Pierce County, Washington (which contains Tacoma) rejected two anti-Instant-Runoff Voting measures on November 7, 2007. Voters had approved IRV in 2006. The County Council then put a measure on the 2007 ballot asking if the voters want to postpone IRV until 2010. That was rejected by a 34%-66% margin.

Voters also rejected a related ballot measure, asking the voters if they want to limit a voter’s options under IRV to just three choices. That lost 38%-62%.

Voters approved a third measure, which says that voters should be limited to only 3 choices in IRV elections until the technology has been improved. Thanks to Phil Gardner for this news.

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which outlawed old-fashioned lever mechanical voting machines. New York is the only state that still uses them. On November 6, attorneys for the U.S. government filed a motion in the pending lawsuit (which had been filed by the U.S. Government in 2006), saying that the court should take jurisdiction away from the New York State Board of Elections over voting machines, if the Board doesn’t promise to obtain a new voting system in time for the November 2008 election.

No U.S. manufacturer still makes mechanical voting machines. Connecticut had been the last state (other than New York) to use them.

On November 7, Saskatchewan Province in Canada held provincial elections. The Saskatchewan Party, which had been formed in 1991, won a majority in the provincial parliament. It ousted the New Democratic Party, which had been in power since 1991. The 2007 election resulted in 37 seats for the Saskatchewan Party and 21 seats for the New Democratic Party. The Liberal Party, which contested ten seats, and which is one of Canada’s two major parties, did not win any seats.

Canada has easy and equal ballot access rules for all parties, new and old alike. Even though Canada (like the United States and Great Britain) does not use proportional representation for its important elections, one sees that in a nation with decent ballot access laws, new parties do sometimes succeed in winning power.