome to Democratic Underground

hope you enjoy it here.

[SaveAmerica]

4. Did you post this at other NC Dem blogs/web pages? I printed it and will

give it to someone going to the convention to get the word out. Thanks for your hard work with NC voting.