[EM] Aspen CO's IRV/STV Election - Fwd: "Good Things Come to Those Who Rank?"

[Kathy Dopp]

Aspen CO's IRV/STV Election - Fwd: "Good Things Come to Those Who Rank?"

Great email forwarded to me by Harvie Branscomb of CO that corrects
some of the misinformation that has been spread by the misnormered
"Fair" Vote group (in particular Rob Richie to whom this email is
addressed) regarding the Aspen IRV/STV election and IRV/STV elections
in general.

The files Marilyn R Marks refers to are are posted here:

http://electionmathematics.org/em-IRV/Aspen/

From: Marilyn R Marks
Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:01 AM
To: info at fairvote.org
Subject: "Good Things Come to Those Who Rank?"

Mr. Richie,

I am the candidate who lost the mayoral election to Mick Ireland in
Aspen on the 5th.

I found your analysis surprising and certainly lacking in objectivity,
as indicated by the title.

See my comments in red font on the attached copy of your article.



First let me say that I am not contesting the election or feel any
sense of “sour grapes.” I did far better in the election than most
people had predicted. I loved my experience in running for office,
particularly with a sudden, last minute decision to run. The issues
with the IRV are not nearly as severe in the mayor’s race as in the
Council race. I understand that numerous citizens plan to ask that
Council review IRV and take the IRV method back to a vote of the
people. Once you study the statistics, I think that you will have to
agree that IRV did not do many “good things” for Aspen in the
election.

The Aspen Times  (very small) poll showed that 52% want to discontinue
irv, and 40% want to continue it.

See the poll I am conducting. See www.TheRedAnt.com and the results
and comments posted there.  (of course, neither is scientific.)

There were numerous deficiencies in the election, some IRV related,
some not, which cast a cloud over the election which you have not
covered.

There are numerous spoiled ballots (43) and many not counted at all
(23) , although intent could have been determined if time were put
into it.

4% of the mail-in ballots were spoiled, likely due to complexity.
These are far higher than traditional numbers.

Different polling places were getting differing levels of “input” at
the voting booth about how fully to rank.

Over 51% failed to rank 5 or more candidates, meaning that they took a
big risk of not participating in the run-off.

Ireland did not encourage ranking, and 30% of his voters “bullet
voted” for only him. This was twice as high as the “bullet voting” for
his competitors.

4.6 % of the people did not participate in the mayor’s run off,
(voting for only the two candidates who dropped out),  while in the
traditional run off in 2007, the drop off rate was only 2.8%

The numbers are far higher in the council race for voter drop off in
run-off participation.

When voters are encouraged to “bullet vote” and they drop out of the
ranking process, it defeats the purpose of IRV, obviously.

Note the data in the Election results document.

But most troublesome was the amount of voter confusion. And no wonder.
See my nephew’s analysis in the attached pdf file.

The final tabulation method was chosen out of frustration and a
deadline, with little consensus or understanding of the public, or
Council or the IRV task force as to the comparisons the pros and cons
of each method. When one sees the result, it is clear that the voters
will never understand why the selected method elected a particular
candidate.

All one has to do is to do is look at the strings of voter data, and
you can see the confusion in the voter markings.

Also, this election was more costly than two traditional elections.
Since we will not insource the running of the elections I can’t
imagine that it will get cheaper.

You conclusions about campaign spending are very interesting. Where
did you get your data that suggests that I outspent Ireland? I have
not turned in any reports to that effect. I was blessed with generous
contributions, and he was outspending me until the very end. I still
have contributions remaining unspent.  The last reports showed him
outspending me, I feel sure.

 Your conclusions about negative campaigning are also off base.
Ireland had a group of people writing horrendous things about me, and
making up terrible, fabricated negative things. He made completely
false statements about me, and his campaign threatened business owners
who opened their doors for my campaign events.  It is wishful thinking
to suggest that IRV lead to any less negative campaigning in the
mayor’s race. In fact, it was more negative than in times past.

 Candidates told me that they suggested bullet voting as they were
fearful of confusing their voters and uncertain of the math anomalies,
so the purpose of ranking was defeated in many cases.

 The Diebold machine counts have not been reconciled to the IRV
TrueBallot counts. There appear to be dropped Diebold ballots, and
conversely, apparently duplicated TrueBallot ballots which were
counted. This does not give voters confidence in a new voting method.

 The logic and accuracy procedures as required by state law were not
performed on the IRV software to the standard norms. Virtually no
independent testing was done of the software.  The “audit’ performed
after the election was merely to test the accuracy of the scanner in
recording the ballots. No tests of tabulation methodology or software
were done.

In fact, the night before the election, the “test” was made and the
candidate with the LEAST votes declared the winner. One of the members
of the Election Commission questioned this and the software was
tinkered with and a new computation created.

Tabulation software should not be changing 15 hours before the polls open.

 City Council had assured us that hand-counts and audits would be
performed post election to give voters more confidence. They have
declined to conduct such tests.


The TrueBallot software was billed as “open source” software, which
was to be supplied to the public  before the election. Numerous
requests of the City and TrueBallot  to make the code available go
without response.

The voter confidence is not high in the IRV process for these and other reasons.

Given all of these things, I am interested as to why you so
prematurely declare this a “successful” IRV election.

I hope that you will take a closer look at the details.

Thank you for your time.

Marilyn Marks




forwarded by

-- 

Kathy Dopp

The material expressed herein is the informed  product of the author's
fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician,
Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll
discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at

P.O. Box 680192
Park City, UT 84068
phone 435-658-4657

http://utahcountvotes.org
http://electionmathematics.org
http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/

Post-Election Vote Count Audit
A Short Legislative & Administrative Proposal
http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf

History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of
Election Auditing Fundamentals
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf

Voters Have Reason to Worry
http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf