Instant Runoff Voting - WTF?

[SamuelA]

Run time: 05:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJgK_GHM0_U   Posted on YouTube: October 09, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 15, 2009 By DU Member: SamuelA Views on DU: 706

 
One of the promises of Instant Runoff Voting is "Majority Winners" so we are not stuck with candidates that 60% of the voters did not support.

WTF?

[Ian David]

1. If you have people writing-in "None of the Above" you're going to have anomalies. n/t

[SteppingRazor]

2. The point of IRV is that someone will eventually get a majority...

but not necessarily in the first round. If no one gets a majority, then the candidate who got the least amount of votes is discarded, and the votes that went to that candidate are redistributed among the remaining candidates, based on the second choice of that loser's voters. That process continues until someone gets a majority. IRV certainly doesn't guarantee that someone will get a majority on the first round of counting.

[SamuelA]

4. So if 10,000 people came and exercised their constitutional right and voted,

how many votes must the winner get to have a majority?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. IRV suffers from consistent majority failure, provides plurality result most often

Here's just some cases:

March 4, 2009 2nd IRV election in Burlington VT does not result in a majority winner!
Bob Kiss had 4313 - or 48.41% of the original 8909, not 51.5%.
Kurt Wright had 4061 - or 45.58% of the original 8909, not 48.5%.
That is because the total number of votes for these two candidates in this round is 8374 -
or 535 less than the original 8909 cast in the first round.
That is why an IRV win is not a true majority win in all but one or two cases because you
never really get a true majority of the first round votes cast.


Pierce County Washington.

December 7, 2008 2 out of 3 Pierce County RCV "winners" don't have a true majority
Peirce County WA claims to have winners in their RCV races -
but were they real majority wins?

....In order to get a true majority, the winner would have needed 131,224 votes.
The person who led the race in all 4 rounds "won" the RCV race in the 4th round
with 98,366 - 32,858 short of a true majority....

San Francisco RCV elections: consistent majority failure

Review of the election results available for San Francisco Ranked Choice Voting elections.

These results are remarkably consistent. Out of 20 RCV elections that have been held since
the referendum establishing it passed, when IRV was used, it elected a plurality winner

http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/majority.html

[SamuelA]

6. So the video is right on, the numbers are correct, those are the actual %

not just the first round and ScubaDude thinks they might be. A plurality is just someone who gets the most votes out of two people who are left standing, and that's what IRV seems to do. So why not just have a normal plurality election without all the hassle of counting and recounting? Doesn't the same guy usually win anyways?

[scubadude]

9. All voting systems have flaws.

Hate to say it but there is a fairly good piece on Wikipedia on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system

Here's a nifty site that describes the IRV process.

http://www.chrisgates.net/irv/votesequence.html

There are many systems. IRV is used by some countries to great effect, but it is by no means a panacea.

There was an article once about a fellow who wrote a computer program which solved problems naturally through a process similar to evolution. His program was used by NASA to design an antenna which was used on interstellar craft. The design it came up with turned out to be a totally novel design, that no one would ever expect to be superior.

I sent this fellow an email asking if he could use his program to design a new voting system for our country. I never got a reply, and don't know even if he ever saw the email, but we sure could use the help...

Here are some links to NASA discussing this program

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/st-5/main/04-55AR.html

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2004/antenna/antenna.html

Scuba

[pattyt]

10. The nifty site is very misleading as rarely does an IRV election

gets a majority as shown. Watch the video again. Those are the final numbers. You mention IRV eventually gets a majority, but that's not really true is it?

Voter turnout is down in so many places because our elections are so complex, we no longer ask if they just like this candidate or that, but to vote on bond issues, and propositions, it drives people away from the polls. We need to simplify voting, not complicate it. There is not perfect system, true, but why replace it with an even more flawed system. This is merely a solution looking for a problem. If it does happen, I want the contract to educate the voters on it, as the previous poster said, there big money in education!

[scubadude]

11. The real problem seems to be with strategic voting.

Unfortunately, the human mind is smart enough to expose the flaws of any system. IRV voting tends to perpetuate 2 party systems whereas what we have now allows a small 3rd party vote to sway elections, as it did when Nader or Perot ran. Another way to say it is that our current system allows for, when elections are close, the party with the most money to run candidates in a third party to spoil the results. Much of Nader's support was from deep pocketed Republicans, and look where that got us.

I don't believe dumbing down the system down as you suggest is the answer. We need to move to a better system and educate our populace in it.

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

Scuba

[texasholdum]

12. Don't replace the current system with an even more flawed system, better systems out there.

Surely you are not advocating replacing the current system with and even MORE FLAWED system know as Instant Runoff Voting. Change for the sake of change is not intelligent.

For alternative voting system which solves many of the flaws in the current runoff system, look to range and approval voting. IRV is the worst of all voting methods, but has the biggest lobby.

[scubadude]

3. This video doesn't explain the advantages of instant run off

voting and is misleading. Sure, if you only count the votes for the top round it may not work, but the system doesn't stop there. If you include the second and third placed candidates, someone will achieve a majority eventually.

The expense claims are misleading as well. Sure, it costs money to deploy new technology the first time, but thereafter increased costs are minimal or nothing, and if you prevent the necessity of a runoff election, the savings are big.


Scuba

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. lets look at San Francisco, who has had IRV for several years now:

San Francisco may not be paying for traditional runoff elections, but they have new costs. San Francisco’s new expenses include special voting software, special poll worker training, more laborious and costly recounts, and IRV related voter education costing about $1.87 per registered voter. San Francisco is also seeking a replacement voting system, and recently considered spending about $12 Million on Sequoia Voting machines.

San Francisco had 421,094 registered voters in 2004, spent $776,000 on IRV related voter education , with $210,000 specifically allotted to the community organizations for their efforts. 700 public outreach events were held. In Nov 2006, San Francisco had 418,285 registered voters.

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%) according to An Assessment of Ranked-Choice Voting in the San Francisco 2005 Election

San Francisco’s higher expenses include special voting software, special poll worker training, more laborious and costly recounts, and IRV related voter education costing about $1.87 per registered voter. San Francisco recently agreed to purchase a new IRV capable voting system for $12 Million, four year contract for new Sequoia Voting machines. If machines could not be used for some reason, the Elections Department estimates that it would cost $1 Million to hand count the ballots. (From Recommendations of the Budget Analyst for Amendment of Budget Items 2007-2008)

In 2007-2008 , SF's annual average number of registered voters was 427,591.
The annual number of outreach events to target communities 693
Annual number of educational presentations313
Annual number of educational presentation program attendees 43,981


Maybe IRV saves money, but there isn't a solid cost savings analysis using San Francisco's actual election department's net annual expenditures. From San Francisco's Budget Reports:

2000-2001 Actual 9,024,000
2001-2002 Actual 13,872,000 includes the cost of $1,322,849 for a runoff election & $150,000 due to litigation costs
2002-2003 Actual 8,610,553
2003-2004 Actual 15,204,781
2004-2005 Actual 10,400,868
2005-2006 Actual 11,930,228
2006-2007 Actual 10,062,052 (budget) 9,126,318
2007-2008 Actual 14,839,686 (budget) 19,809,917

http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/costs.html

Whether you like IRV or not, the dubvious cost savings, if any,are not worth the trade-off on losing election transparency and disenfranchising vulnerable voters, not to mention the debate lost.

[scubadude]

8. I disagree.

You state that using IRV voting is "not worth the trade-off on losing election transparency and disenfranchising vulnerable voters, not to mention the debate lost."

First of all transparency comes with education, the more the populace understands the system the easier it is for them to see how an outcome is justified.

Second, in a strict sense the term disenfranchisement, or the denial of the right to vote, does not relate to the type of voting system used.

But if you use the term disenfranchisement more loosely, it may mean, frightening off voters who don't understand the system, or that some sub group wont vote because it feels that it isn't properly represented within the system.

In either case voter education is the answer. If the populace understands how the votes are counted, it can prepare to vote accordingly.

As far as debate lost, that is the point. Extra debate costs money. If each candidate had the same amount of funding I would agree, however we know that is simply not the case. The candidate or party with the deepest pockets often holds sway, and that doesn't work either.

Scuba

[ellenfl]

13. this is a repeat. the guy still only shows the first level. eom