FairVote Feed: Research Reports

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act: A History and Analysis of Relevant Supreme Court Cases

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 08:52:37 -0700

Federal Primary Runoff Elections and Voter Turnout Declines, 1994 - 2010

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:03:09 -0700

This report analyzes turnout data for the 146 primary runoff elections held between 1994 and 2010. Primary runoffs are elections between the top two vote-getters that are held after the initial primary should no candidate surpass a certain vote threshold (typically a majority) in the first round. However, these elections are plagued with declining turnout that negates the representative nature of the system. Noting the numerous factors that may impact turnout decline, this report attempts to quantify and measure these effects to promote the best possible election policy.

Presidential Elections State-by-State: Hardening Partisanship

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:44:27 -0700

In recent decades presidential election outcomes have become more predictable in most states to the point that only a small minority of states are expected to be swing states in 2012. Due to the winner-take-all rule used by nearly all states (meaning a state awards all its electoral votes to the popular vote winner of that state), swing states receive much more campaign attention than their non-competitive counterparts.

The table below provides a state-by-state review of presidential outcomes and competitiveness. It shows how some states have not been competitive for than a half-century and how most states now have a degree of partisan imbalance that makes them highly unlikely to be in a swing state position in 2012. We provide state-by-state data both as a table and in map form. Additional information is available for download in pdf and Excel formats.

Highlighted Findings:

Number of States Won by Same Party, 2000-2008 = 41

Number of States Won by Same Party, 1992-2008 = 32

Number of States Won Only by Republican Party, 1980-2008 = 13

Number of States Won Only by Democratic Party, 1992-2008 = 19

Number of Safe Democratic States Not Swing State since 1988 = 9

Number of Safe Republican States Not Swing State since 1988 = 15

Definitions:

"Battleground state": A state with a margin of victory less than 6% in a given election

"Swing state": A state with partisanship rating between 47% and 53% in a given election

"Partisanship": A state's partisanship rating based on its deviation from the national partisan division between the major parties in a given presidential election

State	Last Year: Swing State	Last Year: Battleground	Last Year Won by Party That Lost State in 2008	# of Elections In a Row Won by Same Party
Alabama	1984	1980	1976	8
Alaska	1972	1968	1964	11
Arizona	1952	1996	1996	3
Arkansas	2000	2000	1996	3
California	1996	1988	1988	5
Colorado	2008	1992	2004	1
Connecticut	1992	1988	1988	5
Delaware	1992	1980	1988	5
District of Columbia	(never)	(never)	(never)	12
Florida	2008	2008	2004	1
Georgia	1992	2008	1992	4
Hawaii	1992	1980	1984	6
Idaho	1948	1964	1964	11
Illinois	1988	1988	1988	5
Indiana	1984	2008	2004	1
Iowa	2008	2004	2004	1
Kansas	1988	1992	1964	11
Kentucky	1992	1996	1996	3
Louisiana	1996	1992	1996	3
Maine	2000	2000	1988	5
Maryland	1988	1988	1988	5
Massachusetts	1956	1984	1984	6
Michigan	2004	2004	1988	5
Minnesota	2008	2004	1972	9
Mississippi	1976	1996	1976	8
Missouri	2004	2008	1996	3
Montana	1992	2008	1992	4
Nebraska	1912	1964	1964	11
Nevada	2008	2004	2004	1
New Hampshire	2008	2004	2000	2
New Jersey	1992	1992	1988	5
New Mexico	2004	2004	2004	1
New York	1976	1988	1984	6
North Carolina	1984	2008	2004	1
North Dakota	1988	1976	1964	11
Ohio	2008	2008	2004	1
Oklahoma	1976	1976	1964	11
Oregon	2000	2004	1984	6
Pennsylvania	2008	2004	1988	5
Rhode Island	1956	1984	1984	6
South Carolina	1960	1996	1976	8
South Dakota	1988	1996	1964	11
Tennessee	2000	2000	1996	3
Texas	1988	1996	1976	8
Utah	1948	1912	1964	11
Vermont	1988	1988	1988	5
Virginia	2008	1996	2004	1
Washington	2000	2000	1984	6
West Virginia	1972	1988	1996	3
Wisconsin	2004	2004	1984	6
Wyoming	1956	1992	1964	11

Legality of the Use of Ranked Choice Absentee Ballots for Military and Overseas Voters

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:15:17 -0700

This report analyzes the potential legal issues with the use of ranked choice absentee ballots for military and overseas voters. Ranked choice absentee ballots enable U.S. citizens covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act of 1986 (UOCAVA) to cast votes in runoff elections in states where the ballot turnaround time between first and second elections is short. Three states and one municipality have adopted ranked choice absentee ballots for military and overseas voters, including for federal and state primary and general runoff elections in Arkansas and federal and state primaries in South Carolina and Louisiana. The use of ranked choice absentee ballots is unlikely to violate the Equal Protection or Due Process Clauses of the Constitution, or to disenfranchise absentee voters. In addition, these ballots may help states avoid litigation under UOCAVA.

Not Your Parents' Presidential Elections: The Decline of Swing States, 1960-2008

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:43:27 -0700

Summary: American presidential elections have undergone a dramatic change in recent decades.The number of swing states (which are states defined as projected to be won by less than 10% in elections in which the major parties candidates split the national popular vote) has dropped sharply, especially since 1988 and especially among our nation's largest and smallest states.

For example, only one of the 13 smallest states and only four of the 27 smallest states were swing states in 2008, much fewer than in the 1980s. We don't see this imbalance changing soon -- indeed, in 2008 only three of the smallest 13 states were within even a 15% partisanship disparity.

Furthermore, at the other end of the population spectrum in our 11 largest population states,, fewer than half were swing states in 2004 and 2008 -- down from 10 out of 11 of these states in the 1960 and the 1976 presidential elections and 8 of these states in 1988.

Looking forward, none of the 2008 non-swing states are expected to become swing states in 2012, yet some 2008 swing states may well move to non-swing state status. This decline would continue a 50-year trend summarized here.

Swing States (within 9%) by # 2008 Electoral Votes, 1960-2008*
Year	2008 Electoral Vote 15 or more	2008 Electoral Votes 9 to 14	2008 Electoral Votes 5 to 8	2008 Electoral Votes 4 or less	Total
2008	5 of 11 states	6 of 13 states	3 of 14 states	1 of 13 states	15
2004	4 of 11	6 of 13	5 of 14	1 of 13	16
1988	8 of 11	4 of 13	8 of 14	6 of 13	26
1976	10 of 11	6 of 13	8 of 14	5 of 13	29
1960	10 of 11	7 of 13	8 of 14	6 of 13	31

*Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960

Partisanship Disparity (P), All States, 1960-2008*

Year	P=<9%	9%<P<20%	P>=20%	Notes
2008	15	19	17	13R & 4D landslide states
2004	16	20	15	10R & 5D landslide states
1988	27	22	2	1R & 1D landslide states
1976	29	14	8	5R & 3D landslide states
1960	31	13	6	2R & 4D landslide states

*Washington, D.C. is included in all years except 1960

Of 11 largest population states with 15 or more electors in 2008

2008: 5 states within 9% partisan division (FL,NC, NJ, OH, PA)

2004: 4 states within 9% partisan division (FL, MI, OH, PA)

1988: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 10 states within 9% partisan division (all but GA)

1960: 10 states within a 9% partisan division (all but GA)

Of 13 mid-sized states with 9 to 14 electors in 2008

2008: 6 states within 9% partisan division (VA,IN,MO,MN,WI,CO)

2004: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1988: 5 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1960: 7 states within 9% partisan division

Of 14 smaller mid-sized states with 5 to 8 electors in 2008

2008: 3 states within 9% partisan division (NM,IA,NV)

2004: 5 states within 9% partisan division

1988: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 8 states within 9% partisan division

1960: 8 states within 9% partisan division

Of 13 smallest population states (including DC except in 1960) with 4 or fewer electors in 2008

2008: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH /Only 2 more within 15%)

2004: 1 state within 9% partisan division (NH / Only 3 more within 15%)

1988: 6 states within 9% partisan division

1976: 5 states within a 9% partisan division

1960: 6 states within a 9% partisan division

Dubious Democracy 1982-2010

Thu, 26 May 2011 08:37:57 -0700

In this eighth edition, Dubious Democracy 1982-2010 provides a comprehensive assessment of the level of competition and accuracy of representation in U.S. House elections in all 50 states from 1982 to 2010. It ranks each state on a "democracy index" that is a relative measurement based on average margin of victory, percentage of seats to votes, how many voters elect candidates and number of House races won by overwhelming landslides.

Use the below table of contents to read the report online. You can also download the data sheet in Excel.

Some highlighted national facts concerning the 2010 elections include:

Unusually high seat changes amidst generally lopsided races. 54 incumbents lost to challengers even as two-thirds of incumbents were re-elected by "landslide" margins of at least 20 percentage points.
Landslide wins continue. In seven states, every race was won by a landslide margin of at least 20 percentage points. Only six states (all with one or two seats except for New Mexico, with three) recorded no landslide win.
High victory margins. The average victory margin was a whopping 33 percentage points. Six of every ten (64.4%) U.S. House races were won by landslide margins of at least 20 percentage points. Only 81 races (18.6%) were won by competitive margins of less than 10 percentage points.
Apathy and representation. Nearly two in three eligible voters did not vote for a winning U.S. House representative.

Statewide Election Recounts, 2000-2009

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:23:25 -0700

The ability to handle a recount of votes to ensure fair, accurate and genuinely democratic outcomes is widely recognized as a critical component of election administration. Trust in elections requires trust in the recount process and ongoing vigilance in lessons to be learned about how best to do recounts and how to determine what victory margins and post-elections audit results should trigger a recount.

FairVote's April 2011 report by Rob Richie and Emily Hellman examines statewide election recount outcomes and practices in the United States, using data from the decade of elections taking place in the years 2000 to 2009 to determine how often they occur, how often they change outcomes, how much vote totals change and how these figures vary with the size of the electorate. We conclude that:

Statewide recounts are rare: Out of the 2,884 statewide general elections in the 2000 to 2009 decade, there were 18 statewide recounts, 11 of which were deemed "consequential"(with an original victory margin no more than 0.15 percent). In other words, there was one recount for every 160 statewide elections and one consequential recount for every 262 statewide elections. This pattern was true of most subcategories of statewide elections as well, including only two consequential recounts out of the 422 elections in this period for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer.

Outcome reversals are even rarer: Over the 2000-2009 decade, recounts resulted in three reversals out of 11 consequential recounts, or one out of every 961 statewide elections. These reversals took place in the races for U.S. Senate in 2008 in Minnesota, auditor in 2006 in Vermont and governor in 2004 in Washington.

Margin shifts in recounts are small: Statewide recounts resulted in an average margin swing of 296 votes between the frontrunners, representing 0.027% of the statewide vote in those elections. The median average shift was 229 votes, with 15 of the 18 recounts changing the victory margin by fewer than 500 votes.

Margin shifts are smaller and recounts rarer in larger electorates: Recounts in elections with more voters altered the vote margin by lower percentages than recounts in elections with fewer voters. In the five cases in which the total votes cast were above two million, the margin shift was on average 0.016% of the vote (less than one for every 6,400 votes cast). In the eight cases in which the total votes cast were fewer than one million, the margin shift was on average 0.039% (less than one for every 2,500 votes cast). No recount took place in our three largest states.

Most states should revise their laws governing statewide recounts: Model state laws should establish clear post-election audit procedures and define a reasonable victory margin percentage for automatic, taxpayer-financed recounts.

Following are links to:

Copy (PDF) of the the report, A Survey and Analysis of Statewide Election Recounts, 2000-2009

Spreadsheet (Excel) with all of the report's data, including a comprehensive review of all statewide elections and data from the 18 elections with recounts

Following the Money: Campaign Donations and Spending in the 2008 Presidential Race

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:53:11 -0800

As we’ve shown at FairVote in study after study, the great majority of people and states are ignored during the election for our country’s highest office. In 2008, all 300 of the campaign events with major party candidates for president and vice-president that took place after the Republican National Convention were in just 19 states. From September 24 – two days before the first general election debate – through Election Day on November 4, 99.75% of all advertising spending was in just 18 states.

But in the 2008 election, every state was invested at least in one way – they all had residents who donated to and financed the two major party candidates’ campaigns. However, when it came down to the stretch run, the candidates did not reciprocate this national effort. The remaining 32 states and the District of Columbia that received a combined 0.25% of campaign advertising were left as net exporters, sometimes in massive sums, of campaign money.

The ten biggest net exporters of campaign donations were California, New York, Illinois, Texas, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, New Jersey and Connecticut. Their residents were responsible for 59.99% of all donations to the two campaigns. In return, they received a total of 0.06% of campaign advertising spending during the peak campaign season – that is, $1 dollar of advertising spending in their state for every $1,000 they donated.

Meanwhile, the 18 net importers of campaign spending – with Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio leading the way – were showered with almost the entirety of national attention during the peak campaign season. Though they received 99.75% of all advertising over that stretch, they were responsible for only 27.70% of all donations to the major party campaigns. Florida alone received 18.18% of advertising despite being responsible for only 4.91% of donations.

This discrepancy is a clear consequence of the Electoral College winner-take-all system in place in 48 states and the District of Columbia. If the election was decided based on a national popular vote, states could finance in-state campaigning and have activism that stayed within their communities. Instead, states like Massachusetts and Vermont campaign in neighboring New Hampshire, Delaware and New Jersey campaign in Pennsylvania and Maryland and D.C. campaign in Virginia. The only states worth attention in the stretch run are the small group of swing states.

It should come as no surprise then that four of the top 10 net exporting states – Illinois, Maryland, Washington and New Jersey – have passed the National Popular Vote (NPV) interstate compact into law and California has sent it to the governor twice (with Schwarzenegger vetoing it both times). Under the NPV plan, once enough states sign on to represent a majority of the Electoral College (currently 270-538), they will award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the winner of each individual state. This will then determine the winner by the candidate with the most votes nationwide.

For a full listing of campaign donation vs. campaign spending, see the below chart, with net exporters of campaign money in red. (A graphical representation of the state-by-state data can be found here)

State	Total Donations	% of National Donations	Peak Season Candidate Ad $	% of Candidate Ad $
California	$151,127,483	17.76%	$28,288	0.02%
New York	$89,538,628	10.52%	$2,235	0.00%
Illinois	$50,900,675	5.98%	$53,896	0.03%
Texas	$46,327,287	5.44%	$4,641	0.00%
Virginia	$44,845,304	5.27%	$16,634,262	10.34%
District of Columbia	$44,275,246	5.20%	$0	0.00%
Florida	$41,770,516	4.91%	$29,249,985	18.18%
Massachusetts	$36,230,225	4.26%	$20	0.00%
Maryland	$28,723,600	3.37%	$0	0.00%
Washington	$24,666,430	2.90%	$5,062	0.00%
Pennsylvania	$23,929,821	2.81%	$24,903,675	15.48%
New Jersey	$22,756,469	2.67%	$0	0.00%
Colorado	$18,800,854	2.21%	$7,944,875	4.94%
Connecticut	$16,526,530	1.94%	$0	0.00%
Georgia	$16,507,714	1.94%	$177,805	0.11%
Ohio	$15,984,435	1.88%	$16,845,415	10.47%
Arizona	$15,334,618	1.80%	$75,042	0.05%
Michigan	$15,007,118	1.76%	$5,780,198	3.59%
North Carolina	$14,337,669	1.68%	$9,556,598	5.94%
Minnesota	$10,894,627	1.28%	$4,262,784	2.65%
Oregon	$10,155,182	1.19%	$2,754	0.00%
Missouri	$9,997,747	1.17%	$7,970,313	4.95%
Wisconsin	$8,133,046	0.96%	$8,936,200	5.56%
Tennessee	$7,934,886	0.93%	$9,955	0.01%
New Mexico	$6,418,313	0.75%	$3,134,146	1.95%
Indiana	$6,225,848	0.73%	$8,964,817	5.57%
South Carolina	$5,744,471	0.67%	$910	0.00%
Nevada	$5,273,523	0.62%	$7,108,542	4.42%
Hawaii	$5,045,151	0.59%	$0	0.00%
Oklahoma	$4,359,169	0.51%	$4,170	0.00%
Kentucky	$4,338,611	0.51%	$635	0.00%
Alabama	$4,333,420	0.51%	$1,385	0.00%
Louisiana	$4,330,756	0.51%	$2,279	0.00%
New Hampshire	$4,045,877	0.48%	$2,924,839	1.82%
Iowa	$3,649,836	0.43%	$3,713,223	2.31%
Maine	$3,344,447	0.39%	$832,204	0.52%
Kansas	$3,333,235	0.39%	$3,141	0.00%
Utah	$3,287,184	0.39%	$66	0.00%
Vermont	$2,852,896	0.34%	$0	0.00%
Arkansas	$2,446,323	0.29%	$1,897	0.00%
Mississippi	$2,400,625	0.28%	$1,731	0.00%
Rhode Island	$2,343,926	0.28%	$0	0.00%
Montana	$1,882,200	0.22%	$971,040	0.60%
Nebraska	$1,867,197	0.22%	$807	0.00%
Delaware	$1,745,123	0.21%	$0	0.00%
Alaska	$1,611,031	0.19%	$310	0.00%
Idaho	$1,610,072	0.19%	$368	0.00%
Wyoming	$1,488,479	0.17%	$0	0.00%
West Virginia	$1,236,993	0.15%	$733,025	0.46%
South Dakota	$758,626	0.09%	$980	0.00%
North Dakota	$442,998	0.05%	$18,365	0.01%
Total	$851,122,440	100.00%	$160,862,883	100.00%

*Donations statistics from the FEC

*Advertising statistics from CNN

Redistricting Reform in the States: June 2010

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:37:35 -0800

REDISTRICTING REFORM IN THE STATES: JUNE 2010

by Patrick Withers with Billy Organek

Summary of Trends:

This report seeks to report on redistricting bills introduced in state legislatures this term. (Please alert us at rr@fairvote.org if you know of an omission.)

This review of redistricting reform in the states in 2009-2010 presents a mix of optimism and frustration for supporters of redistricting in the public interest. Of the many proposals addressed by the fifty state legislatures in 2009-2010, very few passed. Most of the proposals have died or are stuck in committee. Given the fact that the laws in many states prohibit redistricting more than once a decade, few states are likely to engage in redistricting with any new, less partisan procedures before 2021 at the earliest.

For reformers, the picture is not completely bleak. The fact that most state legislatures had members who felt compelled to introduce legislation, most of which was for actual reform of the process, could very well mean that the public’s tolerance for gerrymandering and politicians selecting their constituents is lessening. When state legislators do introduce legislation to undo reform, as in California, there was significant pushback. We may not see reform across the country for at least another decade, but the problem of politically-driven redistricting at the expense of the public interest is gaining awareness from average voters. This awareness may turn to action, making it all the more important to evaluate different approaches to make sure they achieve their objectives.

State Reform in the Spotlight in November 2010:

The two major redistricting issues to watch in November 2010 are competing ballot measures expected in California and Florida. In both states, voters are faced with two competing ballot measures: one which advances redistricting reform and one which protects the status quo and the interests of legislators. There is a lot of money and a lot of activism going into both sides and the outcomes of these twin elections, especially given the importance of California and Florida in national politics, will go far in shaping the tone of the debate for years to come. These two state races also will go far in gauging grassroots involvement in the issue and act as a barometer for the engagement of average voters in redistricting reform.

Download the Full 50-State Analysis above.

Ranked Voting and Election Integrity

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:00:46 -0800

How ranked voting can enhance election integrity over current election procedures

Even without major voting equipment changes, ranked voting methods often can be implemented at a local level in a way that is as secure as any non-ranked method. But what is more desirable is to have adoption of ranked voting actually improve election integrity by allowing ballot-level audits, not just precinct-level sum audits. Long-term, transparent and trustworthy elections can be best achieved on a wide scale in tandem with other changes in how we administer elections – such as providing jurisdictions with an option to use publicly owned equipment with open source software and by having all counts verified in full with independent software and manual audits.

A key design element underlying the election integrity attainable with ranked voting is distinguishing between recording voters' rankings, and tallying them. These two tasks are appropriately handled by distinct voting system modules -- each subject to an appropriate audit and confirmation procedure.

The first module should simply create an output file that is in a non-proprietary and easily read format such as a text file, that is an accurate record of how each voter marked his or her ballot. Some vendors' systems perform some normalization of ballot data such as closing up skipped rankings or inserting generic codes for overvotes rather than showing exactly which two candidates received the same ranking, and while not ideal, since they can still be subjected to the preferred ballot-level manual audit procedure described below, they do not impair election audit integrity. The audit procedure used by San Francisco simply assures that the number of choices for each candidate at each ranking match the machine record. This audit method is useful for detecting machine errors, but is not adequate for detecting extremely sophisticated fraud (since whether a 2nd choice for candidate A comes from a ballot that ranked candidates B or C first can matter). In short, simply checking precinct-level vote totals, or totals for each ranking may have some value, but is not a comprehensive auditing procedure for ranked ballots.

The preferred audit procedure which can detect both machine error and sophisticated fraud involves selecting a random sample of voting machines and doing a manual comparison of the paper ballots read by that machine with the machine record, to assure that the machines are properly recording the voters' marks. This is more definitive than precinct total audits, in that a group seeking to commit fraud would need to have access to and the ability to alter or substitute both paper ballots and the detailed machine record of each ballot, and assure the two fraudulent records match. A typical vote-for-one election audit may not detect fraud that successfully substitutes a portion of the paper ballots (traditional ballot box stuffing). These audited ranked-ballot files should then be made publicly available (as done in instant runoff voting elections in San Francisco and Burlington by posting them on the Internet).

The second module of the election system performs the algorithm for tallying the election (such as eliminating bottom candidates and transferring votes to next choices, etc.) The goal here is to assure that this tally can be done by both the vendor's system and by independent software or using an off-the-shelf commercial spreadsheet or database program to confirm the tally. Beyond merely auditing the tally, this allows any person who wishes, to completely re-do the tally from scratch, using any software of their choosing, or even by printing out the ballot rankings and sorting them by hand, accomplishing a complete recount. The reliability of any such recount/re-tally is, of course, dependent on the manual audit of the actual optical scan ballots, showing that the machine record of ballot rankings is reliable. Double-checking the IRV tallies using independent software is regularly done for San Francisco and Burlington elections.

While the audit procedures are necessarily different than with vote-for-one elections, there is no conflict between supporting election integrity and the use of ranked-choice voting methods. Numerous election integrity activists have come to this same conclusion. In Minnesota, where ranked voting was adopted recently the leading election integrity organization issued this statement.

"Citizens for Election Integrity MN advocates for transparent, verifiable, and accurate elections. We observed the Minneapolis test RCV election in May. Based on that experience, it is our belief that a well administered RCV election with carefully designed protocols, well trained poll workers, and educated voters can be conducted in a manner that is transparent, accurate, and verifiable."

The founder of the election integrity movement in Ireland that blocked the adoption of DRE voting equipment in Ireland, for example, is also an ardent supporter of ranked voting (read her statement here). As she points out, IRV elections can be run independently of software as indeed they are in Ireland.

Proposed "best practices" for auditing a ranked-ballot election

Because ranked voting elections on optical scan equipment involve two independent steps – capturing rankings and performing the ranked voting tally – it is possible, and in fact preferable, to manually audit the election using the stored rankings rather than precinct-summable vote totals. We will give a brief explanation of how this can be done, and we’ll provide a more detailed example in the appendix of this document.

Let’s suppose you are trying to manually audit the ranked voting results from a precinct with 1,000 votes cast, and you have a printout of the 1,000 electronic records of the rankings from that precinct. You simply pick up the first ballot in your stack, find an electronic record that corresponds to that ballot, and put a check mark next to the ranking. For example, if the machine reports that 73 ballots ranked the candidates in order B, D, A, C, then after examining the paper ballots there should be 73 check marks next to that ranking combination on the audit form. Go through all your ballots, and if you’ve got a matching check mark next to every ranking and you don’t have any extra ballots, you’ve verified the storage of the rankings. If there is a discrepancy and you didn’t make an error during the audit, the voting equipment failed to store the rankings correctly. [More details appear in the appendix, along with an explanation of how to audit the application of the ranked voting tallying method to those records.]

The machine record of rankings should be made publicly available, ideally through Internet posting, both prior to and following the audit, along with instructions for how to conduct a tally using independent software, or manual procedures. The ability of opposing campaigns, the press, and any one else who wishes, to perform their own independent tallies using manually audited ballot records creates confidence in the results.

An even higher level of election integrity and transparency can be achieved following the example of the Election Transparency Project of Humboldt County (CA). As part of their audit procedure they re-scanned all ballots using commercial off-the-shelf scanners, and used form-reading software to detect voter marks on each ballot. This allows for the potential of having any "problem" ballots displayed on a screen for election judges to rule on voter intent (as humans can distinguish stray marks, etc. more reliably than computers). The Humboldt County Election Transparency Project proved its value in its first use (in a traditional vote-for-one election), discovering a flaw in the Premier GEMS software used in conjunction with the county's Premier voting machines that resulted in the failure to include 197 ballots in the election results. This same model of pixel scanning of ballots will be typical in the next generation of optical scan voting machines, which will further enhance security and the ease of conducting ranked-ballot elections.

In conclusion

In this document and accompanying appendices we have attempted to address concerns about election security and ranked-choice voting. We know the commitment to election integrity of individuals expressing concerns is rock solid, but they have made a key wrong assumption – that a manual audit of a ranked voting election requires precinct-summable vote totals for all possible voting combinations – that caused them to reach incorrect conclusions about the implications on election integrity of ranked voting elections. We have also attempted to give very concrete examples of how one can audit a ranked voting election by verifying the machine record through a manual audit and verifying the tally based on published electronic records of each ranking.

The public instant runoff voting elections held in San Francisco (CA), Burlington (VT) and Aspen (CO) were the most transparent, verifiable public elections ever held up to that point. They were in fact more secure even than elections that are counted purely by hand because they combine paper ballots with redundant electronic records of every single ballot. Burlington even made the ranked voting tally code and program available for the public to use, inspect, test and modify.

The key to election integrity is the combination of redundant paper and electronic records, along with public observation of all processes, and rigorous post-election manual audits. It is this redundancy that enhances error detection and makes fraud so much more improbable, because the perpetrator would need to have the ability to falsify both the machine and the paper record of each ballot, and assure that they match. All of the San Francisco instant runoff voting elections since 2004 have set new standards for election integrity for both ranked voting and non-ranked voting elections, by making the voters' marks on each individual ballot public. The country would be well-served if other jurisdictions adopted these standards for transparency and verifiability of elections.

APPENDIX A: Glossary

ballot-level audits: In some implementations it is possible to identify the individual paper ballot that a particular record in the machine final represents. Thus, rather than determining that some ballot out of the 900 ballots in the precinct was recorded incorrectly, the exact ballot can be identified. in other implementations, an intermediate level of audit is possible identifying from which ranking-permutation group of ballots the erroneous record derives. For example, the machine reports a ballot that ranks the candidates in order as B, C, A, but the audit reveals that the original paper ballot ranks them D, C, A). [Back to text]

choice voting: A ranked-choice voting method in which multiple seats are elected in a single election, such as a city council, which allows for proportional representation allowing the majority to elect a majority of seats, but also allowing minorities to elect a representative share, rather than a majoritarian outcome, in which the majority wins every seat. [Back to text]

instant runoff voting (IRV): Also called Ranked-Choice Voting or RCV. This is the normally single-seat majoritarian ranked ballot voting method, which simulates a series of runoffs, ultimately reducing the field to two finalists, as in a traditional runoff, so that whichever of these two candidates is ranked higher is elected. [Back to text]

normalization: Jurisdictions adopt rules for how a miss-marked ballot should be counted. For example, if a voter ranks a first, third, and fourth choice, but skips the second choice ranking, the rule may say that skipped rankings should be ignored, and that this ballot should be counted as if the candidate next ranked after the first choice were in fact the second choice (rather than leaving the second-choice blank). The "normalization" of such a ballot would indicate the way such miss-marked ballots will be counted in the tally according to the rules, with a first, second and third choice. Some jurisdictions may require a substitute normalized paper ballot to be prepared by election officials. [Back to text]

overvotes: When a voter marks more than one candidate in a vote-for-one election, or more than one candidate for the same ranking (such as two first choices) in a ranked-choice election. [Back to text]

precinct-level sum audits: Traditional audits simply count the votes in a precinct and compare that sum to the total reported by the machine. For example, it can be determined that the candidate B has seven more votes on the machine total than the on the paper ballots. The totals from different precincts can them be summed. [Back to text]

precinct-summable: Voting methods (such as plurality) in which the vote totals from each precinct can simply be added together to determine the winner are termed "precinct-summable." In Ranked voting methods, the order in which candidates are ranked on each individual ballot must be taken into account as well as the total of first choices for each candidate. Because the ranked ballot allows the voter to express vastly more information than a vote-for-one ballot, simply summing totals from each precinct may not transmit enough of this information to determine the winner. Voting methods that are not precinct-summable require collecting all of this ballot information in one place (either physically, or as data) so that the tally can be performed. [Back to text]

APPENDIX B: Addressing Specific Claims about Election Integrity

Some election integrity activists have mistakenly claimed that ranked voting methods are incompatible with election integrity measures. We present seven such claims with our brief responses and then provide more detail and provide sources and concrete examples of how to manually audit ranked voting elections.

Summary of claims and responses

Claim #1: “Manual audits of ranked voting elections aren’t possible because of the large number of possible ranking combinations.” Fact: San Francisco has demonstrated one way how to do this in 2004 and every subsequent election, and the number of possible combinations is irrelevant.

Claim #2: “San Francisco did not release the election data required to manually audit the election.” Fact: San Francisco releases in a timely manner all of the data needed to manually audit the election.

Claim #3: “Manual counts of ranked voting elections with more than four candidates are “incredibly complex.” Fact: In places like Australia where all elections use ranked voting, people don’t think the counting process is “incredibly complex”; they think it’s the only way to count ballots. In fact, they can’t imagine not counting second choices when there is no majority winner.

Claim #4: “Average members of the public aren’t capable of verifying a ranked voting election by comparing electronic records of rankings with the original paper ballots.” Fact: It can be done with pencil and paper – nothing harder than making check marks on a list of rankings. A detailed example is included below.

Claim #5: “San Francisco does not have public oversight of post-election manual audits, the reconciliation of printed, voted, spoiled and unused ballots, and ballot security.” Fact: All aspects of San Francisco’s election are publicly observable, all the data is public, and the publicly observable official canvas reconciles all voted, unused and spoiled ballots.

Claim #6: “IRV is very destructive to the integrity of US elections.” Fact: When implemented the way it has been done in San Francisco, Burlington or Pierce County, ranked voting in fact boosts the integrity of our elections. If we applied the same provisions to non-ranked voting elections, we’d have much more secure elections.

Claim #7: “Prior to solving the spoiler and two-party domination problems, our first priority should be to ensure the fundamental integrity of election results, regardless of which voting method is used.” Fact: When properly implemented, ranked voting boosts election integrity and verifiability.

Detailed analysis of claims about ranked voting and election integrity

1a. Claim: An activist in the election integrity area with a math background has mistakenly suggested that there is no procedure that is a valid check on the accuracy of any IRV election because IRV elections are not precinct summable "unless all of the sum from i=0 to N-1 [where N is the number of candidates] of the N!/i! vote counts in each precinct that are possible for each election contest (and that is a huge number as the number of candidates increases, are all publicly reported PRIOR to beginning the random selection of the precincts.”

The Facts: Because ranked voting elections on optical scan equipment involve two independent steps – capturing rankings and performing the ranked voting tally – it is possible, and in fact preferable, to manually audit the election using the stored rankings rather than precinct-summable vote totals. We will give a brief explanation of how this can be done, and we’ll provide a more detailed example later in this paper.

Let’s suppose you are trying to manually audit the ranked voting results from a precinct with 1,000 votes cast, and you have a printout of the 1,000 electronic records of the rankings from that precinct (these can be sorted and grouped by ranking combination to make finding matching ballots easier). You simply pick up the first ballot in your stack, find an electronic record that corresponds to that ballot, and put a check mark next to the ranking. Go through all your ballots, and if you’ve got one check mark next to every ranking and you don’t have any extra ballots, you’ve verified the storage of the rankings. If there is a discrepancy and you didn’t make an error during the audit, the voting equipment failed to store the rankings correctly. [More details appear below, along with an explanation of how to audit the application of the ranked voting tallying method to those records.]

Note that this method only requires the storage of 1,000 records for this precinct, regardless of the number of candidates (N), rather than the sum of i=0 to N-1 of N!/i!. Also note that this method involves verifying the storage of the rankings from each individual ballot rather than the double-checking of vote sub-totals from groups of ballots. In other words, it’s a more detailed audit.

Furthermore, there are two other major problems with the formula. First, it greatly overstates the number of voting combinations possible in San Francisco or Pierce County. That’s because these jurisdictions only allow three rankings. Since they store codes for undervotes and overvotes, the number of possible combinations is approximately (N+2)^3. For 10 candidates, the formula gives nearly 10 million when the actual number is closer to 1,700. For 18 candidates (the number of candidates in the 2007 San Francisco mayoral election), the formula’s number is 17 x 10^15 when the true number is around 8 x 10^3, a factor of 12 orders of magnitude.

Second, even if you wanted to store precinct-summable vote totals, the number of possible combinations is irrelevant; what matters is the number of combinations actually used. The number of ranking combinations used is obviously never bigger than the number of votes cast in a precinct. In San Francisco in 2007, with 18 candidates, the greatest number of votes cast in a precinct was 461. That’s your worst-case scenario, but the greatest number of ranking combinations actually used in a precinct was only 131. The total number of rankings used citywide, in over 500 precincts with 150,000 ballots cast, was 1,684, which is a great deal smaller than the 8,000 possible combinations. It is certainly possible to manually audit 131 precinct-summable vote totals in a precinct or 1,684 citywide, although it’s easier to use the method we described above.

[Source: Official SF Department of Elections ballot image data, analyzed by author, data available on request.]

1b. One activist has suggested it would be extremely difficult or impossible to manually audit an IRV election when there are for each precinct or voting machine a huge number of possible ranking combinations (that same formula of the sum from i = 0 to N-1 of N!/i. This statement implies that manually auditing a ranked voting election is either not possible or so burdensome that it takes 30 days or longer (several opponents of ranked voting have referenced the month it took for final results in San Francisco in 2007) because the number of possible voting combinations for each precinct or machine is equal to the sum from i = 0 to N-1 of N!/i! where N is the number of candidates.

The Facts: The number of voting combinations is irrelevant to the manual auditing of a ranked voting election, as demonstrated above, vand the assertion that the large number of combinations makes a manual audit burdensome is false, as we will show here and below. San Francisco manually audited its ranked voting elections in 2004, 2005 and 2006 in the same amount of time as non-ranked voting tallies. There was no ranked voting tally in 2007 because all affected races were settled by absolute majorities in the first round; delays in producing final results in 2007 were due to a 100% manual tally of four ballot measures races and had nothing to do with ranked voting Later in this paper we describe in detail how one can manually audit a ranked voting election and why manual audits of ranked voting elections that also have electronic records of all rankings are in fact much more thorough than manual audits of non-ranked voting elections.

San Francisco’s post-election audit of ranked voting elections included two parts. First, the city manually tallies raw first, second and third totals as though these were three separate races. Then, the city performs a true manual ranked voting tally of the ballots from the randomly-selected precincts.

[Source: http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp and Ranked Choice Voting Procedures for the ES&S Optech Eagle equipment, first released June 2002, section 4.5: 1% Manual Recount.]

2. It has been claimed on the Internet that San Francisco never publicly reported ranking numbers, and has thus failed to take the first fundamental step required for all auditing in any field, which is to `commit the data” prior to beginning the audit.

The Facts: San Francisco in fact reports all the key data that allows independent verification of the official counts as well as post-election audits. This data includes:

All of this data is released starting on election night and updated through the counting of absentee and provisional ballots.

[Source: http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp]

3. One election integrity activist has suggested that it would be incredibly complex to do a hand count of an IRV election with more than four candidates in an election administered by more than one jurisdiction

The Facts: Many election reformers and administrators have participated in such counts or observed the manual counts in Cambridge, MA (pre-1997), the ranked voting count for president of Ireland, local or federal elections in Australia, local election in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and so on. Indeed, in Australia’s 2007 parliamentary elections, the median number of candidates in their 150 House of Representatives elections was more than seven. Hand counting ranked voting elections is not “incredibly complex.” You simply sort ballots by first choice, count the pile, add up the votes for all candidates, determine the candidate to eliminate, redistribute ballots for the eliminated candidate to each voter’s next choice, tally the new totals, and repeat the process. Because most ballots stay with the voter’s first choice in most elections, a ranked voting hand count is only marginally more difficult than a plurality hand count in most cases. If, as commonly happens, the two front-runners receive a combined 90% of the vote, you only have to re-tally 10% of the ballots.

In 2004, a team of volunteers counted the ballots in San Francisco’s first public ranked voting election. This election, for student member of the Board of Education, took place in October 2004, just a couple weeks before the Department of Elections implemented ranked voting for the first time in November 2004. Nearly 8,000 students from all of San Francisco’s public and private high schools cast ballots. There were 12 candidates running, and it took 10 rounds of ranked voting to determine the winner. Counting the ballots took 10 volunteers about 8 hours.

In 2009 Burlington conducted a manual recount of its ranked voting election for mayor due to a legal request of the candidate who finished second. After the hand count was half finished, showing that the rankings on the paper ballots matched the machine record (a few votes changed, as in any recount when human eyes can discern voter intent where a scanner could not), the losing candidate withdrew his request, stating that he was convinced the voting machines and the tally were correct. The results of this manual recount are on the city's website.

4. It has been suggested that average members of the public are not capable of verifying a ranked voting election by comparing electronic records of rankings with paper ballots.

The Facts: Here is how it can be done. Let’s assume that you have 100 paper ballots from a precinct and the corresponding 100 electronic records. The first 25 records from Burlington’s 2006 ranked voting election for mayor in Ward 2 look like this, with the first record showing that in Ward 2, memory card 1, ballot #1, ballot style 10001, the first choice was candidate C03, the second choice was candidate C04 and the third choice was candidate C02.

[Source: http://www.burlingtonvotes.org/20060307/21.PRM]

Here are the codes corresponding to the candidates:

.CANDIDATE C01, “Louie The Cowman Beaudin”
.CANDIDATE C02, “Kevin J. Curley”
.CANDIDATE C03, “Bob Kiss”
.CANDIDATE C04, “Hinda Miller”
.CANDIDATE C05, “Loyal Ploof”
.CANDIDATE C06, “Write-ins”

[Source: http://www.burlingtonvotes.org/20060307/2006%20Burlington%20Mayor.in]

So how does your “average American” verify this data? As with any election audit, it is only the individuals authorized by law to observe or handle the ballots who can know for sure what is marked on each ballot. This should be a public process with representatives from all candidates and parties included.

Here’s the easiest way to do it. First, print out the rankings. Then, pick up the first ballot from your stack, find a ranking in the data that corresponds to the marks on the ballot and put a check mark next to that ranking on your print out. Place that ballot face down, pick up the next ballot, and continue the process until you’ve checked every ballot against the records.

At this point, if every record has a check next to it and there are no remaining ballots, you’ve verified the rankings. If not, you need to double-check your work and determine if you made a mistake or if the equipment stored the rankings incorrectly. This is called “reconciling the discrepancies” and must be done anytime you do a manual audit of an election (if there are any discrepancies).

Now, once you have the complete set of rankings for the entire race, you can literally tally them by hand (tick marks on sheets of paper), drop them into a spreadsheet for easy sorting and counting, or use a variety of free-open source software packages to do the tally. Detailed steps for doing this in a spreadsheet are posted at:

http://www.burlingtonvotes.org/20060307/manualverification.php

So here are some quick answers to related ranked voting auditing questions:

“And what exact voting system is required that enables election officials to conveniently publicly post all its ballot records and exactly how may the average citizen verify the integrity of your alleged “audit” procedure?”
All three of the biggest vendors (ES&S, Diebold/Premier, and Sequoia) have developed ranked voting capability on their existing scanners, although they have been resistant to making it a standard feature in all their machines.

“Does your audit procedure require that most U.S. jurisdictions purchase new voting systems?”
No. As San Francisco did and Pierce County is doing, they just have to upgrade the firmware and software for ranked voting functionality.

“Does your audit procedure require that the average US citizens acquire new computer skills and equipment and programs that they are currently lacking?”
No. Pencil and paper worked to count and audit ranked voting elections for a hundred years, but spreadsheets are easier and more verifiable.

5. An election integrity activist has stated that no states use all of the following fundamental measures that are required to ensure election integrity, and therefore ranked voting should not be implemented:

public access to all election records and data necessary to evaluate the integrity of the electoral process,
observable post-election independent manual audits of vote count accuracy,
post-election ballot reconciliation of all printed, counted, unused, and spoiled ballots with voter process records, and
public oversight of ballot security.

The Facts: This is false and misleading. While many states have not put such procedures in place, San Francisco in fact does all four of these things, and the measure on which it is weakest – public oversight of ballot security – has nothing to do with ranked voting. How does San Francisco meet these standards?

It publicly releases all necessary electronic records as described above that, when combined with the paper ballots, allow a full manual tally of the election as well as an independent audit of all election results and audits.
Under state law, all election procedures are publicly observable, including the required post-election manual audits, pre-election logic and accuracy test.
The official canvas, which is required by law and is publicly observable, includes the reconciliation of all printed, counted, unused and spoiled ballots and voter records.
All aspects of ballot transport, counting and storage are publicly observable. Access to certain areas inside city hall and staging grounds is limited, but some members of the public (official election observers, grand jury members) are allowed to go everywhere.

[Source: http://www.sfgov.org/site/elections_index.asp]

Pierce County, Washington’s November 2008 implementation of ranked voting on a different vendor’s equipment (Sequoia) included all of these features, too.

[Source: Email from Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy on June 25, 2008]

6. Some election integrity activists who are worried that ranked voting “incentivizes” touchscreen voting and may lead to paperless voting machines.

The Facts: None of the jurisdictions adopting ranked voting are moving towards touch screen voting, and none of the leading advocates of ranked voting promote touchscreen voting technologies. Because ranked voting elections on optical scan equipment can result in an electronic, auditable record of every ballot that can be compared to the paper ballot, ranked voting elections then become more secure and more verifiable than non- ranked voting elections on optical scan machines that lack that electronic, auditable record. The improved security is based on the fact that there is a complete redundant record of every ballot (electronic and paper), so that to avoid detection, a group attempting to commit fraud would need to have access and the ability to alter both the machine record, and the paper ballots, and make sure the two match, whereas in a traditional audit, altering the paper ballots alone may be sufficient for committing fraud in a recount.

7. Some have suggested our first priority should be to ensure the fundamental integrity of election results, regardless of whether our current voting methods result in undemocratic results, “spoiler candidacies” and under-representation of large numbers of Americans.

The Facts: Everyone of course should focus on what they think is most urgently needed to protect and expand democracy. Someone with this view should continue to work on ensuring fundamental election integrity. But poor analysis and understanding of ranked voting elections is causing some activists to fight ranked voting on a ground – election integrity – that ranked voting actually improves when properly implemented.