There were thus 8984 votes out of which - 4 were listed as invalid in the official results. These seem to be blank votes.
- 6 votes that contained ties. 4 of these were exhausted at the first round. According to Terry Bouricius 3 of these were found not to be ties after all in the partial recount. - 606 votes were exhausted before the final round. Part of these are likely to be intentional (voter didn't want to take position) but part of them were mistakes of the voter. Either the voter didn't understand how to cast an efficient vote or the voter made false assumptions on which candidates will make it to the last round. - 2458 votes ranked less than two of the three leading candidates. If we assume that any two of the three strongest candidates could have made it to the last round then these votes could have been exhausted before the last round (due to not listing any of the two last round candidates). Again, some of these must have been intentional and some voter mistakes (due to not understanding how to vote efficiently or due to miscalculating the probabilities). The percentage of ballots that were not filled properly was very marginal. The percentage of votes that failed or could have failed to indicate all the relevant preferences that the voter had seems to be higher (part of the 606 and 2458 votes). This is not catastrophic though. Maybe people will learn, or maybe it is acceptable to have even this kind of numbers in the long run. (Some of the voters may also be bullet voters by nature. "All or nothing." "My candidate is the best and all others are out of consideration." Maybe they want to send this kind of message in their vote (even though they understand that they will cast a weak vote).) It seems that ballots were not too complex to fill properly, and most voters also filled them well enough to be counted also at the last round. One remaining concern is that someone said that the level of participation was low. The complexity of the method may partially influence this. I don't know what the usual participation level and participation level in this election was in Burlington but I hope that it will be at regular levels in the future. Otherwise the complexity of the method may have an impact on the results. Juho --- On Mon, 30/3/09, Terry Bouricius <[email protected]> wrote: > Date: Monday, 30 March, 2009, 4:16 PM > Warren, > > Regarding the number of valid ballots in the Burlington IRV > mayoral > election: > > (I doubt anyone else is interested in this, but I will post > it to the list > just in case.) > > Now I understand the source of your confusion about the > number and rate of > "valid" ballots. The word "valid" has more than one > possible usage.. the > Choice Plus Pro software web output posted on the > Burlington web site uses > a non-standard definition...it includes all of the four > (although actually > discovered in the recount to be only one) first round > exhausted ballots > (that the scanner detected two ovals marked in the first > choice column) as > "valid," because they were genuinely cast by voters and > could be > incorporated into the algorithm. We however refer to these > as "invalid" > ballots, meaning ballots which were cast with an intent to > participate in > the contest, but were apparently miss-marked so as to make > the voter > intent uncertain. However also note that four different > ballot cards were > BLANK....the voters completely skipped this particular race > and didn't vote > at all. Choice Plus Pro unfortunately uses the term > "invalid" where as it > should use the standard election administration and legal > term "blank" to > describe these four blank ballots. If you look at the > actual ballot data, > you will see 8,980 ballots with rankings marked, and four > blank ballots > with no votes at all. If one adds in the four blank ballot > papers, the > total is 8,984. Since voters often skip some races, and no > jurisdiction in > the U.S. that I am aware of includes blank ballots in the > base for > calculating spoilage rates, our analysis focuses on the > 8,980 ballots that > were cast for this particular contest. Of these, the > recount showed that > at most one was an invalid over-vote...thus the rate of > 99.99% valid. > > Finally, you can find the results of the recount on the > city's web site > www.burlingtonvotes.org. They are labeled as uncertified, > because the city > attorney says state law has specific requirements for > completion, and a > certification form to be signed by the Board of Civil > Authority at the end > of the recount. Since Kurt Wright, the petitioner, called a > stop to the > recount at the half-way point, the partial results could > not legally be > called official or certified. But the fact remains that the > three ballots > the vote scanner identified as invalid over-votes in Ward > 1, were in fact > found, and determined to have only stray marks in the > write-in oval, and > in fact to be valid votes, that were added to the candidate > totals during > the recount. > > I hope this clarifies the situation. > > Terry Bouricius > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Warren Smith" <[email protected]> > To: "election-methods" <[email protected]> > Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 5:02 PM > Subject: [EM] Burlington 2009 IRV election pathologies - > updated web page > > > Bouricius and Richie ("FairVote") > objected to the fact that many of the lies in > their multiyear propaganda/lying campaign to mislead > millions about IRV had been refuted by us by analysing > IRV's pathologies in the Burlington 2009 mayoral election. > > (A lot of the FairVote lies > are conveniently outlined in GREEN in our > http://rangevoting.org/Burlington.html > and > http://rangevoting.org/BurlResponses.html > pages; more are documented at, e.g, > http://rangevoting.org/Irvtalk.html .) > > Although most of their new objections were as-pathetic and > misleadling as > their usuals, they did contribute one correct one. > As a result, we have added the following "update" section > to this page: > > http://rangevoting.org/BurlResponses.html#update > > -- > Warren D. Smith > http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your > endorsement (by clicking > "endorse" as 1st step) > and > math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > > ---- > Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info > ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
