Big Election Day for STV and IRV
While some jurisdictions had off-year elections yesterday, four others voted on instant runoff voting (aka IRV, alternative vote, single transferable vote applied to a single-winner election). Three others used IRV for public elections, and one other used STV (aka choice voting), crème de la crème of candidate-based, multi-winner methods.
On implementation/retention
In Pierce County, WA, IRV survived a veritable repeal attempt 66% to 34% just one year after its passage. Charter Amendment 4 would have restored the closed primary and delayed implementation until 2010.
Sarasota, FL voters passed IRV 78% to 12%. Implementation is pending compatible equipment at the county level.
In Aspen, CO, 77% approved IRV for mayor and a “multi-seat” variant for two at-large council seats. This was an advisory referendum.
In Clallam County, WA, IRV failed 55% to 45%.
Overall good news for the reform movement, which passed IRV and/or STV in four jurisdictions last November.
In public elections
Hendersonville, NC used “multi-seat” IRV for the first time.
Takoma Park, MD used IRV city-wide for the first time. Some voters had a first exposure last January in a special vacancy election. Takoma Park passed IRV in November 2005.
Once again, San Francisco voters ranked up to three choices on optically scanned IRV ballots. It passed there in 2002.
Finally, Cambridge, MA used STV to elect nine city council members and six school committee members. The quota: Droop. The surplus transfer: Cincinnati method. The count: electronic. (Yes, electronic. And surplus transfer might be fractional if not for politics over voting equipment and the city’s grandfathering post-statewide repeal.)
Cambridge has used STV since 1941. It’s the lone survivor of 24 (some say 22 or 23) Progressive Era municipal implementations, the rest of which faced racially and politically charged repeals through the 1950s. (However the NYC school board lasted until 2002). Cambridge itself survived several repeal attempts.
AllAboutVoting on 07 Nov 2007 at 10:01 am #
>Overall good news for the reform movement
>which passed IRV and/or STV in four
>jurisdictions last November.
The IRV momentum is bad news from the
perspective of this reformer.
What do you mean by “and/or STV”?
Are you referring to Aspen’s ‘”multi-seat”
variant for two at-large council seats’?
Bob Richard on 07 Nov 2007 at 5:01 pm #
I read Jack’s “and/or” as referring to November 2006, when the adoption in Minneapolis included STV for a couple of at-large boards and commissions, as well as IRV for single-seat offices.
Jack on 07 Nov 2007 at 5:46 pm #
Bingo. Library board and one or two others, I think it was.
AllAboutVoting on 08 Nov 2007 at 11:30 am #
Thanks for the clarification.
Speaking on Minneapolis, they just hosted the Post-Election Auditing Summit:
http://allaboutvoting.com/2007/11/08/post-election-auditing-summit/
MSS on 08 Nov 2007 at 4:24 pm #
So, is the “multi-seat variant” different from STV (a.k.a. IRV with a magnitude of one and thus a Droop quota of 50%+1)?
Additionally, are all these cases of “IRV” the alternative vote (as opposed to bastardized variants like supplementary vote); and how many limit the number of preference rankings a voter may give?
Jack on 08 Nov 2007 at 10:32 pm #
Yes, “multi-seat IRV” is different from STV (and inferior in my opinion). Basically a quota of 50%+1 (or 40%+1) is arbitrarily applied to each seat. The only reasons I can think one would implement it are:
(1) being enthralled with IRV,
(2) having heard of STV and nonetheless preferring majoritarianism to proportionality,
(3) legal issues with STV.
Yes, they are all cases of the alternative vote.
With Aspen and Sarasota, we don’t know if preferences will be limited since those were advisory referenda. It’ll depend on the voting equipment. Basically voting machines cause ranking limits where rankings are horizontal across an optically scanned ballot paper. This is the case in Cary, NC (sample ballot) and San Francisco. It doesn’t seem to be the case in Hendersonville, NC (sample ballot).
Incidentally, the Pierce County measure would have limited voters to three rankings on top of delaying implementation until 2010.
MSS on 09 Nov 2007 at 6:14 pm #
Mutli-seat AV. Ugh. That was what I feared. I was hoping you would show my fears to have been misplaced!
Jack on 11 Nov 2007 at 7:57 pm #
Better than bloc vote.
Bob Richard on 12 Nov 2007 at 6:34 pm #
I need to be convinced that multi-seat IRV is better than the bloc vote. The bloc vote allows bullet voting; if enough voters use that option, they can achieve some of the effect of the limited vote. This does happen in real elections. Unless I’m missing something, multi-seat IRV takes away that option and is therefore even more majoritarian than the bloc vote.
It’s true that multi-seat IRV allows voters to become familiar with ranked ballots. But if that familiarity leads them to conclude that ranked ballots produce unrepresentative councils and boards, the experiment could fail. In my opinion, voters are more likely to attribute results to the ranked ballot format than they are to listen to learned arguments about different counting algorithms.
On a separate point, the Cary experiment was actually the contingent vote rather than AV/IRV.
Jack on 12 Nov 2007 at 10:05 pm #
From a quick scan of the Henderson ballot, it looks possible for one to bullet vote there under IRV. I can’t really tell how votes are registered from the Cary ballot.
As it turns out, Cary is hand-counted in the event successive preferences are needed to determine the winner. And I think you are right about the contingent vote there, too.
Bob Richard on 13 Nov 2007 at 12:17 pm #
Jack: From a quick scan of the Hendersonville ballot, it looks possible for one to bullet vote there under IRV.
Yes. It turns out that the Hendersonville procedure wasn’t what we are calling “multi-seat IRV”. It was considerably more complicated. With two open seats, voters picked up to two top choices (just like a bloc voting ballot), and then picked third, fourth and fifth choices. The second part of the ballot was only consulted if fewer than two candidates got 25% on the first part of the ballot. 25% is a majority threshold (not Hare or Droop or …) because we are counting X’s here, not ballot papers.
Trying to decide whether my comments about multi-seat IRV also apply to this election is making my head spin.
Vasi on 15 Dec 2007 at 2:34 am #
I’m surprised that a system like the “Cincinnati Method” which involves randomly-selected ballots has lasted this long! Perhaps once upon a time it was the only feasible way to get a quick STV count, but now that they have electronic counting, what’s the justification for this feature?
Jack on 15 Dec 2007 at 3:37 pm #
As always, complications related to the voting equipment. I don’t remember the whole story, but fractional transfer did come up at one point. Something having to do with changing the algorithm would’ve resulted in decertification of the machine and - correct me if I’m wrong - an “un-grandfathering” of the city’s STV provisions.