BradBlog: 'Instant Runoff Voting' (IRV) Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

If you care about election transparency, if you are sick of rigged elections, then read this.

Blogged by Brad Friedman on 6/2/2009 1:38PM

'Instant Runoff Voting' (IRV) Election Virus Spreads to Los Angeles County

Joins 'Internet Voting' and 'Vote-by-Mail' schemes as the latest bad ideas poised to further cripple American democracy
PLUS: IRV count fails in Aspen's first instant runoff election...

Gautum Dutta, of the Democratic-leaning Asian American Action Fund blog notes a recent L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting which "discussed a study on the cost of special elections and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)" ...

While speaking to the Board of Supervisors, Registrar Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan testified how low voter turnout and high costs have plagued our special elections. Logan urged the County to seriously consider anything that would reduce voter fatigue and save money.

In the past two years alone, $9.3 million of taxpayer dollars have been spent on special elections. Of that amount, over $3.6 million dollars were spent on special runoff elections (counting the upcoming July 14 runoff in CA’s 32nd Congressional District).

If IRV had been used instead of special runoff elections, taxpayers could have saved up to $3.6 million.

Note to Messrs. Dutta and Logan: Taxpayers could save even more money if we simply allow you two to just decide for us who gets elected!

As Logan, chief election official of the nation's largest voting jurisdiction (larger than 43 states combined) has had more than enough problems with the current voting system which can't even add one plus one plus one accurately, such that it is virtually impossible for anybody to verify the accuracy of results, the last thing this county needs is to complicate the math even further by confusing matters with IRV's complicate scheme of ranked choice voting where voters are asked to select a first and second place choices, etc.

For that matter, unless, and until, we can simplify our election procedures such that any and all citizens are able to oversee and verify the accuracy of their election results, no jurisdiction in this country should employ schemes like IRV, no matter how well-meaning supporters of it may be in hoping to allow a broader range of candidates and parties to have a shot at winning an election.

... more at the link - including Aspen's recent IRV meltdown

please thank Brad over at his blog for covering this important issue. DREs and paperless voting aren't the only risky election schemes.
There's a new "bad idea for election reform" born every day. Please forward this blog to others concerned with election protection.

[EFerrari]

1. There has been a push for IRV in L.A. County for years. The last ten that I know of.

It's much bigger there than actual election reform.

[drmeow]

2. I'm not up on the IRV issue

could you clarify why I should be against it if I'm tired of rigged elections and care about election transparency?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. if you are against rigged elections, then read what Dr. Rebecca Mercuri said about IRV

Instant Runoff Voting as Addressed by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri. April 10, 2007
Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, whose testimony to the NC State Legislature was influential to passing our Public Confidence in Elections Law - has serious concerns about IRV. With her permission I post them here:

"IRV and other proportional balloting methods have been proven to incentivize the introduction of electronic ballot tabulation in places where none previously was needed or has existed, and they further complicate whathas become an increasingly closed process for the determination of election results.

For example, in May, Scotland will see their first use of a run-off style election, accompanied by their first use of optical ballot scanners. Here in the USA, where voting system vendors are allowed to sell products that are encumbered by trade secrecy such that the examination of their tabulation software is precluded, there is a growing list of instances where straight-forward vote calculations have been discovered to have been mis-programmed, following the election. One of the most horrendous of these caused the tabulator to begin counting backwards (deducting votes) when a numeric overflow was reached.

Other such mistakes have involved switching votes from one candidate or party to another. There is no way to determine the extent that undetected programming mistakes have affected election results, because audits have not been required and many of the voting systems lack any way to perform an independent audit.

Since the program code that controls the voting system cannot be reviewed, election officials have had to resort to the use of logic and accuracy testing prior to each election, in order to attempt to ascertain whether or not the balloting and tabulation equipment is functioning properly. Unfortunately, this testing typically cannot exercise all of the selection combinations that are possible, on all machines, for each election, even using the traditional vote choice method. The problem of creating a sufficiently large and varied test ballot set that is capable of
revealing whether the calculations have been programmed properly for the election, is further exacerbated when compounded with run-off methods of voting.

It is incumbent upon election officials to be able to thoroughly understand how results will be calculated, such that manual recounts and audits are possible, when mandated. These processes also become increasingly difficult and more time consuming when run-off methods are employed, so the chance that errors in the electronic or manual vote calculations will be detected and properly resolved is necessarily reduced.

Furthermore, there are certain run-off methods that can produce different results based on the organization of ballots in the stack.

Since these methods lend themselves to potential "gaming" of the ballot set that may not be independently detectable or auditable, these run-off styles must be prohibited. The present climate of distrust regarding election integrity will only be further undermined by skepticism invoked by increased complexity of alternative balloting methods, especially if the vendors are allowed to continue to obfuscate their vote tabulation products."

www.notablesoftware.com

http://www.ncvoter.net/downloads/Dr_Rebecca_Mercuri_Instant_Runoff_Voting.pdf

[drmeow]

8. So it sounds like its not the

IRV itself that is a problem but the way the votes are counted - IRV votes are difficult to tabulate so people resort to counting methods which can lead to greater election fraud?

How do other countries which use IRV handle some of these issues (Australia, for example)? Do you know?

Personally I like the idea of being able to rank candidates rather than having a forced choice but I am also concerned about election fraud. Are there alternatives or ways to make IRV more transparent or "safer"?

[dpbrown]

3. Is this sarcasm? IRV is already the law in the nation of Australia, and it's cheap and easy...

Nothing would ensure more Democratic victories in a political landscape where the majority is "center left" than a move to IRV. No more elections would be split between the left and the uber-left.

We need IRV now.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. IRV is not easy, its very complex & 98% of AU voters don't really use STV

Australia has a population of 21,007,310 but STV is used for its senate, not for its lower house, and 98% of all voters for the Australian senate don't really use STV, they simply mark an "X" in what is called an "above-the-line" vote that accepts the list or "ticket" filed by the voter's preferred party. Why hasn't the Australian lower house adopted STV since Australians are presumably familiar with the system? Australia has 6 states and two territories. Why have 5 of Australia's states refused to adopt STV?

http://www.nostv.org/world.html

Background on STV where it is actually used
Australian Senate (ticket voting above the line)
http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/SenateUseOfGvtByState-13745.htm

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. IRV cost Scotland money for voting machines

IRV is expensive to implement and administer:

There is the cost of the new machines, software, procedural and policy changes, training, and voter education. While several jurisdictions have adopted IRV, they have not implimented it because their voting machines cannot accommodate the vote counting method.

Here are just two examples from fiscal analysis done by 2 diff state legislatures

MAINE. Lawmakers pushed IRV in Maine for awhile, but efforts stalled over implementation costs . Maine would have had to purchase voting machines for jurisdictions that still hand count their ballots and second and third choice votes would have to be carried away from the polling place and counted at central locations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARYLAND. Maryland's lawmakers have repeatedly proposed and failed to pass IRV legislation. An examination of the fiscal analysis for the last two bills introduced (SB 292 and HB 1502) indicates that IRV would require enormous start up costs and increased election administration costs. General fund expenditures would be expected to increase by approx $11.1 million in the year 2008.

The MD legislature estimated that costs could be as high as $3.50 per registered voter in their 2006 IRV legislation, and a little less in the 2008 bill which did not include the cost of software which could not be estimated. The MD legislature defeated IRV bills in 2001, 2006 and 2008.

http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/costs.html

READ HERE ABOUT THE COST IN VOTER CONFUSION:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. IRV'S Cost in Voter Confusion: 100,000 spoiled ballots in Scotland in 2007

"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.

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