Advocacy group seeks to stop spread of Instant Runoff Voting
Tuesday, October 06, 2009 at 4:10 pm
- 6 Comments
The No Bad Ballots Committee wants to thwart the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in St. Paul. The newly formed advocacy group argues that the system will confuse voters and result in the disenfranchisement of immigrants and the elderly.
St. Paul voters will decide next month whether to adopt IRV, which gives voters the opportunity to rank candidates in order of preference. Minneapolis will be utilizing such a system, also known as ranked-choice voting, for the first time this year.
“There’s been no opposition anywhere in the country,” says Chuck Repke, co-chair of the No Bad Ballots Committee. “We just finally decided we’ll step up and do it.”
Supporters of Instant Runoff Voting, most notably FairVote Minnesota, argue that it encourages greater participation in the democratic process and allows voters to back their favored candidate without having to worry about a spoiler affect. They also believe that it encourages less negative campaigning.
But Repke, who helped defeat a resolution backing instant-runoff voting at St. Paul’s DFL party convention in March, believes that champions of the novel voting method have mislead the public about its merits.
“They claim that instant-runoff voting will do everything but clean my laundry for me,” he says. “What these people get away with is amazing.”
Repke points to the experience of Pierce County, Wash., as evidence that ranked-choice voting will prove a debacle. Last year the county spent $1.7 million to implement IRV after voters passed a resolution adopting the new system. But a survey of voters indicated that roughly two thirds didn’t like the new system. There is now a measure on the ballot to do away with the voting method.
The No Bad Ballots Committee will spend the next month attending political events and distributing literature in hopes of preventing a similar experience in St. Paul.
“I’ve spent 38 years trying to get people to vote in this town,” says Repke. “I’m sure as hell not going to give up and turn it over to some system that will confuse and disenfranchise voters.”
6 Comments
Comment posted October 6, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
It’s interesting how one of the chief arguments by people who oppose ranked choice voting is that older voters are not smart enough to figure out how to use it.
Comment posted October 7, 2009 @ 9:33 am
Yep, I sure am confused about IRV. It is used in municipal elections from Vermont to California and national elections in Australia, Ireland and Scotland. Yet Mr. Repke says we here in Saint Paul are too stupid to use it. As somebody over 60, I must be too dumb to make sense of Mr. Repke’s argument because it just doesn’t add up to me. Maybe that’s why cleaning Mr. Repke’s laundry is the last thing on my mind.
Comment posted October 7, 2009 @ 9:34 am
I supported IRV in my run for the DFL endorsement in the 4th Ward. I still support it even though one could argue that we have much more important issues on our plate. I think it is like the song- easy as 1,2,3-ABC. How difficult is it to rank. Don’t sell us regular guys,or the seniors, or the newly arrived short- we should be able to figure it out. So let us have a healthy discussion and see how it shakes out during a rather boring mayoral/school board election cycle.
Comment posted October 7, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
Why not just tell us who to vote for? Then voting will be simple and there will be no need for tiebreakers.
Comment posted October 7, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
Just one other example since someone mentioned Vermont. In Burlington, the town in Vermont that uses IRV they had a contested race. They have about 9,000 people voting. As they go through the rounds of drop offs 17% of the voters who’s candidate was dropped ended up without a vote in the final run off. About 600 of the 2,500 voters who lost their first candidate had no vote in the final round “general election.” That is normal for an IRV election. It happens every where. That doesn’t happen in a normal city election. Everybody gets to vote in November. I know the IRV advocates don’t care that those 600 people were disenfranchised but I do, and I think most people would care if they knew that is what happens. That is why 3 of the seven cities that have tried IRV in the last two years have either repealed it or have it up for repeal this year. Tacoma Wash, Aspen Col, Cary NC.
Comment posted October 8, 2009 @ 12:17 am
Cary, North Carolina tried IRV in 2007 and then said “no more”.
Did voters understand IRV in this city known where almost every household is internet connected?
The results of Cary NC’s 2008 bi-annual citizen survey indicate that a significant percent of voters do not understand IRV:
The results indicate there was a level of misunderstanding among the respondents. The mean was 5.83 with 58.6% on the “understand” side (above 5) of the scale and 30.6% on the “not understand” side (Figure 19). This includes 22.0% who indicated they do not understand at all. Overall this indicates a degree of misunderstanding among the respondents.
The respondents were next asked their support for using the Instant Runoff Voting Method using a 9-point scale from not supportive at all (1) to very supportive(9).
The respondents were also informed the use of the method would save Cary taxpayers approximately $28,000 by not having to hold a physical runoff election. (fiscal analysis for IRV costs not performed).
Table 63 shows there is a relatively high level of support for using the method. The mean was 7.21 with 68.8 on the “support” side of the scale versus only 7.2% on the “no support” side
http://www.townofcary.org/depts/pio/biennialsurvey/html/2008BiennialSurveyReport.htm
In Summary:
30.6% did not understand IRV
22.0% did not understand IRV at all
68.8% said they supported IRV after being told it would save money.
What does this say about IRV as an election method that 22% did not understand IRV at all? Consider that Cary has the most Ph.D.s per capita in the U.S. for towns larger than 75,000 people.
Hendersonville participated in the 2007 IRV pilot, and since no computers burst into flames it was deemed a success. An exit poll (conducted using IRV advocates) said that one third of voters polled came to the polls unprepared to rank their choices.
http://irvbad4nc.blogspot.com/2008/06/worriesome-realities-mar-instant-runoff.html
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