See this story for a report on how North Carolina is proceeding, counting votes in the nation’s first statewide general election using Instant Runoff Voting. The first choice votes have now been counted. The election is to choose a statewide judge. The election is non-partisan and had 13 candidates seeking one spot on the State Court of Appeals.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
IRV is no good, it attracts egocentric single winner district power grabbing greed heads. Ranked voting under two ore more districts is better, because when two people work as a team, they aren’t dictating. Plus, the satisfaction level is 66.66% plus two votes under STV (single transferable votes) and two-member districts.
Satisfaction level for 100-member districts is 99% plus 100 votes.
Those seeking IRV want to keep the satisfaction level at 50% plus one vote for themselves, not two people with 33.33% plus one vote each.
I appreciate those well intentioned do-gooder IRV supporters, but IRV is no good for all parties and independents.
Here’s an example of a 100-member district based on ranked ballots cast as proof;
——————–begin example
The Eighth US Parliament
8/6/2008 to 8/5/2012
Prime Ministers:
Gail Lightfoot [Libertarian], Ralph Hoffmann [Democratic-Republican], and Mary J. Ruwart [Libertarian]
Secretaries:
James Ogle [Free Parliamentary] and David Olkkola [Democratic]
100 Elected Members of the Parliament (MPs)
Libertarian Party – 22 Members of Parliament (MPs)
Gail Lightfoot, Michael Badnarik, Mary J. Ruwart, Starchild, Ned Roscoe, Richard Winger, Gary Nolan, Cory Nott, Lawrence Samuels, Kristi Stone, Doug Tuma, Aaron Starr, Gabriella Douglas, Mark Hinkle, William J. Wagoner, Dwight Bailey, Richard Vinable, Aarde Atheian, Alex Plewniak, Howard Stern, Bob Barr, Zachary Scott Gordon [American Libertarian]
Parties with One Seat – 16 MPs
Vanessa Morley [Defender of the Republic], Darryl W. Perry [Boston Tea], Pat Buchanan [Reform], Orion Karl Daley [Balanced], Noam Chomsky [New], Mike Bogatirev [Environmentalist], Michale Treeplanter [Co-Operative], Michael Davis [Natural Law], David Frey [Socialist USA/California], Mark P. Steele [Discordian], Eric Charles [Orwellian], Michael Looney [Houseless], Eric Stevenson [Pizza], Lloyd Llewellen [Flying Saucer], John Coffey [Unity08] and Mike Banon [Skateboard]
Green Party – 14 MPs
Winona Laduke, David Cobb, Medea Benjamin, Mike Nelson, Susan Estes, Kevin Clark [Green/Libertarian], Patrick Purcell, Thomas Leavitt, Mike Rogers, Tad Robinson, Michael Grazian, Gary Swing, Brett Johnsen, Dinah Coffman
Democratic Party – 9 MPs
Dennis Kucinich, PRAVDA McCroskey, David Olkkola, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, John Edwards, Jerry Brown, Victor Cantu, Ralph Hoffmann [Democratic-Republican]
Independent – 8 MPs
Arianna Huffington, Rob Elliott, Dale Gieringer, John Anderson, Kat Penisten, Michael Moore, Casper Leitch, Ralph Nader
Republican Party – 8 MPs
Ron Paul, Jim Doyle, Colin Powell, John McCain, Lani Guinier, Arnold Swarzenegger, Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Peron
Pot Party – 5 MPs
Nate Brown, Myra Fourwinds, Sister Somayah [Pot / Nigritian Kief], Brandon Garcia, Scott Comings
Free Parliamentary Party – 4 MPs
Laura Booth, Marcellius Smith [Parliament], Daniel Penisten [Free Parliament] and James Ogle
Marijuana Party – 3 MPs
Sabrina Melicia, Kelly Russell, J. Roach
Peace and Freedom Party – 3 MPs
Jan Tucker, Maureen Smith, Stewart Alexander
Comedy Central – 2 MPs
Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart
Info. Not Avail. – 2 MPs
Clint Eastwood, Woody Harrelson
Radical Revolutionary Party – 2 MPs
Annie Garner, Jennifer Perkins
Constitution Party – 2 MPs
Michael Peroutka and Don J. Grundmann
Total: 100 Members of Parliament (MPs)
President Ron Paul [Republican]
Vice President Gail Lightfoot [Libertarian
I worked at my precinct as a poll greeter for most of the day, and as a Democratic Party poll observer.
I didn’t worry about the Republican voters, but I spent well over half my time explaining IRV to Democratic voters and to those UNA voters who wanted to vote for Democratic candidates. That is because over half the voters who showed up at the polls didn’t know they’d be expected to rank their choices.
The Republicans were claiming this was a Democratic plot to keep a Republican judge from winning. Everyone complained that they spent way too much time on that part of the ballot – one voter felt she spent half her time on IRV alone. We had 26 spoiled ballots, a much higher than normal number. There were 8 over-votes in the 26 non-IRV races on the ballot, but 28 over-votes in the one single IRV race.
Oh – and if you think that these voters were upset about having to cast their votes in an IRV contest – they were disgusted that the SBOE has known since 2006 that they might have to do county-wide or state-wide judicial IRV elections, and chose to do nothing about it until the last minute. The Republicans were especially infuriated that Republican members of the State Board of Elections were the ones who pushed the “bending” of state and federal election law to use uncertified software to count the IRV.
They all hoped that this would be the last time any of us would have to waste so much time explaining how to vote in a contest – instead of asking voters to vote for our candidates. Having to be told how to vote in some tricky contest insulted their intelligence!
…especially when the results simply enforces the tyranny of the majority, and the minority parties…like the Republican Party in that case…get nothing!
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It appears that the conventional runoffs for the other 4 Court of Appeals seats will have twice as many votes cast as were cast in the NSIRV election.
#4 Free the vote should really get rid of the check mark as a logo, the check mark is a primitive addition system. Consecutively ranked numbers is an advanced system, based on algebra.
Jim Riley — As the story reports, “The number of recorded ballots [in the IRV race] exceeded those for two of the three other contested Court of Appeals races using conventional voting.” So you’re simply wrong.
Chris Telesca — Please. Don’t pretend to be objective about this. Whatever you might say about your experience, the fact is that more people cast valid votes in the IRV Court of Appeals race than in two of three other similar races.
Under the former plurality voting rule for this kind of vacancy election, the winner would have taken office with 20%. Now whoever wins will likely need to earn substantially more votes and prove that they were ranked ahead of their top opponent on more ballots.
IRV also will determine the winner in one of three county-level Superior Court races. See http://www.ncovtes123 for more on IRV in North Carolina.
IRV for single offices = THE method to elect Stalin/Hitler clones when the Middle is divided.
34 S–M–H
33 H–M–S
16 M–S–H
16 M–H–S
99
With IRV, M loses. S wins a mighty majority mandate 50-49.
A mere 99 votes for M in first place plus second place votes — means NOTHING to IRV math MORON fanatics.
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Nonpartisan Approval Voting NOW for all elective executive offices and all judges — even SCOTUS.
#7 Rob Richie — As you no doubt know, North Carolina ordinarily uses a Top 2 primary for its judicial races (if there are 2 or fewer candidates, the primary is skipped). So in effect, the general election is a runoff. In the 3 contested races, voters had already reduced the field to 2 candidates from which voters could choose. If you also include the one Supreme Court race, there was a general dropoff as you went further down the ballot:
Brady, 2.000 million
Steelman, 1.396 million (unopposed)
Calabria, 1.939 million
Elmore, 1.767 million
Geer, 1.863 million
In the Elmore seat the Democratic party did not make an endorsement, which is probably the reason that 172,000 fewer votes were cast than the preceding race. Geer was endorsed by the Democratic party, so the drop off from the Calabria race was probably a combination of voter fatigue and the difference between a Republican-endorsed incumbent and a Democratic-endorsed incumbent in a generally Republican year.
The regular Appeals races were in the 3rd column of the front side of the ballot. The special Appeals Court race was spread across the bottom half of back side of the ballot, with lots of white space around it. So it is not surprising that about the same number of votes were cast.
But only about 1/3 of the voters cast a vote for either of the Top 2 candidates. So the real question is how many voters were able to guess which two candidates would finish in the Top 2, and proceed to the NSIRV. I suspect that the final number of votes cast will be short of 1 million.