Instant Runoff Voting “won” a big battle this past week in court, and it looks as if Minneapolis is going to take a whack at the voting system.
In the wake of the recount, I think it’s a terrible idea; it is to the best of my knowledge impossible to conduct an actual recount of IRV elections, and if you don’t think you’ll eventually need to, you are naive enough to be a Minneapolis liberal.
But I’m not going to talk about that (yet). I’m going to go after the voter-facing side of IRV (adapting a piece I wrote a little over a year ago in a Saint Paul online forum).
Background: I analyze systems – software, hardware, processes, print publications, what have you – to empirically determine how usable they are.
And speaking not as a partisan, but as a professional whose entire line of work involves figuring how to make things easier for real people to use, there’s a truism at work whenever people design systems; the designer always thinks he/she has designed something so intuitive that someone’d have to be an idiot not to be able to figure out how to make it work as intended and designed. It’s true for programmers writing websites, for executives designing processes for other people, for engineers building freeway ramps, for architects designing public spaces; everyone designs things to be blazingly intuitive – to people like them, other programmers, executives, engineers or architects.
And when those programmers, managers and engineers watch real people in controlled usability tests actually trying to do real-world things with those websites, processes, ramps and spaces, and making mistakes and doing things they were not intended to to, they tend to have one of the following reactions:
- “Nobody’s that stupid!” But it’s not usually a matter of stupidity. It’s human nature – especially if that human is not a programmer, executive, engineer or architect.
- “It’ll never happen in real life!” But it just did!
- “Wow. Who knew? We gotta redesign this!” These are the good programmers, executives, engineers and architects.
Although those who stump for IRV – the idea’s “programmers, executives” and so on – express it via rose-colored glasses (that, too, is human nature); they don’t say people who might hypothetically make mistkes voting in an instant-runoff election are “idiots”.
But I can see several places where confusion is potentially built into the system.
Allow me to walk through a fairly simple conundrum that faces usability people and, by the way, real people using real systems, drawn not from political ideology (of ANY sort!), but from the experience of someone who has had to ask these questions of programmers, executives and engineers for a living for the past decade.
Proponents explain the core of IRV pretty simply:
“you simply rank the candidates in the order in which you prefer them”
So when “simply” ranking, say, five candidates from top to bottom, do you number them 1-5, or 5-1?
Remember – in many Asian cultures, 1 is “better” than 5, while many people think bigger numbers are “better” than smaller numbers (like a hockey score).
And if you answer “that’ll be explained in the instructions”, please bear in mind that people – REAL people – tend not to read instructional writing, and retain even less for any amount of time. That’s not the cynicism of a former tech writer talking (although it’s there!); the research on much explanatory writing, on forms or website, that people read and retain is comically small.
So – how do you make sure everyone gets the directions the same way? Verbal instructions from poll staff? Mightn’t those be potentially legally-problematic?
Will people be able to cast “Tie” votes if they have no preference? Rank everyone “1” (or “5”), or rank five candidates “1,2,2,2,3” or “1,1,3,3,5?”, or “5,5,5,5,5”? (If you don’t think people will try, think again!) What’ll happen to the ballots if people try to do that? More importantly, how will people KNOW the consequences of trying that, whatever they are, and whether it’s OK or (emphatically) not?
All of you who chant “count every vote”: how many potential disqualifiers do you see in the above paragraph?
Let’s move past “process”, to mechanism. On what medium do people cast their vote in an IRV system – a paper ballot? Marked with what? Pencil? If they change their mind before submitting the ballot, how are changes made? Erasing numbers? How does one know, for audit purposes, WHO erased the number, then? What if they do a poor job of erasing (with older people with arthritic hands, this is not uncommon); how are ambiguities caused by poor erasing and faint handwriting resolved?
How about people who don’t erase, but scribble or overwrite?
And don’t bother replying “tell them to get a new ballot”. That’s a not-insignificant part of the current voting instructions – and we all know how many “spoiled” ballots turned up in the Coleman/Smalley race, don’t we?
And let’s not forget that immigrants frequently write numbers differently than Americans do; I run into this myself, since I usually use German numbering, and sometimes people read my “1”s as “7”s, and my “7s” as “4”s (I cross my 7s, European-style); how are these ambiguities to be resolved? And if the answer is “by telling immigrants to make sure they use American numbers”, do you realize the problems you’ll run into?
Indeed, how are the votes of the handicapped to be tallied? How would someone with, say, arthritic hands vote? (I won’t even ask the obvious question about voting for the blind; I’ll have to assume SOMEONE’s on top of that one).
And none of this even touches on the issue of “how the ballots are designed”. And that is a huge issue. Remember – whomever designed the infamous Broward County Butterfly Ballot thought they had a perfectly workable, usable design!
——
Bear in mind that NONE of the issues I raised above is, in my decade’s experience as a usability geek, outlandish, or even especially far-fetched; certainly none of them are remotely political. These are the sorts of issues someone in my field expects to see when any new system intersects with new users. Smart system owners run usability tests before their system “goes live”, and fix the issues they encounter. Dumb ones…well, thank goodness for them, since usability disasters keep me employed.
I’d be very interested in seeing a real, live, end-to-end, empirical test of an IRV system and all of its components – the ranking system, the ballot and media, the counting process, the system of explaining the process to new voters in various languages – and seeing how it really works in a reasonably-complex, contested polling.
I say “contested” for a reason, by the way; IRV seems to have only been tried in locales with relatively monobloc politics, from what I’ve seen. Without trying to judge the politics themselves, professionally speaking, that’s not necessarily a thorough workout.
Answer those questions, IRV proponents (preferably never using the phrase “nobody’s that dumb” in the process; it’s not “dumb”, but it’s human nature).
Then we can move on to the other questions:
- How do you do recounts?
- Why do all of you lefties who spent from 2000-2006 whinging about how Diebold and its electronic voting machines were in the bag for the GOP square that with the fact that IRV tallies are entirely, 100%, irrevocably computer-based?
Sound off!
I am an easy sell on the concept, but a much tougher one on the logistical reality of the follow through. The Recount was the final straw for me.
So change my from a leans yes to a solid NO to IRV, but open to a runoff type statute like in Georgia. Something about 60% of the people not voting for someone that ends up being seated.
Flash
We need a runoff system going forward, for precisely the reason that Flash stated. IRV may (emphasis on may) have noble intentions, but in practice it’s a tangle at best, game theory at worst. And let me say this — in most instances, I’d prefer to have my candidate lose than to get a “second choice.” I was no more interested in seeing Dean Barkley elected than I was in seeing Franken elected.
It’s not so hard. Here is the order most Minnesotans will rank their prefered candidates.
Anderson
Johnson
Olson
Larson
The one who used to play sports
Someone with a hyphenated name
Angry Clown
Flash, you mean like Bill Clinton in 1992?
Clinton got 43% in ’92.
THE CITY HAS NO MONEY!
IF THEY FIND MONEY FOR THIS BUT HAVE TO CUT POLICEMAN, FIRE, AND STREET PLOWING THERE ARE GOING TO BE ALOT OF PISSED OFF PEOPLE!
“THE CITY HAS NO MONEY!”
Pffft.
The Democrat congress just stuffed an extra $3.25bil into the cash cannon they’re going to fire into the air….chances are real good that some of that $.825 TRILLION of Monopoly money will land in a hole somewhere close to Minnesota.
“you are naive enough to be a Minneapolis liberal.” – snide, condescing commentary….
Personally, I like IRV, but I agree with Flash that some mechanism for handling recounts – not just in IRV, but in general, is required.
I have an idea – perhaps stupid, but there you go – ideas start imperfectly –
Have the ballot scanned before the voter leaves the polling center. If it does not scan correctly, hand them back the ballot – have them talk to a judge – and have them vote again if they desire. If not, then their vote is discarded for the race(s) in which their vote cannot be read successfully. The scanning machine could conceivably be constructed to mark the races(s) where the vote wasn’t counted directly on the ballot as it scanned it. Thus a permanent record of a non-vote would be instant, and instantly correctable.
IRV would work on the same concept, and mismark of your alternate choice (or any choice) would result in a rejected ballot which you’d be allowed to correct, or not, as you chose.
Obviously, the first ballot would be destroyed on the spot, and the machine would be reset, much as happens now with ballots that don’t scan.
Jeff, actually, Clinton won with a healthy 68% majority (370 – 168 since it is the electoral college that elects the President). But if we went to a national popular vote, then yes, exactly that. Of course, that would mean that Al Gore would have won in 2000 . . .well . . . almost 48.4 – 47.9 *laughing*
Flash
Finally, an actual argument against IRV that isn’t “liberals will win more.”
We do need a run-off, instant or no. Of course, I’d love to be able to vote “none of the above” when we get two crappy candidates like we usually do.
“Finally, an actual argument against IRV that isn’t “liberals will win more.”
At about a 20:1 ratio, I’ve seen more arguments in favor of IRV because “liberals will win more” then against it for the same reason.
“THE CITY HAS NO MONEY!”
Pffft.
The Democrat congress just stuffed an extra $3.25bil into the cash cannon they’re going to fire into the air….chances are real good that some of that $.825 TRILLION of Monopoly money will land in a hole somewhere close to Minnesota.
I attended a CLE this morning where the presentation was on the upcoming State legislature which is facing a $4.98 billion projected deficit so far and that projection includes an expectation that the “stimulus package” will be passed by Congress. Something else to consider is that any money from Washington will include with it strings, usually either dedicating it to a particular purpose or a provision requiring that the State either expand or not cut particular services. Given the cuts that are expected to come out of HHS and K-12, I doubt that there’s going to be a lot of additional funds for IRV unless Governor Pawlenty has agreed in advance not to line-item veto it.
If nothing else, in 2008 we proved that filling in a single bubble, the same skill that grade-school children have mastered, is beyond the skill level of a non-trivial number of voters.
Anyone that claims that increasing the complexity will help has got to abusing at least three under-the-counter drugs.
Yeah, I agree with you, Kevin. I’m afraid there’s nothing that can be done for that 5% of the population that can’t even fill out a bubble ballot. Seems like a waste of money to me.
Flash, you said “Something about 60% of the people not voting for someone that ends up being seated.” Which is what I was referring to. It is nice to see a centrist accept the results of the Electoral College though.
Hmm. I blogged at True North (twice) calling for Run-off. Demanded it, actually. But NOT IRV. A real run-off. We get everyone who cares to vote, and the rest can sit home and watch TV. That would work for Stooge’s “none of the above” . The easiest way to vote “none of the above” is to not vote.
Flash and I are of an accord for once.
I’ve been an election judge for over 20 years. And I still made mistakes on election day. Judges are volunteers who do the job once every two years, at best; new judges have to be carefully coached by the more experienced ones. Even then, the experienced judges can’t be everywhere watching every other judge.
And the rules are so complicated that even the most experienced judges make mistakes. City election officials make mistakes; in my precinct, they sent out the wrong (different precinct) ballot to an absentee voter. We had to remake the ballot to get it through the machine–but the state rep race vote had to be discarded, because our district was not the same.
And Penigma, ballots for which duplicates have been made are NOT destroyed. They’re kept in a separate envelope. The judges are supposed to notate the duplicated ballot and the original ballot so they can be compared during a recount, but I know that in my precinct four of the six duplicated ballots weren’t notated. We just didn’t realize we should have been doing that until late in the day. Because of that, I suspect that those four votes were counted twice in the senate race.
IRV will require a LOT more judges, because the judges will be spending a lot more time explaining the process to voters, and helping them with spoiled ballots. As it is, they have real trouble recruiting and training enough judges. Every precinct will require a judge who speaks Spanish, one who speaks Somali, and one who speaks Hmong. You should really have two of each language, from different political parties; but I know that won’t happen. So, for example, the Hmong judge could be explaining to the voter that he must vote for Obama, and none of the other judges would know.
This will be very expensive no matter how you implement it.
I won’t be a judge in Minneapolis next time. I just don’t want to deal with it. I’ve done my share, and it’s time folks like Scott Johnson and David Strom pull the 14-hour day in the polling place.
The easiest way to vote “none of the above” is to not vote.
Actually, I’d prefer “none of the above” to count as a vote for neither candidate, and that if no one can get a majority, the parties need to put up two new candidates. Not voting isn’t a none of the above vote, because it doesn’t count against the candidates, and they keep putting goons on the ballot.
As an aside, what happens if the run-off election is also a 200 vote margin or so?
At about a 20:1 ratio, I’ve seen more arguments in favor of IRV because “liberals will win more” then against it for the same reason.
I’m sure that’s true. I’ve never read an actual discussion of it, just how it would work, except from Mitch.
peev says “Have the ballot scanned before the voter leaves the polling center. If it does not scan correctly, hand them back the ballot – have them talk to a judge – and have them vote again if they desire.”
I don’t know if you are from here or not. Our ballots are scanned immediately and if there is a problem the machine kicks it back out. The ballot becomes a spoiled ballot and is put into a special file. The voter gets a new ballot fills it out and gets it scanned again. (a few years ago I picked too many judges and had my ballot kicked back) These spoiled ballots may have been counted as well in some of the precincts that have more votes than voters.
IRV would be a nightmare. However, it might backfire on the 100 % dem controlled Minneapolis city council by getting the green party elected into the majority.
Why the heck aren’t spoiled ballots immediately destroyed on the spot (and destroyed meaning shredded, not just torn up)? That way there would be no possible double counts from “trying to determine the intent of the voter” on mistakenly miscategorized spoiled ballots.
Bill, as long as people are involved there will be the chance for mistakes and or fraud. Shredding the spoiled ballot might have problems like accounting for the number of ballots allotted to a precinct. Imagine a recount with a group of partisans and a shredder.
Overall I think we have a good system, a few tweaks here and there would help. Voter ID, actually punishing those caught cheating, and in general just sticking to the rules.
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