Now comes the Winning Phase!

Volunteers are collecting signatures to get ranked-choice voting on the Sept. 2 ballot in Glendale.

The format, in which voters rank their top three choices, is used in Australia and some cities around the United States, including San Francisco.

If the ballot initiative proves successful, Glendale will become the first city in Arizona to give the method a try.

Some county election officials raise implementation concerns, but the proposal is supported by the Arizona League of Women Voters.

Glendale resident Bart Turner says the group opted to start in the West Valley city because “it has a history of being innovative and open to new ideas.”

He believes the voting style could spread because it saves the expense of runoff elections and provides more representative voting.

State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, also supports this style of voting and has introduced House Bill 2305 which would allow local governments to adopt ranked-choice voting. The bill, also introduced in prior years, has not been given a hearing.”

See full story at AzCentral.com…

Better Ballot Glendale, the citizens’ initiative to place Ranked Choice Voting on the city’s September election ballot, will host an innovative “drive through democracy” signature gathering event in support of the effort on Sunday, March 30, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the drive-through book drop area at Glendale’s Main Library, 5959 W. Brown, Glendale, 85302 (on 59th Avenue between Olive and Peoria Avenues.) Registered voters in Glendale are encouraged to drop by, drive through, and lend support to this historic ballot effort!

The Better Ballot Glendale effort seeks to place a referendum advocating a charter amendment adopting Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) on the city’s September election ballot, and has obtained 1100 of the 2500 signatures required. Ranked Choice Voting allows each voter to assign a numerical preference to each candidate. No vote is ever “wasted” because each voter’s preference “counts” in each round of tabulation. Ranked Choice Voting saves cities and taxpayers money and time in eliminating the need to fund, schedule, and allocate time and facilities for runoff elections.

The Better Ballot Glendale effort is supported by Glendale residents, Glendale businesses and churches, FairVote Arizona (www.fairvoteaz.org), and the League of Women Voters of Arizona. Volunteers interested in assisting this historic election reform effort may come to the tent area at the library on Sunday, March 30, or attend the next organizational meeting, scheduled at West Valley Unitarian Fellowship, 5904 W. Cholla in Glendale, on Friday, April 4, 2008 at 7:00 p.m.

Ranked Choice Voting is utilized in American cities including Minneapolis, MN, Cary, NC, Burlington, VT, and Oakland and San Francisco, CA., and by political organizations including Utah’s Republican Party, as well as universities, homeowners’ associations, and other nonprofits.

The Better Ballot effort seeks to implement Ranked Choice Voting as the city’s vote-counting method, permanently eliminating the need for runoff elections in Glendale. More than 1,000 Glendale residents have shown support for the initiative since its launch in January. The effort enjoys the support of a number of Glendale businesses, churches, and organizations, and has gathered volunteers from all of Arizona’s major political parties. It is supported by FairVote Arizona and by the League of Women Voters of Arizona.

Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to assign a numerical rank to each candidate. No vote is ever “wasted” because each voter’s preference “counts” in each round of tabulation. Ranked Choice Voting saves cities and taxpayers money and time in eliminating the need to fund, schedule, and allocate time and facilities for runoff elections.

Ranked Choice Voting is the method of vote tabulation utilized in a number of American cities including Minneapolis, MN, Cary, NC, Burlington, VT, and Oakland and San Francisco, CA. It is used by political organizations including Utah’s Republican Party, as well as universities, homeowners’ associations, and other nonprofits.

Led by Voting Matters, the campaign won a wide range of endorsements, including the mayor and local branches of Common Cause and Verified Voting.  Santa Fe’s charter commission recommended IRV last year, and the city council placed it on the ballot.

Here at on NPR now: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87952106

By Rick Barry

City of Sarasota voters have already given overwhelming approval to a system of instant runoff voting, arguably the fairest, least expensive way to decide among three or more candidates for a single office when none of them earns a majority of votes, and making another round of campaigning and a second election unnecessary.

Now, the group that brought IRV to the city, concerned that the Sarasota County Charter Review Board didn’t give the concept serious consideration last week, is about to start another petition drive to bring instant runoff voting to single-seat elections (sheriff, elections supervisor, court clerk, tax collector, property appraiser) countywide.

That petition likely also will include a provision making all corporate and business contributions to candidates’ campaigns illegal in Sarasota County, a concept about 80 percent of city voters approved, a margin even higher than the 78 percent approval of instant runoffs. It may also attempt to limit contributions by candidates to their own campaigns to $5,000 or $10,000, leveling the playing field for office-seekers of varying means.

The county charter does not limit ballot questions to a single subject, as does the state constitution.

Anthony Lorenzo, the chairman of the grassroots Coalition for Instant Runoff Voting, made a presentation to the county’s Charter Review Board last Wednesday night in hopes the board would consider the proposal soon, in light of its overwhelming popularity among city voters, and move toward putting it on the November ballot countywide.

But the board adjourned without action and set its next meeting for June 25, four months away, too late for the question’s inclusion on the November ballot.

Lorenzo shouldn’t take it personally, review board member Stefan Butz said. “The board used to meet regularly, four times a year. Now we meet just once in a while, when the leadership thinks we need to, maybe twice a year.

“I do think we need to meet on a more regular basis,” he said. “As for an instant runoff, I personally like it. But if I were [Lorenzo], I’d pursue every avenue … It takes at least a year before anything can get through us.”

“Oh, we’re going ahead with the petition drive now, definitely,” Lorenzo said. “At the very least, if we are unable to get the 12,000 signatures we’ll need to put it on the ballot countywide, if we just have 3,000 or so, even that should help convince the [charter review board or county commission] of the public support for the system, and then maybe they’ll take some action [to put it on the ballot].”

In instant runoff voting, voters rank the candidates in a multiple-candidate race - 1 for their favorite, 2 for their second favorite, etc. - rather than just checking a single name. When the votes are tallied, if no candidate wins outright, the lowest vote getter is eliminated and his second-place votes are distributed appropriately. The process is repeated until one candidate gets a majority plus one vote, and therefore wins the election.

It eliminates having a candidate with only minority support - in a five-way race, say - making it into a runoff and winning the office as a compromise, or the choice of a fervent few. It also eliminates the tactic in which supporters of one candidate put up a spoiler candidate to draw votes from a more popular candidate, thereby allowing their minority candidate to win.

It also eliminates the cost of runoff elections, which typically draw very light turnouts and give the best-financed candidate a huge advantage, and saves residents the time and gas spent to return to their polling places.

Instant runoff voting even improved the level of public discourse in one of the half-dozen American cities that use IRV now, Cary, N.C. Candidates there, including Cary City Councilman Erv Portman said he was convinced that now “Candidates listened more to their constituents.

“Where before, if a voter told you he was voting for another candidate, you were likely to just walk away. But with an instant runoff, you stay and keep the communication going. You want that person to choose you as their second choice.”

But, there won’t be instant runoffs here anytime soon. Software necessary to break down and tally instant runoff votes hasn’t been certified by the federal government or the state of Florida. And because the demand is thus far so tiny, no major software company has bothered to create any, since the costs of writing, testing and certifying the software are so great, elections officials said.

As FairVoteAZ and other groups proceed in our efforts for greater democracy by better representation using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), implementation has always been a concern to me. Not implementation by ‘We the Voters’ (that’s as simple as 1-2-3) but how we get machines to help in the count. Now some folks don’t want machines part of the system at all and that is a different matter, not one I am addressing here. Most people think we must use machines to help us count votes. I personally have no opinion on which way we turn, except that whichever way it is has to be secure and accurate. But just making the change to RCV can be difficult as the vendors have been dragging their feet in keeping up with the times (and the wishes of the voters). I am not anticipating a problem without precedent. Other areas have had difficulties and so may our own elections departments. As I write this on Feb 25 2008, I believe that today was the deadline to make comments to the US Elections Assistance Commission about technical guidelines. Rob Richie from FairVote (in Washington DC) submitted the following comments. If you are interested in the details of this issue of machinery and how it effects RCV please take a look at these well-stated comments.

Barbara Klein

Chairman FairVoteAZ

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As executive director of the non-partisan, non-profit, pro-democracy organization, FairVote, I appreciate the opportunity to comment on these standards. I am writing today to make a general point — one that I hope is appropriate on this section, as it points out that your key goal is to have the VVSG serve “as a very important, foundational tool for ensuring that the voting systems used in U.S. elections will be secure, reliable, and easier for all voters to use accurately.”

Unfortunately, there is a gaping hole in these guidelines. Across the United States, communities have been adopting ranked voting methods, such as instant runoff voting. Even the United States’ two presidential frontrunners this year, John McCain and Barack Obama, have been active proponents of instant runoff voting. As it is, however, your standards do not meet your key goal of serving “as a very important, foundational tool for ensuring that the voting systems used in U.S. elections will be secure, reliable, and easier for all voters to use accurately.” The problems is that, under your direction, equipment manufacturers will not need to prepare for the possibility of communities and states adopting ranked voting methods such as instant runoff voting. The result will be that many communities will delay or indefinitely postpone popularly or legislatively adopted election reforms, due to the inability of voting equipment vendors to implement the changes. They may make easily preventable mistakes in implementation, as indeed happened in San Francisco in 2007.

Growing Number of U.S. Jurisdictions Using Ranked Choice Voting Methods: Moving to ranked voting is not a theoretical issue. In 2006, for example, four cities with a combined population of more than 1.5 million people voted collectively by landslide to adopt ranked voting methods. A number of major cities use or shortly will use ranked voting systems, including Minneapolis (MN), Oakland (CA), Pierce County (WA) and San Francisco (CA). States like Arkansas, South Carolina and Louisiana now have many long-distance absentee voters use ranked ballots in elections with runoffs, while Vermont and North Carolina are among states seriously debating statewide use of ranked systems in the near future. More nations now use ranked voting than ever – for example, every single voter in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Malta, Scotland, Northern Ireland and London now can vote in a ranked voting governmental election.

Persistent Problems Caused by a Lack of Ranked Voting Equipment Standards: Preparing for ranked voting methods’ adoption in communities and states only makes sense. The general failure of our election administration leadership and voting equipment manufacturers to prepare has caused severe strains and costs on communities adopting systems. San Francisco was forced to violate its charter in failing to use instant runoff voting in its 2003 mayoral elections, fending off a lawsuit simply because the exasperated judge admitted he couldn’t force the city to run elections it hadn’t taken the necessary steps to do, in large part because of its vendor not being prepared for ranked voting elections. 695 of Oakland voters supported instant runoff voting in 2006, but will not use it this year because its voting equipment vendor does not yet have certified equipment ready to run ranked voting elections. Minneapolis voted 65% for ranked voting in 2006, but may not have a system ready for its next elections in November 2009, fully three years later.

Follow Minnesota Model: Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s Solution: Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has created an advisory committee to establish clear standards for how to run ranked voting elections. So should the EAC, rather than punting the issue until the next round of guidelines and throwing potentially millions of voters into the potential limbo of passing laws that lack of preparation makes their government unable to execute. This process does not involve re-inventing the wheel. Good standards have been developed in Minnesota (ones I can make available if you contact us at 301-270-4616) and proposed in various other states and cities. It will simply take a focused effort on your part to get this done.

The Need for an EAC Advisory Committee on Ranked Ballot Standards & Ballot Image Capture Requirements:  I request that you form a special advisory committee to develop these standards for ranked ballots. I also urge you to establish very clearly that all optical scan equipment must capture an electronic ballot image of every ballot. This redundancy provides further security to elections and also is the basic requirement that machines must have to be able to run ranked voting elections.

Rob Richie
Executive Director

FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org rr@fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616