RCV advice for Portland, ME

A charter commission in Portland, ME is no doubt getting advice from all sides regarding their proposal to elect a mayor, possible using RCV. I wrote to convey some of the things to watch out for, with advice on how to proceed should they enact RCV. They will have to decide for themselves of course; my letter is only to inform.

UPDATE: One thing this letter does not clarify is that while spoiled ballots might represent a voter education issue, they do not adversely impact the tally. In fact, the more overvotes and duplicate votes the scanners catch, the higher the spoil rate will be. Yet voter intent will be better represented in the end. My intent here is only to emphasize the need for voter education with RCV. Also, overvotes and duplicate votes found on cast ballots will not necessarily all have the effect of denying a reading of the voters' intent. In some cases the voters' valid higher rank choices count toward a winning candidate and the lower marks are never examined.

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Hello Portland Charter Commission,

To introduce myself, I am a resident of Massachusetts with some familiarity with election administration and election methods. Currently I serve as Chairman of the Board of Registrars of Voters in Haverhill, Massachusetts. However, this communication represents no official position of the Board. I have studied various election methods and have presented lectures on election methods through Northern Essex Community College, a local institution. In the past I have supported local RCV/IRV efforts. For example, the Massachusetts state HAVA plan contains a clause contributed by me, stating that the state will “develop voting system standards requiring, as part of certification process, that the system demonstrate the ability to support a representative set of possible future ballot procedure changes, including instant runoff voting, as feasible, with an upgrade cost that is substantially less than the cost of complete system replacement”. More recently my familiarity with the experience of some cities has persuaded me that the problems posed by RCV are more serious than I initially believed. In this letter I would like to provide information regarding just a few points.

I recently wrote a blog article addressing the question of voter difficulties using RCV ballots, "Valid ballot – What does it mean for IRV?" ^[1]. A few excerpts:

IRV is sometimes criticized as being too complicated for voters to understand. To prove that this is not a problem, proponents like to point out that the percentages of invalid ballots for IRV elections are usually low, usually between 0% and 1%. So what does it mean to have an invalid ballot in an IRV election?

Strictly speaking, the answer lies in the rules for each locality. However, it is common for a valid IRV ballot to be judged effectively by one rule: there must be no overvote in the first ranking of each race.

...

Overall, about 316 Aspen voters (168 + 148) had some kind of trouble with a ballot, 12.4% of them. It would be more useful to look at those statistics, rather than just say that only 23 ballots were invalid. We need to look at a more complete picture when assessing how well IRV is working for the voters.

For brevity I have left out details here, but the entire article may be found at the URL below. The spoiled ballot rate for Aspen was 6.6%, much higher than usual. Still, 5.8% of the ballots came through with overvote and duplicate vote errors, which potentially cause some marks to not be counted. Voter intent is lost, because vote marks after the overvotes and duplicates are ignored. Yet these ballots are still declared "valid".

Aspen hired a consultant to scan and machine tally their May 2009 IRV election, nearly doubling the cost of the election. The election day tally was later found to be in error, but only after the election had been certified ^[2]. Aspen is quite likely to become the next jurisdiction to drop IRV, this November. There is ongoing litigation against the city to obtain ballot images for an audit. Also the local District Attorney is investigating many issues including legality of the new election rules and poor execution of the election last year. In 2007 Aspen voters voted simply for "IRV", but the details of the actually enacted election rules were more complicated and problematic.

In Minneapolis about 4.1% of the voters spoiled ballots (1888/45968). Again that would be quite high for a regular election, but it seems typical for RCV. In addition, 6.4% of the cast ballots (2958/45968) had some kind of error. I have communicated to FairVote members that this represents a stark contrast to their repeated claims that Minneapolis had only 1 invalid ballot.

Minneapolis programmed their ballot scanners to count all rank levels in the RCV races, whereas Aspen had them counting only the top one or two. If RCV is adopted in Portland I would highly recommend the Minneapolis approach, since it returns all overvoted ballots to the voters in the precincts for correction. Unfortunately no federally certified ballot scanner is able to detect duplicate votes, a problem unique to RCV. San Francisco spent additional funds for special programming to detect duplicates, although I am not familiar with how they handled certification. RCV is not cheap.

Another Minneapolis best practice is hand counting of ballots. This avoids the machine certification issue and increases public trust. Hand tallying RCV takes longer, but consultants should be available to recommend an optimal procedure and maybe assist with election worker training. There is no technology solution for RCV that matches the level of certification and public trust that hand counting affords.

My first recommendation for a ballot question on adoption of RCV is to develop and explain the exact RCV rules and procedures in full, so that Portland voters know before they vote exactly what they would be getting. To summarize my recommendations for Portland, if RCV is adopted:

• Plan for voter education ahead of every RCV election.

• Program optical scanners to catch as many overvote errors as possible.

• Since RCV must be centrally counted, chain of custody for ballot delivery must be top notch and transparent.

• Tally by hand, with a "fresh" group of well trained election workers, not the workers who have been at the polls all day.

• The charter should provide for runoff elections in the event majority is not achieved.

Respectfully,

Michael LaBonte

[1] Valid ballot - What does it mean for IRV? - IRV Factcheck Factcheck – June 11, 2010
http://irvfactcheckfactcheck.blogspot.com/2010/06/valid-ballot-what-does-it-mean-for-irv.html

[2] Error found in IRV vote tabulation – Aspen Times May 29, 2009
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/134754

Misleading racial minorities about instant runoff voting - again

New America Foundation and FairVote have re-packaged the claim they peddled back in May 2010, that somehow instant runoff voting "empowers" communities of color. Its the same old misinfo with the same old spin but with new title:

Instant Runoff Voting and Its Impact on Racial Minorities
Published June 13, 2010
...
In recent years, IRV has been implemented for local elections in several American cities, including San Francisco (CA), Cary (NC), Hendersonville (NC), Takoma Park (MD), and Burlington (VT). It has also been used for state elections to allow overseas voters to participate in runoff elections in such states as Louisiana, South Carolina, and Arkansas.[1] In 2008 Pierce County (WA) began using IRV to elect the county executive and other county offices.

FairVote and NAF cite communities adopting IRV, but don't mention that Cary, Burlington and Pierce County later ditched IRV. Nor do they mention that Hendersonville NC has never counted or reported the IRV votes! As for overseas voters using IRV, that isn't true IRV, but its more like issuing an additional ballot to voters, for special cases only.

FairVote and NAF claims IRV increases turnout in San Francisco, which is another whopper:

IRV increased turnout citywide by 2.7 times, and in the city’s six most
racially and socio-economically diverse neighborhoods turnout quadrupled in the
2005 citywide election (the only race studied for impact on voter
turnout).

In San Francisco, California, after IRV was implemented, turnout decreased. In the 2007 mayoral contest, using IRV, there were 100,000 fewer voters than in 2003, when a traditional one-to-one runoff election was held.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in their first IRV election held Nov 3, 2009, the city had its lowest voter turnout in over 100 years says the Minnesota Star Tribune. http://www.startribune.com/politics/local/69814067.html
"Turnout for Minneapolis elections last week was the lowest since 1902, before women got the vote, according to historical records." ~ Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov 12, 2009

The New America Foundation and FairVote are proud of these survey results from SFSU’s exit polls in 2004 and 2005:

Understand "Perfectly well" or "Fairly Well"
Hispanic/Latino 89.8%
Asian/Pacific Islander
85.7%
African American/Black
84.8%
White 87.8%
Other 85.3%

To NAF and FairVote, its ok if 15% of a minority group are do not understand IRV "perfectly well".

To voter advocates, 15% is too many to not understand the voting process.

IRV IN REAL LIFE ELECTIONS:

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING DOES NOT EMPOWER COMMUNITIES OF COLOR AND MAY HARM THEM:

Whites only: If instant runoff voting "empowers communities of color" then WHY does Takoma Park MD continue to elect an all white city council? IRV is bad for voters. A 2008 Grand Jury advised SF that voters and poll workers did not understand IRV.

IRV eliminates opportunity. In a radio interview, former SF Mayor Willie Brown said that IRV is really, really bad, "it eliminates opportunity". Listen here.

NC NAACP leader on IRV: "I am absolutely to the core opposed to instant runoff voting. And I believe that the issue of Instant runoff voting has clouded the discussions. And I want to make it very clear that that will cost the city money, not save the city money. Because I promise you that I will be protecting my right to vote, with legal action should you choose to do that. ~ Stella Adams - Vice Chair of NC Democratic Party and Housing Chair and Economic Empowerment Coordinator at NC NAACP speaking at Durham North Carolina City Council meeting.

Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People: This whole idea is that voting is a landmark of the people… even if its expensive. We spend a whole a lot of money on…..Just vote it down (non partisan plurality elections).I’m not going to be for instant runoff voting either....." Dr. Lavonia Allison - President of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People at Durham City Council meeting April 7, 2009.

Cary NC voters survey: 30.6% of Cary, NC voters had trouble understanding IRV, and 22.0% of Cary voters did not understand IRV at all according to Cary's 2008 bi-annual citizen survey
Hendersonville NC voters poll: 19.4% of Hendersonville NC voters polled came to the polls in 2009 unprepared to rank their choices according to a survey by Professor Michael Cobb. of NCSU.

San Francisco voters survey. According to studies by the Public Research Institute at SF State University: The proportion of voters who had prior knowledge of RCV was lower in 2005 (54%) than in the 2004 election for the Board of Supervisors (67%).
- Those with lower rates of prior knowledge tended to be those who were less educated, reported having lower incomes, and spoke a primary language other than Spanish.

There is never enough voter education: After 4 years of IRV and a fortune spent each year in San Francisco, a Grand Jury Report: said that poll workers and voters do not understand instant runoff. http://tinyurl.com/sfgrandjury How many different languages will IRV voter education have to address?

I implore readers to view the IRV sales pitch with caution, especially when such obvious ploys are used to appeal to emotions and not logic. I have done my best to provide you access to the studies, and added my opinion that its a very bad thing 15 percent of voters don't understand a voting method "perfectly well".

Fact Checking FairVote instant runoff voting majority claims -again!

FairVote is using their ironically titled blog IRV Fact Check to try to rehabilitate the claim that instant runoff voting will provide a majority: Saturday, June 12, 2010 Rebutting the "Majority Failure" Argument Against IRV

For the sake of accuracy, we are compelled to retrieve the proof that IRV suffers from majority failure. San Francisco recognized that IRV didn't provide a real majority and they even had to change their charter because of that.

Watch this short video to see how IRV failed to provide a majority in several communities, and why:

Instant Runoff Voting - False Majorities

We blogged about IRV Majority Failure here:

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2009

An Instant Runoff Voting Majority is not what you think One of the claims in favor of instant runoff voting is that it provides a majority winner. That is true only if you redefine what "majority winner" means.

In San Francisco,"majority" is of the "continuing" ballots, not a majority of all ballots:

"If no candidate receives a majority of votes from the continuing ballots after a candidate has been eliminated and his or her votes have been transferred to the next-ranked candidate, the continuing candidate with the fewest votes from the continuing ballots shall be eliminated. All votes cast for that candidate shall be transferred to the next-ranked continuing candidate on each voter's ballot. This process of eliminating candidates and transferring their votes to the next-ranked continuing candidates shall be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes from the continuing ballots." SEC. 13.102. - INSTANT RUNOFF ELECTIONS.(D) go to this link and type in the SEC. 13.102 in search box.

And we posted examples of IRV's majority failure in Burlington Vermont, Pierce CO Washington, and Cary, North Carolina with actual vote data here

Also see this report by experts who reviewed the Burlington VT election

Burlington Vermont 2009 IRV mayor election

Thwarted-majority, non-monotonicity & other failures (oops)
By Anthony Gierzynski, Wes Hamilton, & Warren D. Smith, March 200

And then there's this study of San Francisco, Before IRV and With IRV , see excerpt :

San Francisco elections held by IRV (instant runoff) and ordinary top-2-runoff (T2R) Warren D. Smith Nov 2009

...

SUMMARY OF IRV ERA: 14 elections looked at.   IRV process actually needed (psuedo-runoff) in 7. Every IRV winner also was a plain-plurality winner. Due to "ballot exhaustion," no IRV winner (on occasions when the IRV process was actually needed) ever got a majority  (i.e. over 50%) of the eligible ballots, in any round, EXCEPT for Ting in the 2005 Assessor-Recorder race.

People are wising up as they learn the truth about IRV. That is why jurisidictions keep ditching IRV: Sunday, May 30, 2010 Instant Runoff Voting rejected by Sunnyvale, Burlington, Pierce Co, Cary. Aspen in Nov?

Rebutting misinformation about instant runoff voting is tedious, but necessary, which is why we set up the website www.instantrunoffvoting.us . You can also visit the Center for Range Voting's site, which has many original studies and reports based on actual IRV elections and IRV failures.

For any election reform, it is wise to be skeptical. But in the end, its up to you to try to sort it out.

Valid ballot - What does it mean for IRV?

IRV is sometimes criticized as being too complicated for voters to understand. To prove that this is not a problem, proponents like to point out that the percentages of invalid ballots for IRV elections are usually low, usually between 0% and 1%. So what does it mean to have an invalid ballot in an IRV election?

Strictly speaking, the answer lies in the rules for each locality. However, it is common for a valid IRV ballot to be judged effectively by one rule: there must be no overvote in the first ranking of each race. Let's take a look at some valid and invalid IRV ballots:

click to expand

Only the first ballot above was marked by a voter fully understanding and utilizing IRV. But a single vote, as though IRV were not in use, is perfectly acceptable. So is a blank race, same as in a non-IRV election. The duplicate vote, in which one candidate is voted for twice, is unique to IRV. This is considered valid under the assumption the highest ranking vote is the intended vote. An overvote, selecting more candidates than allowed, is invalid for a non-IRV election. But in IRV as long as one "good" vote can be collected, the race is usually considered valid. Therefore an overvote in the highest rank is invalid, but overvotes in lower ranks are usually valid. For example, the bottom-left ballot shown above has an overvote in the second rank, but the first rank vote is still counted,

Valid IRV ballots still can signify voter difficulty

A common rule for treating duplicate votes and overvotes in IRV is to count votes until the duplicate or overvote is reached, and then "exhaust" the race. In the "Overvoted IRV second rank" ballot shown above, the ballot would be counted for Candidate 3 in the first IRV round, and then exhausted (no longer counted) in any successive rounds.

No first rank overvotes should be found if a ballot scanner is used to accept and check cast ballots. The overvote would be detected and the ballot returned to the voter. This ballot would be spoiled and the voter would be given a new ballot and a chance to try again. A way to gauge this is to look at the spoiled ballot count for elections.

Ideally, no overvoted or duplicate voted ballots should be cast at all. They should all be caught at the precinct and the voter allowed to revote. IRV has the "advantage" that these ballots can be accepted and counted until the problem rank is reached. But in many cases the voter has made perfectly valid choices in ranks after the problem rank, yet with IRV these votes are never used.

Aspen: Beyond invalid ballots

The news story IRV passes first test about Aspen's first IRV-based election on May 5, 2009 tells us "There were 16 people who skipped the mayor’s race and 23 who cast “invalid” ballots in the council race." We also find no invalid ballots in the Mayor race and 34 who skipped the City Council race. This is out of 2,544 ballots.

The Aspen Mayor race had 4 candidates. There were 1188 fully ranked ballots (46.7%), 278 ballots ranking 3 candidates (10.9%), 512 ballots ranking 2 candidates (20.1%), 542 ballots ranking 1 candidate (21.3%), and 16 ballots ranking 0 candidates (0.6%). We also find 26 ballots with overvotes or duplicate votes, 1%. But there are no invalid ballots only because none of the overvotes are in the first rank.

In the City Council race, with 9 candidates, we find 719 fully ranked ballots, 28.3%. It comes as no surprise that some people have limits in how many candidates they feel like ranking. They don't have to vote for anyone really, and 16 did just that. In between the 719 fully ranked ballots and the 16 completely unranked ballots we will find some with 1 candidate ranked, 2 ranked, etc. Also there were 128 ballots with overvotes or duplicate votes, 5%. In this case 23 of the overvoted ballots had overvotes in the first rank, and were considered invalid. For what it's worth, those 23 voters may have simply tried to vote "the old way", marking their two council candidates of choice in the first column.

We mentioned spoiled ballots, those that were rejected at the poll, giving voters a chance to vote a new ballot. In Aspen's IRV election there were 168 of these, far more than usual. The 148 ballots with duplicate votes or undervotes in at least one race should have been caught at the precinct so those ballots could have been spoiled and revoted. But the precinct AccuVote-OS equipment was programmed only to check the first rank for Mayor and the first two ranks for City Council. And it was unable to deal with "messy" ballots in which the first few ranking are blank, but later ranking have votes. It let invalid ballots slip through, to be rejected later, only after the voters had gone home. Also, the AccuVote machines are completely unable to detect duplicate votes.

Overall, about 316 Aspen voters (168 + 148) had some kind of trouble with a ballot, 12.4% of them. It would be more useful to look at those statistics, rather than just say that only 23 ballots were invalid. We need to look at a more complete picture when assessing how well IRV is working for the voters.

UPDATE 6/11 10:50 AM: A problem was detected in my algorithm for finding duplicate votes. Those numbers have been corrected, resulting in higher counts.

UPDATE 6/11 1:56 PM: The spreadsheet with election results and analysis is here (right-click and save-as aspen_irv_checks.csv). Or download the XLS here.

UPDATE 4/22/2011: I wrote about the Aspen 2009 Mayor race: "We also find 26 ballots with overvotes or duplicate votes", but that should not be taken to mean that those ballots were discarded, altering the count. While that could have happened and in some elections it does, in this particular case none of those mistaken marks had any effect on the Aspen Mayor race because choices in higher ranks prevailed.

Instant Runoff Voting Fact Check - New America Foundation

Here's a short fact check of New America Foundation arguing in favor of instant runoff voting to the San Jose California City Council. Any jurisdiction considering IRV/Ranked Choice Voting should watch this video.



There's a surprise ending.

Instant runoff groups irvfactcheck blog bizarre, misleading on North Carolina

FairVote director Rob Richie's ironically named irvfactcheck blog is bizarre. I was looking at Terry Bouricius May 19 post entitled "North Carolina FAQ on Instant Runoff Voting.Bouricius, highlights a link to FairVote spin off, NCVotes123.com . Here's where it gets bizarre. Next to the link, Bouricius has in bold the date April 2010. As if that was on the original site. But when you go to NCVotes123, that date is not on the site (at least not today) and the most recent blog post is dated June 27, 2009.

Bouricius is a "senior policy analyst for FairVote, but he's from Vermont, and he is no expert on North Carolina's situation. And apparently we can't rely on his NC IRV FAQs. I am from North Carolina, and lead the NC Coalition for Verified Voting. I've been an election transparency and voter advocate in North Carolina since Sept 2003. The threat of IRV to our elections led me to research IRV and then try to stop its spread in my state.

Lets start with the lame attempt to try to make FairVote's NC affiliate blog NCVotes123 appear as if it is current.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010
North Carolina FAQ on Instant Runoff Voting

What is this, an April Fools joke?

Was www.NCVotes123.com REALLY updated on April 2010? Really?

It isn't on their website on any of the pages. Checked them all.

Oops, it looks like just more misleading propaganda on the part of FairVote's irvfactcheck blog.

Here's a screen capture of the most recent blog post over at the actual www.NCVotes123.com

Yes readers, look at the actual date on the post, that is June 17, 2009 NOT April 2010.

That was 11+ months ago. But FairVote's IRV Fact Check blog has super imposed a much more

current date.

Does FairVote think that North Carolinians are just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies?

Think we are fools?

But then again, Diane Russell, IRV America Director admitted to faking a southern accent while serving in conflicting rolls of voter education and exit polling of Cary North Carolina voters in the 2007 IRV pilot. Perhaps she thought a fake accent would fool the dumb old southerners?

More deception. Ms Russell made a video interview of Cary voters that is very flattering to IRV. In that video you can see Ms. Russell's arm holding the microphone as she is "incognito" and pretends to be a "southerner". The respondents in the video were the ones FairVote selected because of the positive attitude. Ms. Russell told the maineIRV group that at the end there were negative responses, but none of those made it into the video -- which makes the video misleading.

More on deceptive claims by pro IRV groups, that pesky fine for making false claims to voters in St Paul, Minnesota:

Pro-IRV group fined $5,000 for violating campaign law

By PAUL SCHMELZER 12/1/09 1:01 PM

St. Paul’s Better Ballot Campaign was fined $5,000 for violating campaign laws after a panel of administrative law judges ruled the group made false claims in endorsements of Instant Runoff Voting, which was approved by St. Paul voters on election day.

Here's some information I've posted at www.NCVOTER.net about IRV impact on North Carolina elections:

Don't be mis-led: Instant runoff voting is not feasible for statewide elections.

"There are no provisions on ES&S equipment to tabulate IRV." ~ Keith Long , Voting System Project Manager for the North Carolina State Board of Elections Jan 7, 2008

"We can use November 2007 as a pilot and not use IRV in May 2008 because it poses too much of a risk. May request change in legislation for retesting IRV with certified upgrades in 2009." ~ NC State Board of Elections March 6, 2007

North Carolina procedures for counting IRV elections error prone and risky

7 Ways Instant Runoff Voting Undermines North Carolina Verified Voting law

Tallying Instant runoff voting in NC. Complex, not transparent, error prone

"When our town agreed to IRV in 2007, it was kind of rush job..There was a lot of pushback, the public wasn’t involved … I do not like instant runoff voting and have given my reasons as to why many times. I'll take in elections over funny math and 30% voter confusion any day." ~ Don Frantz Cary City Council member.

"No instant-runoff capable equipment meets North Carolina's standards -- so will we gut those standards? Lawmakers and citizens understand that we need our verified voting law, and we need to implement it correctly. Our standards for voting systems, software and vendors are key to protecting North Carolina voters from harm caused by uncertified software or unscrupulous vendors. We ignore those at our peril." ~ Joyce McCloy, Director, NC Coalition for Verified Voting

Instant Runoff Voting Not So Good Polls: Cary NC, Hendersonville NC, Pierce Co WA, and San Francisco 22.0% of Cary voters did not understand IRV at all

1. NC voting systems can not handle IRV, there is no software, it was too complex for Cary NC to count by hand, to complex esp for statewide elections
2. IRV would cost more than regular elections, new procedures, more laborious, more ballots printed, more complex programming, and is not auditable.
3. IRV provided plurality results for Cary NC election, and Hendersonville never used IRV votes, didn't count or report them.
4. Why make elections more complex for the voter, and eliminate election transparency only to get plurality results?

About us: The North Carolina Coalition for Verified Voting is a grassroots non-partisan organization fighting for clean and verified elections. We study and research the issue of voting to ensure the dignity and integrity of the intention of each voting citizen. The NC Voter Verified Coalition has consistently fought for increasing access, participation and ensuring the voter franchise. Contact Joyce McCloy, Director, N.C. Coalition for Verifiable Voting - phone 336-794-1240 - email Join the NC Coalition for Verified Voting website www.ncvoter.net

Fact Checking Instant Runoff Voting guru McCarthyism claims Part 3

This is part 3 of rebutting the latest IRV Fact Check Blog by Instant runoff Voting guru Rob Richie. In the latest post the ironically named blog, IRV Fact Check, Rob Richie talks about how FairVote only played a support role for local groups promoting IRV and that IRV is good because IRV is popular with some local non profits, some local papers and 2 communities (based on exit polls). Is popularity a true measure of the worth of IRV? Where does that "popularity" come from? Excerpt from Robs so called fact check blog, emphasis in red is mine...

Joyce McCloy and McCarthyism: Her Latest Distortions
...
But Ms. McCloy charges that we don't care about secure elections and suggests that our "outside money" is why so many people in her state support instant runoff voting. The fact is that the two staffers we had in NC for parts of 2007-2009 were funded by an in-state foundation in the wake of a new state law establishing an IRV pilot program, and we were in a support role to such influential reform groups as the League of Women Voters NC, Common Cause NC and Democracy NC, all of which continue to support IRV. Other in-state backers include several of the state's leading newspapers, as reflected by recent editorials in the Rocky Mount Telegram, Charlotte Observer, and Southern Pines Pilot -- and so do most voters in the two communities in the state that have had a chance to use IRV.

FairVote ensured that North Carolina's #2 top election official, Johnnie McClean, was able to travel to Scotland (to observe the May 2007 STV election) at the generosity of FairVote and Electoral Reform Society scholarship. See Johnnie McLean Email About Scotland Election and Trip also McLean Thank You Fair Vote and UK Electoral Reform Commission This is not against any law, but it certainly cost FairVote some money. Officials from Minnesota, another IRV testing ground, went on this trip as well.

Does Fair Vote accept credit for helping craft the procedures to implement instant runoff voting in North Carolina? Does Fair Vote support those procedures? I expect we'll know soon as RR says he'll have a post about that soon. What is the problem with current IRV procedures for NC?

See my blog about current procedures for implementing the IRV pilot in North Carolina. 7 Ways Instant Runoff Voting Undermines North Carolina Verified Voting law

Also see Tallying Instant runoff voting in NC. Complex, not transparent, error prone

Rob Richie argues that IRV is popular so it must be good. .

Is the Popularity of IRV relevant?

Wasn't paperless electronic voting popular with the National League of Women Voters? Wasn't Astroturf popular until we learned it increased the odds for injury to athletes? Wasn't the Ford Pinto car popular until we learned about about exploding gas tank risk? Andy Silver, a Cary NC citizen responds to Rob Richie's argument about popularity of IRV. From LWV list serve on Friday, May 21, 2010, Andy speaks-

"As for Mr. Richie's reply, his remarks about popularity of IRV are irrelevant for any serious discussion of advantages and efficacy of IRV. It is a complicated issue, and only a minuscule fraction of people are well informed about it, even in Cary, where there has been as much misinformation asinformation spread about it by its advocates.

Would anyone try to come to some conclusion about the efficacy of legislation on health care reform or regulation of financial institutions just by taking a poll on them. Would you make up your mind based on what a majority of the public think? Public opinion - almost always poorly informed - is relevant only in assessing election and legislative priorities politically, not for judging the wisdom of a proposal. Anyway, I am skeptical about the polls conducted in Cary at the behest of Fairvote or its allies. There were serious methodologicalproblems with the polling."

Popular? But not so safe. Consider what the the State Board of Elections said about hardware and software issues with IRV in a March 6, 2007 meeting:

"We can use November 2007 as a pilot and not use IRV in May 2008 because it poses too much of a risk."

The NC Coalition for Verified Voting was launched because no one else would take up the issue of black box voting. Some groups later become involved to a degree, thankfully, but most only after the Carteret 2004 fiasco. Citizens did 99.99% of the work. Thanks to citizens' hard work, the North Carolina's Public Confidence in Elections Law was introduced and passed, and is considered a model in our nation.