NC Votes 123!

In 2008, the NC General Assembly concluded that past experiments with IRV in North Carolina were successful enough to merit extension of the state’s pilot program to allow for more jurisdictions to participate under it. Still, many interested cities missed an opportunity to utilize the program in 2009 with the new procedure for sorting and tallying IRV votes completely by machine developed only a month before municipal deadlines.

Led by FairVote NC, and its electoral reform partner Democracy NC, a movement to develop the IRV voters of the future is making its way through the North Carolina General Assembly. A bill (HB 1260), proposed by both organizations, to permit 16 & 17-year-olds to preregister for voting when they will reach the age of 18 and encouraging civic education on registration and voting in high school has passed the NC House and is currently working its way through the NC Senate.

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Critics of Instant Runoff Voting have recently questioned the capabilities of pollworkers to accurately count votes in IRV elections, arguing that human error in the hand-tallying process might upset election results.

A compelling new solution has been proposed to allay these critics' fears, providing a suggested procedure for tallying votes electronically if needed. The procedure would eliminate hand-sorting of ballots, and can be implemented using existing voting machines in North Carolina. The procedure also maintains a "paper trail" of ballots.

The suggested procedure is attached:

The city of Hendersonville, NC, has officially requested to use Instant Runoff Voting in its upcoming 2009 municipal elections. City council members cited voters' preference for IRV and the fiscal benefits of using IRV as factors in their decision.

Several other cities in North Carolina, including Cary, where IRV pilot elections garnered widespread acclaim in 2007, are also currently considering adopting Instant Runoff Voting.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) was successfully implemented in the 2007 elections in both Cary and Hendersonville. In both cities, the elections went off without a major hitch. Voters polled after the election preferred IRV to traditional voting methods by overwhelming margins: According to an NCSU survey by Dr. Michael Cobb, 71% of Hendersonville voters and 68% of Cary voters favored IRV. In addition, an astounding 96% of Cary voters and 86% of Hendersonville voters found the IRV ballot easy to use.

The Review of IRV policies by the UNC School of Government has now been published. This report establishes a set of standards and goals for the implementation of IRV in North Carolina, and also sets criteria for evaluation of IRV's effectiveness.

Here are some highlights of the goals for IRV from the report:

"IRV pilot elections will be conducted with the same commitment to free, fair, and open elections that is applied to traditional elections."

"Some participating jurisdictions.... will save money by avoiding an otherwise necessary second primary or runoff."

Great news! Governor Easley signed the Elections Amendment Act (S-1263) into law! This important legislation authorizes the continued use of the instant runoff voting pilot program for willing municipalities.

The next step for IRV will include a review by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government in order to determine the best way to implement instant runoff elections without compromising election security. Finally, the School of Government will help municipalities decide whether IRV would be beneficial to use in their future elections.

After much debate, the Elections Amendment Act (S-1263) was approved by both chambers of the NC General Assembly by large margins. The bill will go to Governor Easley for final approval to become law.

Section 3 of the bill authorizes the continuation of IRV pilots for the next three years, until 2011. It is our hope that both advocates and opponents of this legislation will work together to ensure that instant runoff voting elections in North Carolina are run effectively and securely.

Bill S-1263 (PCS version) was "overwhelmingly adopted by a voice vote" by the House committee on Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform after several amendments on Wednesday, July 2.

The bill is now headed to Judiciary I for a final vote on July 8, 2008. The meeting will take place in room 1228 of the Legislative Building if you'd like to attend the meeting.