Election Reform Advocate Calls S.F. Ranked-Choice Voting Lawsuit a 'Waste of Taxpayers' Money'

• And... the federal judge agreed and rejected this legal challenge. See opinion at: http://irvinla.org/sites/irvinla.org/files/dudum%20v%20artnz%20--%20judge%20seeborg%27s%20decision.pdf

• it's unfortunate that in a political system where we predominantly use first-past-the-post voting that there is a need to focus our energies on a specific alternative to the status quo. Given the flaws of the status quo election rule, the logical choice is to support strategically the option that has the most support. Because or Rob Richie and others, IRV is that alternative and not Approval voting or Score Voting.... As for its "flaws", well my understanding of Arrow's paradox is that there is no perfect election rule and that short-comings can be found for any election rule. This is why I believe that different election rules are appropriate for different elections. IRV tends to favor incumbents, with voters splitting their 1st ranking among challengers. No doubt, this makes IRV easier to pass into law by lawmakers, most of whom are bound to be incumbents in upcoming elections. And since IRV is preferable to FPP, this makes IRV politically feasible and to be preferred. dlw

• Greg. I see you get paid to do this kind of thing for PG&E -- nice gig, I'm sure: http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2008/09/greg_dewar_pges_sock_puppet.html But given your insights about San Francisco politics, tell me which citywide race would have gone differently with a traditional runoff? Now turn to the many competitive races for the Board of Supervisors -- that's where the money issue is clear, just as it was with much better-financed candidates losing in several key races in other cities with RCV. To underscore the eager postings of Joyce McCloy, et al, this case is not about the constitutionality of RCV and isn't seeking to stop RCV in San Franciso. It's seeking to require full rankings on the ballot. I prefer that too, as a matter of fact, but: 1) it's absurd to argue that a limitation of three rankings is unconstitutional, but a limitation to one ranking (e.g., traditional plurality) is not; 2) the current RCV system is more democratic than plurality voting and is former runoff system.

• I am a San Francisco resident, and an election reform activist, briefly mentioned in the book "Gaming the Vote" by William Poundstone. While I agree with Rob Richie and other election reform advocates that ordinary "pick-one" plurality voting is extremely problematic, I believe Instant Runoff Voting is a very poor alternative. It has numerous problems of its own, like: 1) Typically leading to more spoiled ballots: http://scorevoting.net/SPRates.html 2) Making tie and near-tie election recount nightmares more likely: http://scorevoting.net/TieRisk.html 3) Making elections more susceptible to fraud, since it cannot be sub-totaled at the precinct level, and must be centrally tabulated. Moreover, Rob Richie has repeatedly shown himself to be anything but an expert on the subject of voting methods. Many election reformer activists consider him to be a compulsive liar. I have seen numerous instances where Rob Richie makes claims that are patently false, only to be refuted by credentialed mathematics and political science experts, and then go on to make the same arguments to each new online audience he encounters. For instance, he claimed that the last IRV election for mayor of Burlington VT did not in fact suffer from the non-monotonicity problem, even though the ballot data concretely shows that it WAS non-monotonic. This was explained to him by a Princeton math Ph.D. named Warren Smith, who specializes in election theory and has made some ground-breaking discoveries in the field of election theory. See this write-up: http://scorevoting.net/Burlington.html Richie has also claimed that Instant Runoff Voting incentivizes voters to cast sincere preference orderings on their ballots, even though that is mathematically/statistically proven wrong, e.g. here: http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html The problem with these claims is that they are often so mathematically intricate that Richie can use the resulting confusion to his advantage, and win points by using inaccurate oversimplifications of the arguments. I don't like the fact that Dudum wants us to return to plurality voting, largely on the basis of spurious arguments that are generally ignorant of complex facets of social choice theory. He may well be an agent of the status quo, and that is unfortunate. But my experience with Rob Richie is that he makes Karl Rove look like a really honest guy.

• Aww Rob. Trolling the comments, I see. How web 2.0. I don't "lose money" if there is IRV or not. For you to say such a thing is either stupid or a lie. I'm guessing the latter since you are so scared of any debate on this issue you have to stoop to that. As for the record of elections in SF, once again, Rob is either stupid or lying. How many "non big money candidates" won for Mayor in 2007 under IRV? How many city wide candidates have run with NO OPPOSITION AT ALL, despite the magical IRV system? Rob, trolling in comments shows you either have too much time, or are so insecure in your views you have to stoop to lying about me. That's ok, I'm used to the zealots of the left and right coming after me. It just shows I'm doing something right and wild eyed zealots are just playing with themselves. (Do you need help figuring out what that means, Robbie?)

• I'd like to respond to Rob Richie's criticism of Greg Dewar. Richie seeks to discredit Greg by saying: "...he's a political consultant who loses money every time instant runoff voting replaces two rounds of election with one...." (Never mind that Richie makes his living promoting IRV, it puts food on his table.) IF anything, IRV will serve as a "stimulus package" for political consultants. The City of Oakland has just adopted IRV and now is considering doubling the campaign donation and spending limits since they will have "one election" rather than two. See recent article: CityWise: Dellums says stimulus will bring 5,000 jobs By Kelly Rayburn Oakland Tribune Posted: 02/04/2010 ...The Oakland City Council won't decide whether to increase the amount of money that can be donated and spent in city elections until the city's Public Ethics Commission vets the idea, a council committee decided Thursday. City Attorney John Russo proposed doubling both the amount individuals can donate to candidates and the amount that can be spent by candidates who agree to the city's voluntary spending caps. The logic behind the proposal was that with Oakland's recent switch to instant-runoff voting, which precludes the need for primary elections, it makes sense to allow candidates to raise and spend more money -- particularly because candidates will want to educate voters on how the new voting system works. Contribution and spending limits were adjusted this week by the City Clerk's office, and, with the new numbers in place, Russo's proposal would mean individuals would be allowed to donate as much as $1,400 to candidates, up from $700, and that a mayoral candidate who agrees to spending limits would be eligible to spend nearly $760,000. http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14337711?source=rss IRV will be great for political consultants - they can make twice the money in half the time, right?

• It seems divide and conquer is the classic approach to stymie election reform/ experimentation.... IRV may not reduce the incumbency advantage much, but it can alter the behavior of incumbents and other candidates, which is enuf to make them worthwhile reforms. Altho, I'm not sure the majority req that Rob touts is truly true unless you do get to rank all of the candidates, which would make vote counting/tabulation even more time costly and fraught with potential for mischief, perhaps. And so my point has been, let's see all election reform as just part of the experiment called Democracy. The one person, one vote is not meant to be taken literally, but rather to refer to how elections permit any voter to potentially have the same chance of providing the decisive vote in an election. dlw

• I just looked at a copy of the lawsuit. The key points of the case: The issue of the constitutionality is based on HOW IRV is conducted in SF at this time. Page 2: ...the instant runoff voting systme being implemented in San Francisco is unorthodox and-at the time it was adopted-unprecedented in that it allows a voter to "rank" only three candidates even though there are often more than three candidates running for a particular office. San Francisco's novel system violates the constitutional rights of voters because it arbitrarily and illegally extinguishes a voters right to vote once his or her three ranked candidates are eliminated from contention. The result has been that in election after election thousands of voters have illegally had their votes "exhausted" and been denid the right to particpate in subsequent rounds of balloting while other voters have been allowed to participate fully. As such the instant runoff voting system used in San Francisco violates the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, and 42 U.S.C 1983. There's much more, but that is why the plaintiffs are addressing the issue of constitutionality. San Francisco had to change the charter to redefine what a majority is: In San Francisco,"majority" is of the "continuing" ballots, not a majority of all ballots: "If no candidate receives a majority of votes from the continuing ballots after a candidate has been eliminated and his or her votes have been transferred to the next-ranked candidate, the continuing candidate with the fewest votes from the continuing ballots shall be eliminated. All votes cast for that candidate shall be transferred to the next-ranked continuing candidate on each voter's ballot. This process of eliminating candidates and transferring their votes to the next-ranked continuing candidates shall be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the votes from the continuing ballots." SEC. 13.102. -INSTANT RUNOFF ELECTIONS.(D) In other words, the majority consists of the votes left after others are eliminated. The elimination of ballots and the exhaustion of ballots (the point a ballot does not have choices marked) is part of the reason that in many instant runoff voting elections often suffer majority failure. The ironic thing is that many people who support IRV do so because they believe that IRV helps third party candidates and the third parties. But because of the math of IRV and the need for name recognition and or big money to get enough votes, IRV hurts third parties. IRV leads to two party domination: "The three IRV countries: Ireland (mandated in their 1937 constitution), Australia and Malta (and more recently Fiji for a brief period of IRV democracy before its coup) all are 2-party dominated (in IRV seats) � despite having many other features in their governments which would seem much more multiparty-genic than the USA with IRV added will ever have.

• I'll take a stab at helping Mr. Richie figure out what "pimping" has to do with how he advocates IRV. Go to the Urban Dictionary for "pimping" and you'll find the following definition: "To strongly promote and support a certain thing." So Greg Dewar is not saying that Rob Richie has anything to do with prostitution. He's using the urban definition to describe Rob as someone who is strongly promoting and supporting IRV. In that I agree with Greg - Rob Richie is one of IRV's strongest supporters. Sometimes people market or advocate a thing a little too enthusiastically - like the folks at Better Ballot in MN. The judge's exact words were: "Accordingly, the panel has concluded that the Respondent made knowingly false claims that the Minnesota DFL and the League of Women Voters �endorsed� the St. Paul ballot question and that it failed to obtain written permission from the national political figures before using their names as supporters of the ballot question, in violation of Minn. Stat. � 211B.02. The panel has concluded that these violations, which were reflected in approximately 40,000 pieces of campaign literature, were multiple and deliberate. They were made despite the clarity of the statutory prohibitions, and the Respondent remains completely unapologetic. " I also feel that "pimping" would describe the actions of a former FairVote employee (Dianne Russell of Maine) who admitted in writing that she faked a southern accent when she was doing both voter education and exit polling at the 2007 Cary IRV election. Would anyone care to see a screen shot? Sometimes you can't let your enthusiasms get the better of you!

• I'll chime in. Greg Dewar suggests that I am "pimping" instant runoff voting (whatever that means -- how is a voting method like a prostitute?), but glosses over the fact that he's a political consultant who loses money every time instant runoff voting replaces two rounds of election with one. And consultants like Greg get to do their nastiest stuff in one-on-one runoffs, where independent expenditures used to quadruple in San Francisco. Incumbents have an edge in all election methods, but they indeed can lose with IRV elections -- two of three incumbents lost last year in Aspen (CO), for example. The fact that big money candidates so often have lost in San Francisco and elsewhere in IRV elections says something important about its alleged "incumbent bias." As to the lawsuit, Ron Dudum's "expert" Jonathan Katz made laughable errors (or inexcusable ones, depending on how you look at it) -- I'll take my expertise over his on this issue any day. (As to Joyce's list of experts, each one is a champion of other voting methods where ballots count for more than one candidate at the same time and can result in the defeat of candidates who are the first choice of more than 50% of voters, making them hard sells to the public at large -- so easier to criticize a successful reform.)

• Some independent election methods experts: DR. Steven J. Brams, Dept. of Politics of New York University Brams has written books on election methods. Warren Smith,MIT math & physics double, founded Center for Range Voting in 2005 Kathy Dopp,M.S. Mathematics, Executive Director, National Election Data Archive, UT wrote "Realities Mar Instant Runoff - 18 Flaws and 3 Benefits" Stephen H. Unger, Professor Emeritus Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Columbia University Wrote "Fixing Our Broken Democracy"

• Dear SFVoter, Thank you for your comment. It is true that Richie's organization supports ranked-choice voting (or "IRV," instant-runoff voting) among other electoral reforms. FairVote's advocacy role could have been described in more detail in our original blog post, and has been clarified above. Also, please note that Dudum's lawsuit ostensibly seeks an expansion of our current ranked-choice voting system. An injunction against further elections using ranked-choice is requested only if all candidates are not permitted to be "ranked" on voters' ballots. Regards, Peter Jamison

• Peter, why did you pick the organization that is the principle promoter of IRV as your only source material for the blog? It is like asking the Republican party if the Massachusetts voters made a mistake. You know the answer before you ask it. For a different perspective check out the youtube link regarding problems with IRV.

• Rob Ritchie is hardly an "expert" or an impartial observer - he's the guy pimping IRV all over the place. Apparently he failed to mention how the supporters of IRV in another locale were fined for lying in their campaign brochures. And he also failed to mention that since IRV, all incumbents have been returned to office, and IRV never really made an impact like they claimed. As for "saving money" - hearing a liberal talk about saving money is like hearing a fish talk about a bicycle. IRV advocates actually supported illegal voting machines and defied Secretary of State Bowen when she ruled such machines were illegal - all to protect their little lab experiment.

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