On Tuesday, April 20, at 1:30 p.m., the California Senate Elections Committee will hear SB 1346, which allows the use of Instant Runoff Voting in special partisan elections for U.S. House and state legislature. The hearing is in room 3191 in the State Capitol.
An identical bill in the Assembly, AB 2732, was going to be heard at virtually the same hour in the Assembly Elections Committee, but the Assembly Committee hearing on that bill has been canceled so that all witnesses can appear at the Senate hearing. The Secretary of State supports the bill. The bill, if enacted, would only apply if all the counties involved in any particular special election are willing to use IRV. Use of IRV would convert these special elections into one-round elections. Currently, most special elections in California require two rounds, using blanket primary rules. The second round only occurs if no one gets 50% in the first round, and includes the top vote-getter from each party. Generally, when there is no incumbent (and special elections never have incumbents), no one gets 50% in the first round.
Is this open to the public? Are comments by members of the public permitted?
IRV = THE method to elect Stalin/Hitler clones when the *middle* is divided. Let the purges begin.
IRV does NOT treat ALL later votes equally — regardless of all math MORONS – in court or out of court.
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V.
Yes, California legislative hearings are not only open to the public, anyone may testify. When there are literally dozens of people who want to testify, though, and they all agree, generally the committee chair restricts the testimony of most members to just coming forward and saying name and group (if any) and whether the individual supports or opposes the bill.
Not having seen the proposed legislation my comments might not be valid. If so, I would appreciate Richard explaining where I’m wrong. Philosophically, I’m not a great fan of IRV because it appears to entrench the 2 major parties. However, if the VOTERS in a County have stated a preference for IRV, I have no objection to its use. Twice in California during the past 12 years, the strength of a third party candidate would have been smothered in a one round special election.
In 1999, Audie Bock of the Green party was elected to the legislature in a special election. What chance would she realistically have had if the voters had been forced to choose her as their second or third choice in the first round?
Again in 2005, Jim Gilchrist running for Congress as a candidate of the A. I. P. earned over 25% of the total vote in the run-off. Interestingly, he received the MOST votes on election day. He didn’t win that election because the National Republican Party flooded the second round with absentee (Vote by mail) ballots [65+% of the votes cast] overwhelming the small victory margin he had achieved that Tuesday in December.
In both cases, having those extra weeks in the second round to further consider their choices, voters chose to strongly support a third party candidate. Using IRV in any election to SAVE money is an affront to our form of representative government.
The increasing preference of using Vote-by-Mail also helps to further entrench the two major parties. At the beginning of a campaign lesser known candidates are severely handicapped in early fund-raising due to being not as well known. A vicious circle that incumbents and party darlings continuously exploit.
I think Audie might have been elected in 1999 under IRV. There were 4 candidates in the first round, Audie Bock, a Green, and 3 Democrats. The Republicans who turned out probably mostly voted for Audie rather than a Democrat. The three Democrats were Elihu Harris, who got 48.8% in the first round, Frank Russo, who got 36.5% in the first round, and Enrique Palacios, who got 6.1% in the first round. Audie got 8.6% in the first round. There was hostility between Harris and Russo in the campaign, and it is plausible to me that if IRV had been used, half of the Russo voters might have given Audie Bock their 2nd place vote, and ditto for the Harris voters.
IRV certainly helped the Progressive Party win the last two elections for Burlington, Vermont mayor, a partisan election. No one disputes this and that is one reason the Republicans and Democrats worked so hard to repeal it earlier this year.
Ranked choice voting certainly helped minor parties win seats on the New York city council when it was used 1937 thru 1945. And it helps small parties in Ireland and Australia.
The bill violates the California Constitution which requires partisan primaries for legislative elections. This could be alleviated if the bill were made contingent on passage of Proposition 14.
Certainly IRV is more compatible with an election where any voter may vote for any candidate regardless of the party preference of the voter or the candidate. There is nothing in Jones that suggests that the current two stage format is constitutional, since it permits non-party members to interfere with nominating process of the other parties.
An IRV version of a Jones-compatible election would be a complete mess, since voters would be restricted to expressing a first preference for a candidate of their party; and if there was no candidate of their party on the ballot, then they could not vote a first preference. But this might result in another candidate receiving 50% of first preferences. This would likely be a violation of equal protection for the voter of the party without a candidate.
Forcing a voter to vote for a candidate of his party in the instant runoff would violate the right of the voter to vote for the candidate of his choice. So a voter would have to be able to express two sets of preferences. The “easiest” way to do this would be to have two ballots. The first would be used in a semiclosed primary. California might be able to use IRV for each party primary. A voter whose party did not have a candidate, should be allowed to cast a blank ballot and have that count against a candidate receiving 50% of the vote. DTS voters would also be permitted to choose between casting a nonpartisan blank ballot, or the ballot of a party that permitted DTS voters to vote in their primary. Independent candidates would not be on the primary ballot. It might be required that all candidates be allowed to declare as write-in candidates for the instant general election, since California does not have a sore loser provision prohibiting first round losers from being write-in candidates in the second round.
The general election ballot would then simply be an ordinary ranked choice ballot listing all candidates and their party. So after the primary was counted, you would then exclude all losing candidates in the primary and then count the result like an ordinary IRV election. Preferences for candidates who were on the primary ballot and lost would be ignored, except if they had also declared as a write-in candidate for the general election (since voter intent would be clear in that case).
If voters were restricted to a mere 3 choices it could be problematic. If a party had more than 3 candidates running, then a voter who wanted to rank all of his parties first would not be able to do so. And a supporter of minor parties could well be excluded from an effective vote in the general election as well. Special elections typically have large fields because they are by definition for open seats, and officeholders can take a free shot without giving up their current office.
In any case, it is foolish messing around with the elections code when you have the possibility of extensive changes in the next two month.
The reason it takes so long for special elections in California is because they are set 16 weeks from the time they are called by the governor, and this can be extended even further if the special general can be made coincident with primary or the general election. For example, the special election for SD 37 was set on December 10, 2009 to be held on June 8, 2010, 6 months later. The special primary is then set 8 weeks earlier, and the filing deadlines before then.
When Audie Bock was elected to Assembly in 1999, it was triggered by Ron Dellums resignation from Congress more than a year earlier. This triggered a sequence of special elections: (1) for Congress, which was won by a senator; (2) whose senate seat then had to be filled in a special election which was won by an assemblyman; and (3) finally the assembly vacancy that Bock filled.
SB 1346 only partially alleviates this because it sets the IRV election 12 weeks in the future (it may also have provisions for alignment with with regular primaries or general elections).
The reason for the 3 months is so the counties can take a month to decide whether they want to use IRV or not. This provides an opportunity for a partisan decision, since the decision will determine not only the timing of the election, but also the rules it will be conducted under. Since primary elections skew towards Republicans and Democrats, county official may prefer that the special election be held in the primary. You would be bringing Illinois-New York style corruption to California.
#5 In an IRV election, Bock and Palacios would have been eliminated, and their ballots transferred to Harris or Russo. Given how close Harris was to a majority, there is no doubt that he would have been elected.
A significant factor in Bock’s election was the lower turnout for the special general election, and perhaps embarrassment of the Democratic Party who offered vouchers for chicken dinners for voters that was targeted at black areas of Oakland.
A conventional runoff would have likely produced the same result as IRV in Burlington. The only difference would be whether Bob Kiss could have skated through a runoff on the basis of him being a nice guy.
AV was instituted in Australia for the purpose of letting the Liberal and Country parties compete while keeping Labor out. Now it serves the ALP and the coalition in keeping the Greens out.
The obvious remedy for legislative body vacancies —
a candidate/incumbent has a rank order list of replacements.
Default – the legislative body fills the vacancy.