Voting Early, Often
Posted Oct. 14, 2008 at 7:34 am by Rick Anderson
"That's for the conspiracy theorists," a King County Elections worker told me during a tour of the county's new elections headquarters in Renton the other day. She was referring to the vote-counting room's openness - exposed ceilings, public viewing areas, video cameras, and alarm systems, all the product of consulting with gambling-casino security experts. Nonetheless, history will repeat in 21 days: As in 2004, the county will be accused by both Democrats and Republicans of suspiciously miscounting and discarding votes. Some will have legitimate beefs, although, as we reported, most of an astonishing number of disqualified ballots will be the result of voter, not county, error.
There wasn't space in that story to get into the even more complex problems facing voters in neighboring Pierce County. In addition to what for some voters is the difficult task of voting on time and signing their names in the right places, Pierce's ballots will consist of ranked choice voting (RCV), requiring them to pick the top three among four county executive candidates, six assessor-treasurer candidates and three county sheriff candidates.
In effect, RCV is a party machine's dream come true: people voting early and often. As New Tribune columnist Peter Callaghan put it this morning, it effectively offers voters more than one vote per race, or, at minimum, gives them three wishes per office. And the process will be more complicated than usual, he notes:
For Pierce County offices only, there was no primary in August. Instead, all candidates for those offices will appear on the general election ballot. Voters can rank up to their top three choices – marking their favorite candidate as the first choice, their second-favorite candidate as the second choice and their third-favorite candidate as the third choice.
If that doesn't sound daunting enough - at least for some voters, such as those who lamely scribble notes on their ballots, invalidating them - the vote counters are in for a long night as well. As the Pierce County auditor explains tabulation:
Ranked Choice Voting will be conducted in rounds. The candidate who receives the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race after each round. Voters who selected an eliminated candidate as their first choice, will have their second and third choices distributed appropriately. Your second choice will only be counted if your first-choice candidate has been eliminated. Your third choice will only be counted if both your first-choice and second-choice candidates have been eliminated. These rounds will continue until one candidate has a majority. At certification of the election, if a candidate has a majority, that candidate is elected and the algorithm will not be applied.
As Callaghan says, "Sometime after the Nov. 4 election – perhaps well after – we’ll know who won and we’ll have some idea what strategy worked. Then we’ll know whether the whole world is attracted to RCV – or repulsed."
Topics: Campaign 2008
Comments
"and the algorithm will not be applied."
I was close to getting it until I read that!
Posted Oct. 14, 2008 at 8:22 am by BethAnn