At 03:30 PM 5/9/2010, Jameson Quinn wrote:
2010/5/9 robert bristow-johnson
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]>
in comparison, i have seen 3 different TTR elections for City
Council in Burlington. none had more than 55% turnout on runoff day
(in comparison to the number of voters that came on the first
election day). the IRV election had 93% of the voters participating
in the final round. 93% turnout is a lot better turnout than
55%. every voter that expressed an opinion of at least one of the
two candidates that made it to that final round participated in the
actual choice of the elected candidate.
What IRV election and what City Council elections are RBJ talking about?
http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/ct/elections/docs/ElectionResultsFinal030309.pdf
shows an election in 7 wards. 6 found a majority in the primary.
These are all city elections, Burlington does not schedule its city
elections with the November general elections, apparently, which is
what jurisdictions do that want to increase participation. Total
votes in the primary, March 3, 2009, with the votes for each
candidate (I = Independent, G = Green, P = Progressive, R =
Republican, write-in count is last):
Ward 1: 737. G:94 I:635 / 8
Ward 2: 651. D:173 P:447 G:28 / 3
Ward 3: 996. D:461 P:498 G:34 / 3
Ward 4: 1884. D:957 R:923 / 4
Ward 5: 1368. D:1115 G:245 / 8
Ward 6: 1139. D:979 G:105 / 55
Ward 7: 1696. D:619 R:612 I:461 / 4
Wards 3, 4, and 7 were close races. Notice that the parties seem to
not tend to run candidates in wards where they can't win. The Greens,
however, in spite of very low support, were running in 5 out of 7
wards. The Democrats run in all wards except for Ward 1, where I
would guess there is a popular independent candidate. The
Progressives and Republicans are only runing in two wards, never
against each other, always against a Democrat. The composition from
this election was I:1, D:3, P:2, and Ward 7 was close enough to
require a runoff. (Are the rules 40%? If so, we can see how that's a
Bad Idea from Ward 3, where the election was really close, it's not
at all clear who might have won a runoff. Or perhaps it's considered
that you win some and lose some and that, in the end, it evens out.)
In Ward 7, the runoff results:
Ward 7: 940. D:425 R:515
940/1696 is 55% of the first day turnout. However, if we look at
those who voted on the first day for the R and the D only, it's 76%.
The vote for the Democrat in the runoff was 68% of the vote in the
primary; for the Republican, it was 84%. This was a comeback
election; comeback elections are rare in IRV in nonpartisan
elections, but Burlington is partisan, the IRV was comeback also. In
Top-Two Runoff, nonpartisan comeback elections are roughly one-third
of runoffs. (With IRV, by "comeback," I mean that the first rank
leader ends up losing to the runner-up -- or perhaps to an even lower
first-rank rated candidate, but I've never seen that with IRV. It
happened in the first Bucklin election held in the U.S.)
What happened in Ward 7 could be explained by differential turnout,
Republicans, perhaps, being more likely to vote, perhaps because this
election was important to them -- it was their only shot at a seat on
the city council, whereas it wasn't so important to the Democrats. Or
it could be explained by some preference for the Republican from the
Independent candidate, I don't know.
Participation in the final round in top two runoff, though, is
clearly a different matter from participation in IRV. It actually
involves a separate voting process. In the primary, all registered
voters have one vote to cast, and they have an independent vote to
cast in the runoff. In IRV, they cast additional votes only if their
first vote is eliminated. If they are unlucky enough to have their
first choice survive to the last round, their additional votes don't
count. In other words, they do worse by doing better, having been
"protected" by IRV from "harming" their first choice.
This is a good point. But:
at least 38% fewer voters come to the polls on runoff day and get
counted with TTR. that is what our experience is.
You mean "on average" or "so far, at least" or something. There's no
"at least" here; in a contentious runoff, it's possible for turnout
to increase.
Yes. It depends on the importance of the race to the voters, and on
their perception of how much difference it makes. High turnout in a
runoff may be a sign of a serious race between two strong candidates
with serious power hanging on it, or it may be a sign that a
seriously bad candidate made it into the runoff because of
vote-splitting in the primary. Low turnout generally indicates
relative voter indifference to the outcome. (Which can mean
satisfaction with the likely outcome, or dissatisfaction.)
When runoffs are special elections, not combined with other
elections, fewer votes will have enough at stake to vote. As I've
mentioned, in Cary, North Carolina, the mayoral election was held in
October, with a November runoff if needed. Thus the runoff turnout
was, in fact, slightly higher than the primary. It's remarkable, in
fact, that it wasn't much higher, but the mayoral election was
scheduled in off-years, not the Presidential election year. You want
high turnout, schedule an election with the U.S. Presidential election.
But high turnout is not productive of higher social utility, it adds
noise, as voters with less interest -- and very likely less knowledge
-- vote. I favor, greatly, improving access to voting so that it is
equal for all voters, but if the *difficulties* of access are equal,
some level of difficulty probably improves results. What's harmful is
inequitable difficulty, with convenient access for, say, affluent
voters, and inadequate facilities, long lines, etc., for less
well-off voters. With special elections, though, because of lower
turnout, when that happens, voting may be very easy, comparatively,
so low turnout really does indicate low interest.
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