Election integrity advocates lead largely by the NC Coalition for Verified Voting had only succeeded in getting the Public Confidence in Elections Act passed in 2005. We successfully fought off requirements that any newly purchased election systems had to handle IRV on the simple grounds that there no systems existed that were certified to handle IRV.

We wanted to fine-tune some requirements for mandatory random audits, but the 2006 omnibus election amendment bill had us really scratching our heads and wondering if some of our legislators really knew what they were doing.

The pilot allowed for up to 10 municipal IRV election pilots in 2007, and up to 10 county-wide elections in 2008, with the SBOE reporting back to the General Assembly. This was presumably to test out methods for voter education, election tabulation, and other issues – and hopefully to see whether or not it was practical to adopt as a regular election method in our state. But why set up an IRV “pilot” to see if IRV could or should even be done – then set up a mandate to use the method on county and/or statewide elections in the same bill?

Cary NC participated in an IRV pilot in 2007, and had trouble counting just 3,000 IRV votes, ended up having to do an audit which became a recount.

There are no voting machines in the US that are certified to count IRV for a statewide contest, and non certified to tally IRV for even a small election:

“There are no provisions on ES&S equipment to tabulate IRV.” ~ Keith Long , Voting System Project Manager for the North Carolina State Board of Elections Jan 7, 2008

The SBoE considered it too dangerous to allow IRV pilots during May because of mixing with regular voting methods and no software:

“We can use November 2007 as a pilot and not use IRV in May 2008 because it poses too much of a risk. May request change in legislation for retesting IRV with certified upgrades in 2009.” ~ NC State Board of Elections March 6, 2007

There have been no upgrades.

In November, voters may go to the polls and have 2 different election methods, an IRV ballot for the judicial seat, and regular voting method for others.

Scotland tried mixing STV (a form of IRV) with the regular voting method all in one day, in May 2007 and the result was 100,000 spoiled ballots. The election was described as “not so much an election as a national humiliation”.

IRV is not additive, so you can’t simply add up the votes at the polling places, the votes must be taken to a central location to be tallied.
NC law requires that votes cast at polling places be counted there upon election night. Also votes be reported. Thats hard work our machines can’t do with IRV so then what?

There’s more, but just visit http://www.ncvoter.net or http://www.instantrunoffvoting.us

IRV clashes with several of NC’s election laws.

p.s.-I might write the review of the “kids” john grisham book………..

Dad