Instant Runoff Voting Means Touch Screen Tricks in North Carolina

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

If I were crazy, this is how I would count an instant runoff election.

And guess what, there are election officials in North Carolina willing to get a little crazy with our votes!

Messing up elections is "as easy as 1-2-3" with IRV.

Fads trump election transparency.
Since North Carolina passed its paper ballot law, its been harder to mess up the vote. So here comes Instant Runoff Voting, which is hardly transparent. NC tested IRV in 2007. This may get a test again in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Why bother working for verified voting when it gets undone so easily?

In 2007, 2 cities in North Carolina were allowed to have an Instant Runoff experiment. Since there is no federally approved software to count instant runoff voting, the NC State Board of Elections set up a "workaround" to help out Henderson County, NC, a touchscreen jurisdiction in the test. Luckily there was no "runoff" so the work around was not used that time. The pilot program expired but hungering for more disaster, our lawmakers voted to experiment again! In this case, a boutique-style election fad trumps election transparency.

Keep in mind that North Carolina's 20 plus touchscreen counties have the toilet paper ballot, the VVPAT does NOT print a summary but prints selections and deselections, and during early voting one machine may have 80-100 different ballot styles on it. Manual recounts or audits will be impossible.

Read the NC State Board of Elections' instructions for counting IRV in touchscreen counties if they had incurred an "instant runoff" . One single error would change the outcome of the election. (at the bottom of the page we state how this workaround likely is illegal):

To tabulate a runoff election follow these procedures:

1. Announce the two (2) candidates that are in the Instant Runoff. (Top two batch elimination style IRV)
2. Print document - Hendersonville IRV-Ballot Position Numbers.pdf to determine the voting positions for each candidate in the Instant Runoff.
3. Remove the "Compact Flash Cards" from the iVotronic voting devices in the City of Hendersonville precincts.
4. Capture the Election Data in ERM;
a. Clear Audit Data in ERM.
b. Import Compact Flash Audit Data
c. Collect Audit Data - From Specified Drive –
c:\elecdata\7GNCHEND\GNGFLASH\ADT.
d. Select machines from Armory Precinct only.
e. Consolidate Audit Data.
f. Create Vote Image Log.
g. Print Vote Image Log – Select Contest/Precinct, Numbers Only, Printer.
h. Select EL155 from the Report File Utility and click on Copy – Name the file IRV_Armory.txt and copy to a location that you can retrieve from (desktop, portable flash drive, etc).
i. Clear Audit Data in ERM.
j. Collect Audit Data - From Specified Drive –c:\elecdata\7GNCHEND\GNGFLASH\ADT.
k. Select machines from Southwest Precinct only.
l. Consolidate Audit Data.
m. Create Vote Image Log.
n. Print Vote Image Log – Select Contest/Precinct, Numbers Only, Printer.
o. Select EL155 from the Report File Utility and click on Copy – Name the file IRV_Southwest.txt and copy to a location that you can retrieve from (desktop, portable flash drive, etc).
p. Clear Audit Data in ERM.
q. Collect Audit Data - From Specified Drive –c:\elecdata\7GNCHEND\GNGFLASH\ADT.
r. Select machines from all remaining Hendersonville precinct machines.
s. Consolidate Audit Data.
t. Create Vote Image Log.
u. Print Vote Image Log – Select Contest/Precinct, Numbers Only, Printer.
v. Select EL155 from the Report File Utility and click on Copy – Name the file IRV_All and copy to a location that you can retrieve from (desktop, portable flash drive, etc).
5. Open a blank Excel Spreadsheet and import.
a. Change "files of type" to All Files - Select file IRV_Armory.txt to import – Click on OK.
b. Select Fixed width and click on Next.
c. Place separators at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50.
d. Press Next and then Finish. Save the Excel File with the name IRV_Armory.xls and a location that you can retrieve.
6. Open a blank Excel Spreadsheet and import.
a. Change "files of type" to All Files - Select file IRV_Southwest.txt to import – Click on OK.
b. Select Fixed width and click on Next.
c. Place separators at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50.
d. Press Next and then Finish. Save the Excel File with the name IRV_Southwest.xls and a location that you can retrieve.
7. Open a blank Excel Spreadsheet and import.
a. Change "files of type" to All Files - Select file IRV_All.txt to import –
Click on OK.
b. Select Fixed width and click on Next.
c. Place separators at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50.
d. Press Next and then Finish. Save the Excel File with the name
IRV_All.xls and a location that you can retrieve.
8. Open file Hendersonville IRV Tabulation Form.xls.
9. Open the Excel file that you created in Step 5d.
a. Delete Column B
b. Sort data on Column A
c. Delete all rows without machine numbers.
d. Highlight all the data for Armory Precinct and copy.
e. Copy the data into Hendersonville IRV Tabulation Form.xls in the RED Tab 1st-2nd Choice – click in Cell A9 and then copy.
f. Highlight the imported data (A9 to the end) and sort on Column B
g. Using the file created in Step 5d, highlight all the data for Southwest Precinct and copy.
h. Copy the data into Hendersonville IRV Tabulation Form.xls in the BLUE Tab 1st-2nd Choice – click in Cell A9 and then copy.
i. Highlight the imported data (A9 to the end) and sort on Column B
j. Using the file created in Step 5d, highlight all the data for all the other precincts in the City of Hendersonville (excluding Armory and Southwest) and copy.
k. Copy the data into Hendersonville IRV Tabulation Form.xls in the BLACK Tab 1st-2nd Choice – click in Cell A9 and then copy.
l. Highlight the imported data (A9 to the end) and sort on Column B.
10. Verify that the vote totals for the candidates match the ERM Report.
a. Click on Yellow Tab Grand Totals – Totals for each candidate should match the report on ERM.
b. Print copy of YELLOW Tab Grand Totals.
11. Click on BLACK Tab 3rd Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice.
a. Column B should already be sorted.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice (Voting positions 3 thru 7 – example: Caldwell=3, Caraker=4, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 3rd Choice but not a 1st or 2nd choice (Voting positions 13 thru 17).
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
12. Click on BLACK Tab 4th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 3rd Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 9e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 3rd Choice (Voting positions 13 thru 17 – example: Caldwell=13, Caraker=14, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 4th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice.
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
13. Click on BLACK Tab 5th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 4th Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 10e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 4th Choice (Voting positions 20 thru 24 – example: Caldwell=20, Caraker=21, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 5th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice.
14. Click on RED Tab 3rd Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice in Armory Precinct.
a. Column B should already be sorted.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice (Voting positions 16 thru 20 – example: Caldwell=16,
Caraker=17, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 3rd Choice but not a 1st or 2nd choice (Voting positions 26 thru 30).
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
15. Click on RED Tab 4th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 3rd Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 12e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 3rd Choice (Voting positions 26 thru 30 – example: Caldwell=26, Caraker=27, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 4th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice.
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
16. Click on RED Tab 5th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 4th Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 13e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 4th Choice (Voting positions 33 thru 37 – example: Caldwell=33, Caraker=34, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 5th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice.
17. Click on BLUE Tab 3rd Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice in Armory Precinct.
a. Column B should already be sorted.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 1st & 2nd Choice (Voting positions 11 thru 15 – example: Caldwell=11, Caraker=12, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 3rd Choice but not a 1st or 2nd choice (Voting positions 21 thru 25).
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
18. Click on BLUE Tab 4th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 3rd Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 15e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 3rd Choice (Voting positions 21 thru 25 – example: Caldwell=21, Caraker=22, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 4th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice.
e. Highlight the remaining data (A8 to the end) and copy.
19. Click on BLUE Tab 5th Choice – Remove all votes for Runoff candidates from 4th Choice.
a. Paste the data from Step 16e into cell 9a.
b. Highlight all rows that have a vote for the runoff candidates from 4th Choice (Voting positions 28 thru 32 – example: Caldwell=28,
Caraker=29, etc.).
c. Delete the selected rows.
d. The votes for the runoff candidates should now reflect the votes cast for the runoff candidates that were a 5th Choice but not a 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice.
20. Click on YELLOW Tab Grand Totals – The votes displayed in the grand totals for the Runoff Candidates should be the final results.

If you got this far, here are the problems with this:

1. This work around removes vote data from the ES&S Unity system to a system not tested with it - exporting data first to notepad/wordpad and then excell to tabulate the votes.

a. neither word pad, note pad or excell have been tested for their vote tabulation ability.
b. this process erases audit data as it progresses, excell doesn't have an audit trail, and some versions of excell have bugs.
c. it is not known what happens to the data as it is moved from the ES&S vote tabulation system to a non ES&S vote tabulation system.

2. All parts of the vote tabulation system must be federally tested together, to ensure they work together.

3. There are over 100 steps in the process, with instructions like "click on the red tab, or click on the blue tab". One single keystroke error would change the outcome of the election, and there is no audit trail for this process.

4. Audit data is deleted as steps are performed.

[kster]

1. I would take a lesson from the banks, the window is the neighborhood/polling place

the ballots wouldn't leave the polling place/window until they are hand counted,

The bank doesn't want you to leave the window before the money is hand counted, first by the teller, then by the customer, TWO HAND COUNTS, WHY?

Its all COMMON SENSE.

Use you SENSE people.

K&R

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. You cant count IRV at the polling place. read more

IRV is very hard to count: you can't calculate the winners by totaling up the IRV votes at the polling place. Instead, you have to consider each vote and whether it is going to "count" or not. IRV is not a totalling of the votes, but a sorting, shuffling and reallocation of the votes.

IRV is not additive. There is no such thing as a "subtotal" in IRV. In IRV every single vote may have to be sent individually to the central agency (1,000,000·N numbers, i.e. 1000 times more communication). If the central agency then computes the winner, and then some location sends a correction, that may require redoing almost the whole computation over again. There could easily be 100 such corrections and so you'd have to redo everything 100 times. Combine this scenario with a near-tie and legal and extra-legal battle like in Bush-Gore Florida 2000 over the validity of every vote, and this adds up to a complete nightmare for the election administrators.

[barbtries]

3. so what do i do?

i'm in NC, and i think there is actually a chance that obama can win this state, as long as the election is fair. i've attempted to volunteer for the state democratic party - noting that i was interested in being a poll watcher - and also on a page devoted to fair elections. i got a form email response from the latter page stating that i would be contacted soon - nada from the party.

the election's getting very close and i am alarmed. what can i do?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. The IRV "Pilots" are voluntary and for local elections

RIght now this is just a pilot. The promoters admit they want to spread it further.
Right now, it is voluntary and for city council, school board, mayor or county commissioners who agree to participate.

Just ask them not to do it. See www.ncvoter.net

There were only 2 cities that volunteered the first time, but a national group is trying to force
this on our entire state. They want to have us ranking 3 of everything for as many as 25 contests, but it doesn't have to happen.

They won't stop until people stand up to them.

Aside from the IRV experiments:

If you are in a touchscreen county, things could get rough if the count is close.
We saw in 2006 during the Kissell recount, they stopped in Mecklenburg County.
Those toilet paper ballots are awful.

You are left with the computer count.

Some counties have ditched their touchscreens, Chatham county just got rid of the last of theirs.

[Greyskye]

4. Gee, that *should* work

Check out the number of times "should" is used in the above instructions. "Should", "should be", "should now", "should match", etc.

Should is used fourteen freaking times in these instructions. My, they're certainly confident in this procedure. :sarcasm:

And now I've read the word "should" so many times, it doesn't even look like an English word anymore.

[MadrasT]

5. R-I-G-H-T

They have to be joking. I work in I.T., and if I came up with that mess as a standard operating procedure for our employees, I'd be laughed out of my boss's office. As soon as he was finished screaming at me.

Then I'd have to go back and come up with something bulletproof and idiot proof.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. Instant Runoff Voting isn't the culprit. The procedure is the problem, not IRV.

IRV is a way promote political pluralism without 3rd party and independent electoral runs having to act as spoilers. I think that's a good thing.

ES&S is known to build faulty machines no matter if used in a IRV election or not.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. Explain how IRV is counted please - in your own words

and also please tell us where IRV has helped any third party candidates.

Thank you.

[John Q. Citizen]

11. They can be totaled up lots of ways. By hand, mechanically, or electronically.

Just as any other ballot may be counted.

I can't name any 3rd party candidates who have been helped, but I imagine it could be very useful for a party that was seeking a certain percentage of the vote to qualify for permanent ballot status.

The ability to vote for a minor party without acting as a spoiler is crucial if we are ever to increase political pluralism in this country.

You know, everybody isn't red or blue, that's an illusion. It's a harmful illusion.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. I was hoping you would explain *how* you count IRV

Can you in your own words explain how IRV is counted.

I mean how the votes get re-allocated.

Please so others here can be educated.

[tbyg52]

9. I think IRV is a good idea in theory, but

from what I've seen lately, it looks like right now people are trying to use it to throw one more complication in the system and argue for continued electronic vote counting. I'm suspicious.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. Scotland had hand counted paper ballots until they adopted STV/IRV

in May 2007. Rebecca Mercuri warned that this would be a mistake, but
Non profits recommended computerized voting so that ballots could be counted quickly.

Hah.

Not so much an election as a national humiliation Scotland’s voters were treated with arrogance and contempt
Melanie Reid Times Online May 7, 2007 ...More than 100,000 people – around one in 20 of those who voted – had their ballot papers rejected in the election: a figure so scandalous that analogies with hanging chads don’t really begin to describe it. Their votes were rejected because the forms were too confusing for them (let’s leave aside the tiny minority who spoilt their papers as a form of political protest). What is now crystal clear is that the poorer and more ill-educated the voters were, the more likely they were to put the wrong marks in the wrong places, and unwittingly invalidate their forms.

The biggest poll debacle in the history of British democracy sees up to one in ten votes thrown out
JAMES KIRKUP The Scotsman
"SCOTLAND'S status as a modern democracy was dealt a grievous blow yesterday by a scandal in which up to one in ten votes in the Holyrood election were thrown in the bin uncounted.

In a development that could bring into question the legitimacy of the Scottish Parliament poll, as many as 100,000 ballot papers were spoiled. That averages out as one in 20 votes but in some seats a tenth of the papers were spoiled. In about one in six constituencies, the number of spoiled votes was bigger than the successful candidate's winning margin.

..."Huge numbers of people have cast two votes in one column and none in the other, rendering both votes void. The ballot paper says 'you have two votes' and it appears this is where the confusion may have been caused."

...Why were so many papers spoiled? Voters had to put two crosses on their Holyrood voting papers - one for their constituency and one for the regional list - but it appears many wrongly put two crosses in one section. Simultaneously staging the council elections, in which voters had to rank candidates, also caused confusion.

...Jennie, Inverness: "I have a degree in politics, yet it took me half an hour studying the leaflets to understand the STV system for local council elections. I have never seen anything more cumbersome in my life."

....more here http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/scotland.html

[tbyg52]

14. Yep. And then in September it happened again.

All kinds of voter confusion on the day.

All sorts of technical problems on the night and into the next morning.

And by the end of a long, long election night, 146,000 rejected ballots.

Exactly four months on from the Holyrood elections, a picture has emerged of an electoral 'perfect storm' where every element conspired to confuse.

There were two elections on the same day - one for Holyrood, the other for local councils.

Two different voting systems, one of them completely new. One new ballot paper, the other redesigned to replace two old ones.

Two crosses on one ballot paper, numbers on the other. And everything counted by machine instead of by hand.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6975348.stm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=481697&mesg_id=481715

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. a shame, wasn't it? They had a great system

and they could count their election by hand, in public in a matter of hours.

Their ballots are much simpler, but still - imagine being able to hand count an election
in a few hours.

No Diebold, no ES&S, no Sequoia etc.

They should have kept HCPB, and if they wanted to do IRV/STV, they should have toughed it out,
but IRV is much more complicated to count by hand if you have even just a few contests.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

13. IRV is designed to keep the top two parties in control - lots of history to prove this

No one can cite an example of IRV helping third parties because it doesn't help them.

Here is Australia, where IRV has been used for decades:


Australian Politics - in Australia, they call the ranked type voting for single contests - Preferential voting. The article says that:
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