Pro instant runoff voting group shows how much they care about fair elections

The Chairman of FairVote took a swipe at the verified voting movement in his defense of instant runoff voting in the comment section of an MYNC news article. See Second Primaries In NC Costing Millions RALEIGH, N.C. May. 18. The comments section soon became a free-for-all, with North Carolinians and a Burlington VT citizen taking on FV chair and others to debunk pro IRV talking points.

Here is one of the comments posted by FairVote Chairman & former Nirvana band member KristNovoselic.

Whats with this "election security movement" bit? Or the joke about conspiracy?
Verified Voting, public observation of vote counts, chain of custody, audits, standards for voting systems, this is all a big joke to you? Its all just a conspiracy?

Don't try to peddle that to the folks in Carteret County where 4, 400 votes were lost in the 2004 General Election.
Don't pitch that to the voters in Sarasota Florida when there were 18,000 undervotes in the FL 13 congressional race.

It is a really really bad idea to belittle the verified voting movement in North Carolina. Folks from around the state worked hard for this law, we care about this law, and we continue to protect it today. And we will fight the outside interest money being used to eat away at the Public Confidence in Elections Law.

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NC Law: Public hearing required before participation in NC's instant runoff voting pilot

In 2009, legislation was passed to ensure that citizens had a say in whether their city participated in the Instant Runoff Voting Pilot Program. This was to remedy an oversight. Previously, city officials and county Board of Elections could volunteer for this voting method without seeking public input.

In 2007, the cities of Cary and Hendersonville NC volunteered and participated in IRV, without public input. Then in 2009, only Hendersonville chose to use instant runoff voting again, and as before, did not seek public input. Cary NC's city council did provide the public a chance to comment, and subsequently abandoned the use of IRV.

Here is the section of law pertaining to requirement for at least one public hearing:

Session Law 2009-541 SL2009-0541

SECTION 30.(a) Section 3(a) of S.L. 2008-150 reads as rewritten:
"SECTION 3.(a) The State Board of Elections is authorized to select elections for offices of local government in which to use instant runoff voting in up to 10 local jurisdictions in each of the following years: 2009, 2010, and 2011.

The selection of jurisdictions and administration of instant runoff voting shall follow the provisions of Section 1(a) of Session Law 2006-192, except that the local governing board that is the subject of the election must approve participation in the pilot and must hold at least one public hearing on the pilot before approving it, with notice of the hearing published at least 10 days before the hearing. The local governing board also must agree to cooperate with the county board of elections and the Board in the development and implementation of a plan to educate candidates and voters about how to use the runoff voting method. In a multiseat contest, the Board shall modify the method used for instant runoff voting in single-seat contests to apply its essential principles suitably to that election. In the case of a board of education election where the "local governing board" must be asked to authorize instant runoff voting because nonpartisan plurality elections are normally used, the "local governing board" is the board of education itself. If instant runoff voting is used in place of the nonpartisan election and runoff method as described in G.S. 163-293, the county board of elections, with the approval of the local governing board, may hold the election on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The State Board of Elections, in consultation with the School of Government at the University of North Carolina, shall by January 1, 2009, develop for the pilot program authorized in this section goals, standards consistent with general election law, and criteria for implementation and evaluation. The pilot program shall be conducted according to those goals, standards, and criteria. The term "ranked choice voting" shall have the same meaning as, and may be used as a substitute for, the term "instant runoff voting" in describing the pilot."

SECTION 30.(b) This section is effective when it becomes law. The requirement for holding a public hearing applies only to primaries and elections held on and after January 1, 2010, but a local governing board may give notice of and conduct a public hearing to satisfy the requirement before January 1, 2010

Session law 2009-541 [pdf]

SL2009-541 [HTML]

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Chuck Herrin certified white hat hacker talks to NC lawmakers about Instant Runoff Voting

Chuck Herrin, a certified white hat hacker and IT certification specialist warned North Carolina lawmakers about the inability of today's technology to handle instant runoff voting or even just plain elections. He compared IRV to the "flying car".

Some background on why Chuck's testimony about instant runoff voting was necessary:
During 2004 North Carolina was considering legislation for paper ballots. FairVote came along and tried to insert instant runoff voting requirements in the bill. NC would not be able to adopt a new paper ballot system until or unless FairVote's demands were met. Here we have Chuck Herrin explaining why the IRV amendment should be removed from NC's paper ballot law. FairVote's selfish amendment could very well have killed our paper ballot bill or else made it impossible for us to implement it.

Fri, 31 Dec 2004

Dear Representatives and Committee Members, I look forward to speaking to you on January 7th on the security and audit issues of electronic voting systems. I would like to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to hear what your constituents and fellow North Carolinians have to say.

I am planning to speak briefly on Industry Standards for Information Security, Auditing, and demonstrate how to change vote totals on a running instance of Diebold's GEMS software, which is the software used to tabulate vote data from DREs as well as optically-scanned and absentee ballots. This is the software that was recently highlighted in Gaston County when the problems with vote numbers surfaced, leading to the resignation of Sandra Page after 15 years of service.

In preparation for the next meeting, I have included a link to a recent discussion of electronic voting by some of my Infosec colleagues from May of 2004 that you may find interesting. Topics include instant-runoff voting, paper trails, and communication with state officials and the public.
http://www.cs.may.ie/~mmcgaley/Download/e-voting-6-04_british.pdf

I have also included a link to the main site for the Common Criteria, which is the international standard used for building appropriately secure systems.
http://csrc.nist.gov/cc/

One other issue I wanted to touch base with you on is Instant Runoff Voting. I think that IRV is a fabulous goal, long term. It stands to greatly reduce runoff costs and other problems once we have systems that can reliably handle it. The problem right now is that our electronic voting systems cannot reliably count straight races, and even the DRE manufacturers have said that they are not ready for IRV. Complicating things, IRV introduces a more confusing system in terms of audit ability and security, since the ballots are more complex and normal indicators such as exit polls will not be able to easily reflect IRV results. Tracing back the will of the voter in the event of problems or fraud would be more difficult with IRV until a reliable procedure and design is in place, and any abuses are much less likely to be detected since the whole point of the IRV system is avoiding recounts. That's not to say that it can't be done, just that it is extremely important to get it right the first time, with proper design and certification.

Instant Runoff Voting is a great goal for us to work toward, but if we need to get a system in place for 2006 and 2008, IRV is not logistically viable. For IRV to work, we need systems that are trustworthy and reliable, and that takes more time and money than we have available before the next election. An analogy I use for IRV is the flying car - definitely possible, and a great idea, but right now we won't get there by strapping a missile to a Yugo. Would it fly? Sure - but I don't think it's what we want to rely on for safe and reliable transportation.

I would be happy to work with you towards IRV as a long-term goal, as I think it has merit as a long-term solution when properly designed and tested. I look forward to seeing all of you on the 7th, and if there is any information that you would like for me to address, please let me know!

Regards,Chuck Herrin,
CISSP, CISA, MCSE, CEHAll
outgoing correspondence is digitally signed.
Lack of a valid signature indicates possible forgery.
My public key is available at
http://www.chuckherrin.com/ChuckHerrin.asc

Is an Instant Runoff Voting winner a consensus winner or a poor compromise?

With instant runoff voting, the promise is that if there is no majority winner in the first round, that IRV will pick a "compromise" winner that more voters will (sorta) like. The idea behind IRV is that if there's no majority winner in the first round that more voters will be happy if a compromise winner is elected. Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But the reality is much different.

Now, how did this guy get elected? June 10, 2007 San Francisco...So, how did it come to pass that the city's newest supervisor, Ed Jew, apparently did not even live in the Sunset District and was the choice of just 5,125 (or 26.2 percent) of voters? And the FBI is looking into what this "citizen politician" was doing with $40,000 in cash from tapioca-shop owners who had sought his help with city permits...

2 out of 3 Pierce County RCV "winners" don't have a true majority December 7, 2008 ...This is the big problem with people claiming IRV ensures a majority win in one election instead of two. if you don't have enough vote to get a majority win in the 1st column, all you are ever going to have is a larger plurality win...

Burlington Instant Runoff Election riddled with pathologies March 15, 2009 Burlington.The instant runoff election in Burlington,Vermont suffered from nearly every pathology in the book...Instant runoff voting helped Burlington incumbent Bob Kiss win by getting the most 3rd choice votes. Opponent Kurt Wright had the most 1st and 2nd choice votes but lost the election



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The charm of instant runoff voting wears off

Instant runoff voting ditch list continues to grow as the reality of IRV is revealed and the pro IRV talking points discredited.

Burlington Vermont voters voted to repeal Instant Runoff Voting on March 2, 2010. http://goo.gl/fb/B2jQ A vote of no confidence for this boutique style voting.

The Burlington "repeal irv blog" said this about the decision : "Being charmed by it (IRV) ideologically is quite different from experiencing how it twists the results of an election. http://repealirv.blogspot.com/2010/03/irv-repealed.html

Marginal mayhem- Instant runoff voting results baffle UVA students
March 3, 2010. University of Virginia students were confused by the results of recent instant runoff voting election for student body. Strangely enough, the candidate with the most 1st and 2nd choice votes lost. Even the winner of the UVA's IRV election didn't understand the results.
http://bit.ly/9Tjz2o

The list of places that have rejected instant runoff voting grows as the reality of IRV sinks in:
Aspen Colorado, Cary North Carolina, Pierce County Washington, Burlington Vermont, the Utah Republican Party and even Georgetown University. San Francisco may be next as people get fed up and even now a lawsuit has been filed.
http://bit.ly/c6rzPt


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BURLINGTON - 'KISS' INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING GOODBY

Burlington voters voted to ditch IRV today. The measure to repeal instant runoff voting won by a healthy 4% margin. This is a case of a David verses Goliath, grassroots activism verses well funded out of state interests. Congratulations to the grassroots activists.

Sandy Baird on @Ch_17 re: IRV. "I'm perfectly happy with the time tested system, and I'm perfectly happy we're back to it."

The grassroots message was "KEEP VOTING SIMPLE - VOTE YES TO REPEAL IRV" . Because one thing IRV does is make voting more complex and the results can bizarre.


Here are the election results:

Channel 17's Coverage

BALLOT QUESTIONS: ALL TOWNS
BURLINGTON - All Wards Reporting

5. Charter Change to Eliminate Instant Runoff Voting for Election of
Mayor

YES 3972 52%
NO 3669
TOTAL 7641

Some background:

My Turn: If Bob Kiss is for IRV, I'm against it
Burlington's municipal household is in horrible disarray. The pie-in-the-sky hallucination called Burlington Telecom is turning into a shambles of misgovernment, while for all we know, plans for the Moran plant and the northern section of the waterfront may be heading in the same direction. Let the spring cleaning begin.

People will tell the politicians how we want to vote! This is a citizen initiative and we have the power.

It's a funny business I've only within the last year changed my mind about IRV. My distaste for the whole IRV process began when I was still the Ward 6 Election Clerk

Avoid a Tampering of Ballots on March 2: Vote in your Ward! Don't vote at City Hall or by Absentee! The ballots are stored at City Hall and can be opened and changed!

Burlington instant runoff voting:-If you didn't vote for Kiss or Wright, then you didn't vote??Say what? (with video) "Repeal IRV" Blog says that even the instant runoff voting experts admit some votes just don't count...

Burlington - Instant Runoff Voting Interviews (fascinating video)Voters who supported implementing IRV have changed their minds.


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Instant runoff voting in the US is nothing like IRV or STV in Australian or Ireland

Will using Instant Runoff Voting for the Oscars help spread IRV in the US? Anthony Green hopes that using instant runoff voting to decide the Oscars will. Green, who writes about Australian elections, has this blog out Introducing the 2-Film Preferred Vote

"News has been passed on to me of a major advance in spreading the benefits of preferential voting to the rest of the world....The voting system for the Oscars may give some attention to the push for preferential voting in the United States, or as they call it stateside, the Instant Run-off Vote (IRV)."

But you just can't compare US elections to Australian or Ireland's elections. IRV combined with US voting systems is very complex. Our system would have to be completely changed from top to bottom to be like Australia's election system.

US ballots are not like Australian or Irish Ballots. The Australian or Irish ballot typically has a single contest on it, and voters mark a paper ballot with a pen. Then the ballots are sorted and counted by hand, under observation of the public. Ireland only uses IRV to elect their President, a ceremonial office, and elections are held only every 7 years. Sometimes there is no contest because there is no challenger. Again, there's only one contest on a single ballot and Ireland hand counts their ballots.

Administering and tallying the vote is complex - IRV isn't additive and the ballots can't just be simply tallied at the polls but have to be centrally counted.

In the US, it is much different. A typical San Francisco IRV ballot will have 2-3 pages and several contests (not just one) just for a municipal election.
This creates an information demand on the voters and an administrative demand on the voting systems. SF also uses computers to tally IRV and this casts additional doubt over the outcome of the election. IRV has been a challenge to tally in San Francisco, Aspen CO and Pierce County Washington. In Cary North Carolina, officials couldn't count just 3,000 ballots correctly by hand.

IRV in the US is restricted, it isn't like in Australia where all choices have to be ranked by the voters. There's a lawsuit right now to stop SF from using what is called "restrictive IRV", where San Francisco restricts voters to ranking only 3 choices per contest even if there are a dozen or more candidates.

The restriction often causes majority failure: many ballots are exhausted long before the end of the contest and it also explains why SF had to redefine exactly what a majority was.

Before IRV in San Francisco, a majority was 50% + 1 ballots, but with IRV it is 50% of "votes" that are left after all others are eliminated.

IRV has basically entrenched the two party monopoly and third parties only survive if they were already strong before IRV was implemented. Burlington Vt was electing third party candidates long before IRV was introduced there. But citizens there are going to vote on repealing IRV soon.
Instant runoff voting is embraced based on the talking points, and rejected based on the realities: Aspen CO ditched IRV, Cary NC ditched IRV, and Pierce County WA ditched IRV. Burlington VT voters will soon decide whether to repeal IRV or not.

In the US, we can't count plain old vanilla elections accurately or honestly, and adding complexity to the ballot just makes things even worse.

IRV just isn't practical, at least not in the US.

February 5, 2010 Group sues to stop instant runoff elections in San Francisco, hearing 3-12

February 6, 2010 Vote YES on question #5 Want to repeal IRV? Then vote YES! on March 2, 2010. Let's keep voting simple. Repeal IRV is a non-partisan citizens group based in Burlington, Vermont

NOV 3 INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING LOSSES - THEY TRIED IT THEY DIDN'T LIKE IT
MOVING TO DITCH. BURLINGTON VT to decide at the polls on March 2, 2010...
DITCHED ON NOV 3, 2009. ASPEN COLORADO...
Aspen Election Review May 5 2009 IRV single ballot audit unit
DITCHED ON NOV 3, 2009. PIERCE COUNTY WASHINGTON Majority of Pierce County voters reject Instant Runoff Voting on Nov 3

DITCHED. BRITISH COLUMBIA (2ND TIME) 61% of the voters gave a thumbs down for STV, Single Transferrable Vote, a ranking method in British Columbia. May 12, 2009.

DITCHED. CARY NORTH CAROLINA Cary North Carolina rejected a second go at IRV, voted to keep current election method WRAL News Apr. 30 2009 Cary NC tries IRV, then says ‘no more’

DITCHED. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY. February 21, 2009
February 21, 2009 Georgetown University ditches Instant Runoff Voting - cites problems The Hoya and No IRV in NC Blog

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