IRV has been used long enough in places like San Francisco (Since 2004) and Australia (decades) that IRV advocates should be able to back up their claims on what IRV does.

See factual studies, news articles, reports, fiscal analysis etc at
http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us/

In Australia’s 24 November 2007 elections, the Election Commission was unable to determine the composition of parliament until over 1 month later because of numerous races which were difficult for them to count.
http://rangevoting.org/IrvNonAdd.html”

This happens under plurality, too. I’m sure you’re familiar with Bush-Gore and Franken-Coleman.

“IRV does discriminate against some voters, and that isn’t calling voters stupid. However, a Grand Jury in San Francisco reported that voters and poll workers had trouble understanding IRV and that more voter education would have to be provided. Consider that San Fran already spends about $1.84 per registered voter just on education!”

But it still saves money on runoffs, and no, it doesn’t discriminate against some voters. Lower income and minority voters were just as likely to rank preferences in San Francisco and Burlington.

“First of all, IRV HURTS third parties, not helps them. Because of the math of IRV, the powerful parties STAY in power, and the weaker parties STAY weak.”

IRV is better for third parties than plurality or top-two runoff.

Do you folks realize that in Australia, there are two dominant parties thanks to IRV? In Ireland, there is one dominant party (with IRV).

See Australian Politics – the “Disadvantages of the Preferential [IRV] System”… promotes a two-party system to the detriment of minor parties and independents. http://australianpolitics.com/elections/features/preferential.shtml

As for Australia using a paper ballot, yes they do, and their ballots are extremely simple, unlike ballots used in the US. There’s usually one item only on the ballot paper.

Tell me, does this Australian ballot look anything like what you would see at your polling place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_Senate_Ballot_Paper.gif

Australia had one IRV election that took a month to count these simple paper ballots:

In Australia’s 24 November 2007 elections, the Election Commission was unable to determine the composition of parliament until over 1 month later because of numerous races which were difficult for them to count.
http://rangevoting.org/IrvNonAdd.html

IRV does discriminate against some voters, and that isn’t calling voters stupid. However, a Grand Jury in San Francisco reported that voters and poll workers had trouble understanding IRV and that more voter education would have to be provided. Consider that San Fran already spends about $1.84 per registered voter just on education!

July 3, 08 San Francisco Grand Jury Report: poll workers and voters do not understand instant runoff, voting machines not yet certified….
http://instantrunoff.blogspot.com/2008/07/instant-runoff-not-understood-by-voters.html

Then there was that Municipal election in San Francisco in 2007. See electionline’s report:

Ranked-Choice Voting and Flawed Ballots Tax San Francisco’s Election By Kat Zambon electionline.org Nov 08, 2007 …”Voters also questioned the value of ranked-choice voting…There are a lot of people who only mark one [candidate] or the same person three times..”I don’t want to vote for a second one, I want this one.”
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2639&Itemid=113

If the goal was to help third parties, then there are several other voting methods that actually do help weaker parties gain strength.

There are other methods such as approval, range, or even Fusion which is used in some states now. Maybe better ballot access plus public campaign financing would do more for third parties than shuffling the deck over and over.

So much for the claims that IRV is easy to understand.”

I’m tired of the defenders of the two-party system telling us that we’re too stupid to rank choices; the Australians and Irish are smart enough to do it. Voters can bullet vote because they do not like the other candidates enough to rank them. It does not mean that they did not understand IRV. Again, the overvote rate in the Burlington election was 0.01%. That’s as good as it gets.

Again, 93% of the voters ranked enough choices to participate in the final round. Compare that with the “real” runoff election for Burlington City Council Ward 7, where only 56% as many voters bothered to vote as in the first election.

“And Bob Kiss was declared the winner with less than 50% plus one vote of the total of first column votes cast. IRV does not ensure a majority winner in one election instead of two.”

Abstentions are not included in the calculation of a majority, otherwise the runoff election for City Council in Ward 7 would actually have been further from a majority winner than the first round.

:

> > • Of the 8,980 people who voted in the election, 16.5 percent “bullet
> > voted,” meaning they stopped filling out their mayoral ballot after
> > making their first-choice selection. A total of 37.8 percent of voters
> > chose not to make a selection in what turned out to be the critical
> > third-choice round of voting.

So much for the claims that IRV is easy to understand. And Bob Kiss was declared the winner with less than 50% plus one vote of the total of first column votes cast. IRV does not ensure a majority winner in one election instead of two.

Similarly, Cary, North Carolina voters elected their mayor using IRV last year. Exit polls showed that almost everyone (96 percent) found IRV easy to understand. In a post election interview, one senior voter said: “It’s very simple. Anyone could do it, even a five year old child.”

Cary did not election a mayor using IRV last year. They elected one District B council person in 2007, and he did not get a majority of the first round ballots needed to win. Our county Board of Election – one of the best in the state – couldn’t even follow the so-called simple written hand-tabulation procedures. They made several errors that were caught by the observers – two of whom are on the Cary Town Council now. They have no confidence in the method, and therefore Cary will more likely than not use IRV in 2009 or anytime in the future.

Furthermore, more reliable exit polls conducted by a professional un-biased polling firm (not FairVote, DemocracyNC or other pro-IRV groups) found that about 1/3 of Cary residents didn’t understand IRV, with 11% having no opinion on the matter. When you combine that with the 25% who showed up on election day not knowing they would be expected to rank their votes (and therefore not being able to fully participate in the election), IRV is not a a good fit here in North Carolina – or elsewhere!

Jeanne Massey made several incorrect claims about Instant Runoff Voting in Cary, North Carolina in her comment posted March 23, 2009 @ 11:40 pm:

MASSEY: claimed that: “Similarly, Cary, North Carolina voters elected their mayor using IRV last year.

THE TRUTH: Massey’s wrong. There was no mayoral contest last year – 2008, there was no IRV in Cary last year, and the one time Cary used IRV in October 2007, IRV was not used for the mayoral contest.
1. Cary only participated in the IRV experiment in October 2007, and the mayoral contest was not a ranked choice contest.
2. In 2007, there were only 2 candidates for mayor, Ernest F. McAlister (incumbent) and Harold Weinbrecht (ultimately the winner).
http://msweb03.co.wake.nc.us/bordelec/downloads/2007OCT_summary-official.htm

MASSEY: “Exit polls showed that almost everyone (96 percent) found IRV easy to understand.”

THE TRUTH: Massey’s 96% number is wrong. According to an exit poll (arguably tainted since it was conducted by IRV advocates, some who admitted faking a southern accent to influence the dumb hillbillies): 82% agreed IRV was “very easy” to understand. http://news.ncsu.edu/news/2007/10/158-irv-voting-survey.php

*Keep in mind that Cary population is far from the norm:
-Cary has the most Ph.D.s per capita in the U.S. for towns larger than 75,000 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary,_North_Carolina#Education
-Cary has one of the highest median household incomes in the state.
- In Cary, nearly 9 in 10 citizens have access to the Internet
-Cary has the highest number of citizens with advanced degrees and per capita income in the entire state of NC, with the majority of voters being internet connected as well.
http://www.townofcary.org/aboutcary/

MASSEY: says that “In a post election interview, one senior voter said: ‘It’s very simple. Anyone could do it, even a five year old child.’”

TRUTH: Doesn’t that sound like the rational used for literacy tests?

CARY REJECTED A 2ND IRV EXPERIMENT. March 12, 2009 Cary North Carolina turned down second bite of Instant Runoff Voting Pilot, process still too flawed The City Council chose plurality by a vote of 6-1 instead, citing problems with IRV and noting that the one IRV election they had produced a plurality winner, not a majority winner.
http://irvbad4nc.blogspot.com/2009/03/instant-runoff-voting-pilot-remains.html

“While this may seem like a wonderful thing in Cambridge for a bunch of Harvard professors, we’ve got a general population that has trouble filling out one oval in a Coleman-Franken race,””

Funny – there were three top vote-getters in the race. Did you forget Dean Barkley so soon, Dave? The main reason for the current system to keep 3rd parties OUT of politics.