Instant Runoff Voting Pilot Program
Cary, North Carolina
North Carolina adopted a pilot program for instant runoff voting for up to 10 cities in 2007 and up to 10 counties for 2008. "The State Board of Elections shall closely monitor the pilot program established in this section and report its findings and recommendations to the 2007 General Assembly." [1]. The city of Cary will use IRV for mayor and city council elections in October 2007 [2] and the city of Hendersonville will use IRV for city council elections in November 2007 [3].
Cary used the "top two" version of IRV, all but the top two first-choice vote getters are eliminated at once, and the ballots are redistributed to the two remaining candidates.
The Wake County BOE explains it the "instant runoff" this way:
"Poucher said the vote counting is similar to a traditional runoff, but it happens with one ballot. "If nobody gets a majority of first-choice votes, the top two candidates go into a 'virtual' runoff. Your vote stays with one of those top two candidates if one of them was your first choice. But if your first choice was eliminated, then your vote goes to whichever of the top two candidates you ranked highest with your backup choices," Poucher explained ."[4].
Critics Take Runoff Concerns To Elections Board NBC 17 Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007
IRV critics say it doesn't simplify the process at all. "What IRV does is violate one of the basic principals of election integrity, which is simplicity," said Perry Woods, a political consultant in Cary. He says a small glitch threw everything into turmoil. Basically, someone counted the same group of votes twice; the error was caught, and corrected after an audit.
RALEIGH - Supporters of instant runoff voting are touting Cary's recent experiment with this new method of casting, counting and valuing votes as a resounding success and a reason to expand its use to other cities and towns. A more thorough examination of what happened in Cary casts serious doubt on that conclusion....However, the primary reason to question the success of the new system in Cary is that it likely changed the outcome of an election, the one in District B...
Ranked choice voting violates a key principle in electoral confidence, and that is simplicity. Determining when to conduct a runoff could be made more complicated by adjusting thresholds, but voting itself should remain simple.
....Principally an academic model, ranked choice voting may yield unintended consequences. Before other communities embrace it, an open and thorough examination of all the data from the Cary experiment needs to occur. As well, other reforms should be explored. For municipalities, those could include changing thresholds for holding runoffs, or public financing of elections. A frank and transparent debate on these issues is healthy for our democracy.
By Jordan Schrader, USA TODAY. CARY, N.C. - October 17, 2007
| North Carolina is testing a system known as instant-runoff voting or ranked-choice voting ... | No candidate for the Cary Town Council's District B seat won a majority, so two days later election workers gathered to sort the ballots by hand. They logged the backup choices of voters to determine which of top vote-getters, Don Frantz and Vickie Maxwell, had won.
Frantz, owner of an auto repair shop, emerged the winner by a margin of 48 votes. After learning of the totals Tuesday, however, he was torn about whether the town should have another instant-runoff race.
Frantz said he heard from many confused voters on the campaign trail.
"I found myself, when I was at some places, that's all I was doing … explaining the new voting system," he said.
Schrader reports for the "Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times" NC's first experiment with instant runoff voting completeMyrtle Beach Sun News - October 17, 2007
AP The Wake County elections board has declared the winner in a Cary Town Council election held last week after using what's called instant runoff voting. ...according to an exit poll of voters managed by Hall and designed by an N.C. State University professor, 82 percent of those surveyed said the new ballot style was very easy to understand.
Cary election previews vote in Hendersonville By Jordan Schrader, October 15, 2007
...When the count ended, Frantz led by a couple of dozen votes, with an official total due Tuesday. Frantz said he wouldn't support another instant-runoff. Hundreds of people he met left the polls not understanding the system, he said. He prefers an actual runoff with a clear choice of two candidates. "Even after all this is said and done, none of us got a clear majority," Frantz said.
Audit finds errors in Cary Dist B "Instant Runoff" count
Recount widens Frantz lead in Cary
Matthew Eisley, Raleigh News & Observer - Oct 12, 2007
A double-checking of votes today in Cary's razor-thin District B Town Council election showed that Don Frantz appears to be the unofficial winner after all.... But Elections Director Cherie Poucher said today that an audit of the votes found math mistakes
Observers had reported confusion by election workers during the counting of the "instant" runoff. Additionally, some voters mis marked their ballots, with some ranking the same candidate 3 times,(which renders their 2nd and 3rd choices worthless) and at least one marking numbers "1-2-3" by their choices instead of shading in the circles. Provisonal ballots weren't counted!
"No clear winner in Cary council race"
Matthew Eisley, Raleigh News & Observer - Oct 11, 2007
North Carolina's first "instant runoff" election still hasn't produced a clear winner....Wake elections officials counted ballots in the Cary Town Council District B race today.... There are still at least 35 and as many as 52 provisional ballots to count....
Victors, losers sort out election . Raleigh News & Observer. Oct 11, 2007. Matthew Eisley, Reporter.
ADDITIONAL VOTES COUNTED - Because of a computer software glitch, Wake County's unofficial election results Tuesday night in races for Raleigh's City Council, Cary's Town Council, and Wake's public school board inadvertently omitted almost 3,000 votes from two one-stop voting sites, Wake Elections Director Cherie Poucher said Wednesday.
A few candidates' updated vote percentages differ slightly from those reported Tuesday night, but no election results changed when the 2,876 missing votes were added, Poucher said. Of the total, 1,760 votes were cast in Cary, and 1,116 in Raleigh.
A relatively small portion of ballots remains to be counted, including provisional votes. The results remain unofficial until Wake's Board of Elections tallies and certifies all votes Tuesday.
Voters in Cary made history on Tuesday when they used instant-runoff voting (IRV) for the first time ever in the state of North Carolina. ... “I was a little taken aback because I had not heard about the process until I walked in today and I wasn't prepared to come up with my second choice,” said voter Valerie Garcia.".....
“You had to do more research because you had to have a backup in case your person didn't win so it took a little bit longer but it was well worth it in the end,” voter Brad Freeman said. His opinion and others are being collected in an exit survey. The results will be presented to the State Board of Elections later this year.
[1] House Bill 1024, General Assembly of North Carolina, Session 2005.
[2]Cary Votes 1-2-3.
[3] Instant runoff raises doubts, Jordan Schrader, Sept. 5, 2007.
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