IRV runs into implementation problems in Santa Fe, New Mexico

[Warren D Smith]

IRV was enacted by 2008 referendum in Santa Fe.
But Santa Fe still did not do it up to an including 2018.
The backers of the referendum then sued to force IRV to happen.

(The same scenario was being replayed from San Francisco.)

What is going on? I found out from

Megan Bennett:
Santa Fe responds to ‘instant runoff’ petition,
Albuquerque Journal
Saturday, 16 September 2017
https://www.abqjournal.com/1064694/santa-fe-responds-to-instant-runoff-petition-ex-voting-software-missed-city-deadline-says-council.html

that the city of Santa Fe told the State's Supreme Court court that
the necessary voting software
(1) still had failed to gain certification from the NM secretary of
state office, even
after 10 years, and
(2) the company’s failure to have it submitted to the state by its
deadline allows City Council to delay enacting IRV until 2020.

"In the jargon of computer software, the 'deliverables' must be
functional and must be provided on time," Santa Fe's brief to the
supreme court stated. "That did not happen here."


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Warren D. Smith
http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
"endorse" as 1st step)

[Lonán Dubh]

Heh. I can't say I'm surprised. 

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in Seattle, with Charter Amendment 23 (fair vote WA's irv/stv initiative), because the proposal from the software folks is OCR, rather than the cheaper and more reliable bubble scanning software. Unless the software company is up to snuff, that decision could hurt them.

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[Warren D Smith]

It seems to depend on whether the state involved takes voting machine
certification seriously?

[Warren D Smith]

The New Mexico supreme court just sided with Santa Fe, and therefore IRV
will not happen in Santa Fe for the present.

"A ranked-choice election system was approved by voters in 2008 as an
amendment to the city charter, which stipulated that the format must
be implemented in either the 2010 municipal election or as soon
thereafter as the equipment and software 'for tabulation of votes and
the ability to correct incorrectly marked, in-person ballots' was
available at a reasonable price."