Minneapolis voters handled ranking quite well / hand-count continues

[Rob Richie]

I suspect this story won't make "Voting News" -- or at least anything positive from it -- so thought people might be interested in the below. These are hand-counted ranked voting elections, with first choices having been tallied at the poll.

As an aside, note that choosing only one candidate is a very rational act if you expect that first choice to win or be in the top two, as was true in the mayor's race.

Rob

#######
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/11/09/minneapolis-counting/

Minneapolis elections officials finding few errors on ballots
by Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio
November 10, 2009

Minneapolis — Minneapolis city elections officials say so far they have not found more errors on ballots than they usually do.

The city is hand counting the ballots cast last week in the city's first ever election using instant runoff voting. The system allows people to select a first, second and third choice for an office. Interim elections director Pat O'Connor said, so far the counters haven't run into any big snags.

"We're astounded, absolutely astounded," O'Connor said. "We were pleased originally that we could get it all done by December 21, and it appears now that based on our experience that we'll be well ahead of that."

O'Connor said the hand count is going fast primarily because few voters turned out for the election.

"We had originally planned and sequenced the whole thing based on a turnout of 70,000 and 75,000, which was turnout in the past couple of races," he said. "I think eight years ago it was 90,000. Four years ago it was 70,000; so we picked 75,000 to plan around. We were very surprised at 46,000."

O'Connor also says the count has gone faster than expected because so many voters didn't choose more than one candidate and that results for half of the city council races should be completed by the end of this week.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"

Rob Richie
Executive Director

FairVote  
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org r...@fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616

Please support FairVote through action and donations -- see
http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider
a gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's
CFC number is 10132.) Thank you!

[Kathy Dopp]

A response to this article from from Chris Telesca of North Carolina:

Chris Telesca <cjte...@earthlink.net>

"So let's see if I get this straight. There were few errors found on the
ballots because of:

1). Lower than expected turnout - 65% of what they expected.

2). So many voters didn't chose more than one candidate. Do you think
this means that more than half the people in town didn't understand how
to rank their choices? Or does this mean that most people only cared
enough or knew about one candidate and one only?

So much for IRV increasing turnout and being easy for everyone to do.
And how do you think this bodes for telling people that they should
spend more money for lower-turnout IRV elections where so many people
don't know or care about having another choice?"
----------------------

MY ADDITIONAL QUESTION:

Rob Richie, Has Minneapolis finished hand counting the ballots there yet?

Has Minneapolis publicly posted all the individual voters' ballot
choices for each election contest or alternatively have they publicly
posted all the tallies for each possible combination of ballot choices
for each precinct (a number of tallies greater than the number of
voters who voted in each precinct for the contests with a lot of
candidates running) yet so that the public can check the accuracy of
the election outcomes and check to see whether or not the election
produced majoritarian or nonmonotonic results? (These being the only
two ways that the public can check the accuracy of IRV tallies because
IRV is not precinct-summable)

Cheers,

Kathy

>
> Rob Richie <r...@fairvote.org> Nov 10 08:23AM -0500

>  Topic: FairVote partnership with DeGregorio Internet Voting Company
>
> Joyce McCloy <ncv...@gmail.com> Nov 09 06:40PM -0800
>
> From Everyone Counts' website (I did a screen shot, these embarassing
> things tend to disappear)
>
> Fairvote in partnership with Everyone Counts and The Center for Voting
> and Democracy (Fairvote) have entered into an agreement to promote
> proportional representation in the United States.
> http://www.everyonecounts.com/index.php/news/14/121/Partnership-with-Fairvote
>
> If anyone believes that FairVote cares about transparency in
> elections, just look at this partnership. Despicable. Don't be
> fooled, don't be used. The e-voting integrity movement is a powerful
> movement and some seek to use our momentum to promote their agendas.
>
> Instant runoff voting is not additive, it is not precinct summable!
> Its too hard to count even with voting machines and it can never be
> transparent to the average voter. Instant runoff voting is a black box
> to voters and it is also a literacy test.
>
> And here we see that FairVote has their lips on the behind of Everyone
> Counts.
>
> Do we have to learn the hard way? Internet voting is dangerous!
>
> We should all be banding together to fight internet voting now.
> That means not giving power to organizations that pretend to be on our
> side but are actively working with internet voting companies in any
> form or shape.
>
> You can't be a voter advocate and be a partner with a company whose
> financial interests run contrary to voters rights and needs.
>
> The paper ballot movement has been so succesful that someone had to
> find a easier way to rig elections, and the internet is that way.
>
>
>
>
> Mark Adams <markad...@hotmail.com> Nov 09 11:52PM -0500
>
>
> Joyce,
>
>
>
> I agree with you. Internet voting is just another attempt to justify
> "counting" votes in secret, and IRV is another attempt to distract people
> from the main issue while also adding more justification for "counting"
> votes on computers.
>
>
>
> Just so everyone knows, Paul Lehto and I have offered to debate anyone on
> whether or not counting votes in secret is Constitutional. It looked like an
> internet voting proponent was going to take me up on the offer, but I
> haven't heard back from him in a couple of weeks.
>
>
>
> In case anyone needs a reminder about why counting the votes matters or
> wonders why the government passes laws that virtually everyone opposes, like
> the bank bailout, check out Why Does the Government Ignore Our Wishes? at
> http://dailycensored.com/2009/09/11/why-does-the-government-ignore-our-wishes/
> and don’t miss my 18 minute speech.
>
>
>
> If you take a look, you'll learn that our most valuable rights to control
> our government have been stolen, and as a result, horrible abuses are
> occurring. It is time to demand that these rights are restored. Spread the
> news.
>
>
>
> Carpe diem,
>
>
>
> Mark A. Adams JD/MBA
>
>
>
>>
>> If you're not a member and would like to join, go to
>> http://groups.google.com/group/ElectionIntegrity and click on the "join"
>> link at right. For delivery and suspension options, use the "Edit my
>> membership" link.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/
>
>
>
> Rob Richie <r...@fairvote.org> Nov 10 08:09AM -0500
>
> I'm sure the list doesn't want to hear a long back and forth about
> whether FairVote is some nefarious organization, but I'll answer the below.
>
> First, a lot of folks in the election integrity community know that
> we're not in this for the money, have been doing it a long time (I've
> been director since 1992, including an initial couple years of barely
> being paid) and have tried to build the pro-democracy community in a
> lot of ways, including creating vehicles that have brought a wide
> range of reformers together in ways that have directly boosted
> election integrity efforts and broader pro-democracy organizing
> (conferences in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008, for example).
>
> Second, it's also widely accepted that FairVote has played a
> catalytic role in advancing big reform ideas other than our work on
> IRV and proportional voting - among them universal voter registration
> and the National Popular Vote plan for president. We've talked about
> pubic interest voting equipment and the idea of public ownership of
> the process for years, even though Joyce inaccurately may like to
> suggest it's opportunistic and recent. Some of you may like our
> reform goals, some not, but we have a broad vision that I think can
> be defended well based on the basic principle of respect for every
> vote and every voice.
>
> Third, we see the problem of our plurality voting system as more
> important than many election integrity activists might see it. That's
> based on a value that we should have more choice in our politics and
> fairer representation, and from our perspective, nothing blocks that
> goal as much as plurality, winner-take-all voting rules. For a recent
> oped on that perspective, see this recent one by John Anderson that
> ran in several papers:
> http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/sns-200910290806mctnewsservbc-elections-commentary,0,2779407.story
>
> Fourth, as to Everyone Counts, it no grand conspiracy. Just as in
> 2005 when Joyce had some weird theory that we were in cahoots with
> Hart Intercivic, there's no "there" there. The agreement came out of
> the work of an energetic staffer who several years ago was trying to
> help private associations/colleges that wanted to use ranked voting
> methods, but were having trouble doing it with their existing on-line
> election system. We also were interested in having people do mock
> votes on websites on things like using ranking rather that "vote for
> one" system.
>
> We never took a dime from Everyone Counts and have in no way promoted
> Internet voting for electing public offices. The full extent of what
> was done with Everyone Counts (back in 2003-4 time, I believe, before
> Pau DeGregorio was there) was that: 1) its system was used for some
> mock elections we held on our website (I think they all were "voting
> for the best joke" series, which we did for several months); 2) it
> handled the administration for one private association election we
> ran. We haven't been in touch for years.
>
> Finally, instant runoff voting can be done with integrity. Talk to
> folks in nations that use it for national elections in Ireland and
> Australia and to folks in the US like Mark Halvorson in Minnesota.
> There are definitely reasonable proposals for how you can handle
> manual audits of ranked voting elections. If folks are interested in
> working through those issues so that this is done right, even if
> you're ambivalent about IRV and proportional voting, let me know.
>
> Rob
>
> ############
> At 09:40 PM 11/9/2009, Joyce McCloy wrote:
>>"join" link at right. For delivery and suspension options, use the
>>"Edit my membership" link.

>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice"
>
> Rob Richie
> Executive Director
>
> FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
> www.fairvote.org r...@fairvote.org
> (301) 270-4616
>
> Please support FairVote through action and donations -- see
> http://fairvote.org/donate. For federal employees, please consider
> a gift to us through the Combined Federal Campaign (FairVote's
> CFC number is 10132.) Thank you!
>
>
>
>
>
>

> --
> To post, send email to Election...@googlegroups.com. Please review the
> "Posting Guidelines" page.
>
> Please forward EI messages widely and invite members to join the group at
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>
> If you're not a member and would like to join, go to
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> link at right. For delivery and suspension options, use the "Edit my
> membership" link.



--

Kathy Dopp

Town of Colonie, NY 12304
phone 518-952-4030
cell 518-505-0220

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

Realities Mar Instant Runoff Voting - 18 Flaws and 4 Benefits
http://electionmathematics.org/ucvAnalysis/US/RCV-IRV/InstantRunoffVotingFlaws.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf

Checking election outcome accuracy --- Post-election audit sampling
http://electionmathematics.org/em-audits/US/PEAuditSamplingMethods.pdf

[Rob Richie]

Ranking candidates comes into play in an IRV racde when a race is in doubt and you have preferences among the remaining candidates. In the mayor's race, anyone voting for the incumbent mayor knew he was not going to be eliminated in the count and it was rational to vote for him only.

Note that in competitive IRV races in San Francisco, the median voter has been using all their rankings. No data suggests that less well-educated voters are being adversely impacted by the new opportunity to rank candidates. But much data suggests that low turnout primaries and low turnout runoffs (like the statewide runoff in NC last year that had turnout off some 2%) generally have older, whiter and wealthier electorates.

As to voter turnout, most of Minneapolis' elections were not seen as competitive throughout the year and would not have been with any winner-take-all system. When IRV and non-IRV elections are competitive, they tend to boost turnout. When they're not, they don't. IRV doesn't create meaningful competition-- it accommodates it when it happens. Neighboring city St. Paul also had very low turnout because its elections were similarly non-competitive -- but unlike Minneapolis, St. Paul reduced their fields to two in September primaries with low single-digit turnout.

On integrity issues in Minneapolis, I would encourage those interested to reach out to Citizens for Election Integrity in Minnesota. Its homepage has this statement:

http://www.ceimn.org/

Ranked Choice Voting

Citizens for Election Integrity MN advocates for transparent, verifiable, and accurate elections. We observed the Minneapolis test RCV election in May. Based on that experience, it is our belief that a well administered RCV election with carefully designed protocols, well trained poll workers, and educated voters can be conducted in a manner that is transparent, accurate, and verifiable.

Rob