U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 29, 2006 07:07 PM UTC
25 Comments
And a response to the Green candidate who posted here last week.
IRV is, IMHO, a good step forward in election reform, and I think the strong support for IRV by new Democratic activists shows that we’re not a moribund party just looking to keep a lock on power alongside the Republicans. There are some decent Green and Libertarian candidates out there, and the minor parties would, I think, see an increase in registration and participation with the burden of being a “spoiler” removed from their conscience.
Good for Ken. Now he needs to get his messages out beyond his campaign supporters and into the media.
Instant Runoff Voting has some problems and unintended consequences in certain scenarios. IRV still leads to two-party domination (see later link). Ranked voting systems in general can be gamed.
Approval voting is a system in which each candidate is given a thumbs up or thumbs down by each voter. The accumulated vote totals determine the winner, or winners if a multi-opening race, such as for city councilpersons at large.
An improvement on approval voting is called Range Voting, in which each candidate is given a numerical rating: 0-99 is recommended, although 0-9 is said to be able to be used by current electronic voting machines or Direct Recording Equipment (DRE). The accumulated ratings determine the winner(s). RV is also known as Score-Them-All or the 0-99 system.
The ratings give the voter the ability to give relative approval for each candidate, so they are encouraged to do so to have a partial say in the outcome if their favorite candidate doesn’t win. If a voter simply applies the maximum or minimum ratings possible for each candidate, this system is equivalent to appproval voting.
Range voting, and comparisons to IRV and other voting systems, is covered extensively at http://www.rangevoti… or rangevoting dot org the Center for Range Voting. A national advocate of improved voting systems, Jan Kok, lives in Fort Collins.
Kudos to Ken Gordon for raising this issue. The Colorado state legislature has already recognized the importance of voter participation with relatively easy ballot access for minor parties.
Voters deserve a system which best represents their wishes. Some voter education would be necessary, but I believe the citizenry can handle the opportunity to say via ratings what they really think.
IRV has its faults, but the one thing that seems to win people over to it is that it’s easily explained and understood. Range voting and the similar Condorcet voting produce better outcomes sometimes, but they’re a bear to overcoming questions about just how results are determined. People seem to distrust systems where the less-than-“best” person can emerge the victor; majority wins voting seems to be easier on peoples’ brains.
Personally, I’ll take any of these more inclusive systems over the current “plurality wins” single vote system.
One thing to be very concerned about in election reform is how easy the system will be to use. Instant runoff has some pretty good evidence that it isn’t difficult to use. For example, in a survey in city-wide elections where it’s been used, almost all voters with lower educational levels say they understand it just fine. Nearly all of the “very difficult” answers come from voters with high educational levels, who were able to figure it out themselves but were concerned about others.
I don’t see the argument for the range system either. There’d be a far greater benefit to gaming the system with a rating system than with IRV. With IRV, you can easily explain to voters that the second and lower ranking do NOT count until your preferred candidate is eliminated; i.e., what you do with the second and lower rankings doesn’t help or hurt your preferred candidate at all; it only ensures that retain a voice in the election if they lose. With the range system, supporters could cause their candidate to lose in a close election by ranking the opposition too high. In other words, more political clout for ideologues (who will actually think the world is going to end if the other guy wins) and schemers (who will pretend to think so when they vote).
BEFORE it is put into place.
There are a variety of ways to do IRV voting, all of which have the mathematical potential to either elect the least liked candidate or disenfranchise the largest number of voters by not counting second choice votes for candidates already eliminated.
Rank voting or “range voting” as I saw it called elsewhere is likely the best system as far as giving the voters the best chance of the more popular candidate getting elected. But as pointed out, it would be the hardest to get voters to understand and do at the polls.
A good example of the problem to overcome is the City Council-at-Large race in Denver. We list all of the candidates running for these two seats on one list and ask voters to pick two. Seems straight forward enough, but what we have seen happen is only about 15-20% of the people voting for the office make two selections. The other 80-85% pick only one. There are several reasons for this, some political, some lack of voter understanding.
Trying to get people to vote for more than one candidate for all races would be an extreme change for them and would be difficult to get them to do on any kind of consistent basis.
There would also be the issue of voter confidence to overcome. There is a growing distrust of electronically calculating winners now with the current system. I think the distrust would grow expotentially when the more complicated math of juggling several candidates and their rankings come into play (if you watch Olympic figure skating, you’ll understand where I’m going with this).
The idea of instant run-offs may have one useful place: municipal elections that already have run-offs. It would save the Denver, for example, a small fortune if we did not have to have a run-off election everytime a Mayor, Auditor or City Council Member didn’t get a majority in the General Municipal election. But then all of the short-comings above would still be there.
If people from the Democratic Party felt in general more charitable towards Republicans than the reverse, you could wind up electing the Republican even when more Democrats preferred the Democratic candidate… It’s extremely subjective.
E.g. a Dem, Lib, Green, and Rep.:
Voter 1: D 9, G 8, R 6, L 1
Voter 2: D 8, G 4, R 6, L 1
Voter 3: D 1, G 0, R 9, L 8
Result: the Republican wins 21 to 18 vs. the Democrat
Condorcet is somewhere between Range voting and IRV – rank the candidates (you can even skip candidates and rank some “last” vs. some “first”), then run them all off against each other. The problem with that system is convincing people that a complicated series of elections will properly pick the winner of the election. In a complicated election, Condorcet is much, much more efficient on electronic systems than via hand-count – which is Bad for perception.
The other problem with condorcet is that it’s not guaranteed to pick a winner.
There’s a simple method for evaluating Condorcet based on strongest result sets. That overcomes the weakness of the original Condorcet system. The chances of tied results sets across the board is somewhere between slim and null.
This dumb idea ought to confuse the voters. What about just keeping his reasons for getting elected clear such as not letting illegal aliens vote…oh, wait, those people vote for Dems…sorry.
Not a single Colorado Democrat is advocating for illegals to vote. For those of you that perpetuate that lie and stoop, almost, as low those who challenge ones patriotism based upon party affiliation, lose all credibility.
However, if you truly believe a person is going to sneak a massive amount (say even 5% of the total population) of illegals to the polls to influence the election, you are completely moronic. Most (rather over half) of eligible americans barely vote as it is, and it’s their Right. What makes you think, someone who is risking their life to be here illegally would walk into a polling place to vote and be thrown out of the country?
However, if you told me that a certain influential person, such as the Secretary of State, was able to throw out votes (like Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell did), I would believe it since there is evidence to prove that it occured.
How can you continue to trust the most corrupt party in american history? Do they tell you things that make you feel all warm inside (like your only american if you have 12 flags on the back of you car and vote to disenfranchise factions of our great society!
I remember about two years ago, the vitriolic right fired up its old marketing machine and printed something almost exactly like what you are saying. Except back then it was that the Dems were trying to sign up felons to vote when they legally could not. I eagerly await what group of individuals you that legally can not vote are picked next year. My Guess its the teenagers.
And as for illegals voting for dems, there has been a large increase of (legal) hispanic and latino votes going for Repubicans an example would be little cuba in Florida. Part of it there is purely anti-castro sentiment, but a lot of the reasons behind the switch is due to religion. So I guess in the end, illegals vote for repubs.
You might at least try to post responses based in reality. Ken Gordon has been a champion of election integrity and voter participation for some years now. He wants the job for that plain and simple reason – to get more people involved in the Democratic process, and to give people more confidence in their system of government.
IRV is an idea to consider; it’s an “in the future” kind of thing that will require a great deal of voter education before it gets implemented. But it’s also a national problem that more and more candidates are getting elected to office without a majority vote. Having a candidate declared the majority winner in a race is confidence-inspiring to average citizens, and not having a majority winner is contentious – as we’ve seen in numerous Presidential elections of late (see 1992 and 2000). If Ross Perot hadn’t been in the 1992 election, we might have had a second term of Bush 41 instead of Clinton. And if Nader hadn’t been in the race, we would have had a majority winner in President Gore. BTW, some races are already decided somewhat along the lines of IRV; as Dan Willis points out above, city races are decided by runoff between the two top candidates if no-one reaches 50%; Louisiana has an open election system without primaries, and again the top candidates get a runoff election.
Voters will warm to new systems given time and education. But it’s more important right now to have a Secretary of State who won’t change rules in the middle of election season at the behest of their own party. It’s important to know that rigorous procedures are in place to verify the accuracy of the vote. That’s what Ken Gordon represents: voting integrity. Which is more than what I can say about your comments.
As the Green Party Candidate for Colorado Secretary of State I am very encouraged to see Sen. Gordon come out in support of IRV. It’s a bold step, and I’m glad that he has taken it.
We are lucky in Colorado. We have some of the best ballot access laws in the USA, which allow more parties to participate in the electoral process. This really helps promote a vibrant “marketplace” of ideas that is so important to democracy.
The problem is that our current plurality system forces voters — liberal or conservative — to compromise their values. For example, on the campaign trail I have spoken with conservatives who think that gun control has gone too far. I have spoken with liberals who are opposed to war. A very large percentage of both of those groups believed that the two major parties did not represent their interests on these issues, yet they did not vote for parties that did represent their views.
Why? The spoiler issue. The majority of those I spoke with told me that by voting for a third party, it would help elect someone from the complete opposite side of the issue. Of course I mean that voting for a Libertarian equals voting for Democrat, and voting for a Green means handing a vote to the Republicans.
IRV may have its faults, but right now they are theoretical. There is no real life example in the USA of any of the problems mentioned by IRV’s detractors. Also, there will have to be a gradual introduction of any new voting system; voter education would be needed. I think the most effective pilot program would be allowing Colorado to vote in the 2008 Presidential Election using IRV. This is a visible race, and allowing people to pick two candidates and rank them as “1” and “2” would be a good way to illustrate how the system works, and give the state an exercise in how the votes will be tabulated.
But imagine this: imagine being able to cast a vote for Dave Chandler in CD 7 without spoiling the race for Ed Perlmutter? Imagine being able to cast your vote for a Libertarian without electing someone who you don’t want in office?
Regardless of whether we are liberals or conservatives, we deserve better than we have now. I hope that voters will consider this when they step into the booth in November.
Rick VanWie
Green Party Candidate for
Colorado Secretary of State
http://www.rickforsos.com
so as green party candidate aren’t you really helping republicans this year?
and one I never seem to get an answer to from a Green candidate.
Green votes do not belong to the Democrat Party.
The presumption among party-line Dems always is that when a citizen votes for a Green candidate, that person is somehow defrauding the Dem candidate out of a ballot.
But in our democratic republic, people are presumed to be voting as individuals, for their own personal choice based on their own values and their own conscience.
Many of the people who voted for me four years ago did so because both the Democrat and Republican supported the Iraq War Resolution … theirs was a vote of conscience and principle for peace and against attacking Iraq.
People of principle and conscience will vote for me this year because they want the troops home now; because they believe Bush/Cheney should be the subject of an impeachment inquiry in the House; because they are tired of candidates who take PAC money and will spend millions and millions of dollars to get elected — they want public finance of elections. I am the only candidate in the 7th CD race advocating for those positions.
So the answer is really quite plain and simple: Green votes are for Green candidates; Dem votes are for Dem candidates; Libertarian votes are for Libertarian candidates; and Repub votes are for Repub candidates. Whomever gets the most votes wins.
Vote for me, because we’ll implement IRV – even though by voting for me the district will elect a Republican instead thanks to the Plurality system, and we’ll never get IRV.
I don’t like strategic voting, but I like even less cutting off your nose to spite your face. If someone truly feels that they can’t in conscience vote for a major party candidate who supports 80-90% of their goals in a competitive district, then I’m glad you’re around. But voting against candidates as a protest against the Iraq war is like staying home for the Ritter/Beauprez race because of Ritter’s stand on abortion. It’s one-issue suicide at its best.
Substantial reforms have to be enacted before “third party” candidates like yourself can truly attract the voters you deserve. With a candidate like Ken Gordon running with major party support, why spite his chances and yours by running a candidate? Why now? I’m sure Rick van Wie is a great guy, but if it’s going to be close, what are you gaining?
All the exit polls from FL and other big elections were a green party candidates played a role if the green candidate hadn’t been in the race those votes would have gone to the democrat 2-1.
This is pretty clearly misplaced sentiment. It’s not Rick’s fault that the electoral system is broken, and I certainly don’t think we need to be moving in direction of only allowing (socially OR legally) democrats and republicans to run for office.
That being said, though, I don’t plan to vote for Rick VanWie.
I think the point was that *until* IRV is in place, Van Wie is stealing votes from, and spoiling the race for, the candidate that he presumably supports, Ken Gordon.
And, ironically, the best way for Van Wie to institute IRV in Colorado would be to support Ken, as Ken apparently supports IRV.
…perplexing, and frustrating, for those of us who would like to see Ken in the SoS office but know that this will be a close race.
From an email I received Tuesday morning from a Boulder County Libertarian activist:
“As mentioned at the LP state party convention: The Boulder County Dems voted to support IRV at their county caucus. In fact it was approved for the next caucus. So at the next Boulder Dem caucus (2008) the Dems will be using IRV.”
I couldn’t easily find anything confirming this at http://www.boulderco… the Boulder County Dems website, but I did find that both their platform and the 2006 state Democrats’ platform call for preference voting or IRV. So the Democrats are in front on this issue. Maybe they are being influenced by http://www.rangevoti… false statements being made by CVD (Center for Voting and Democracy, a pro-IRV group).
The Libertarian party had our own experience with runoff voting at our 2004 presidential nominating convention, when the three front-runners received nearly equal vote counts on the first ballot. The candidate thought to be the dark horse, Michael Badnarik, eventually received the nomination when the highest vote receiver on the first ballot withdrew after the second ballot and threw his support to the lowest, in subsequent runoff voting (not instantaneous).
We’ll see how Boulder Democrats fare with IRV in 2008.
But I find the tone of the page at RangeVoting.org to be both offensive and defensive. The LWV paper referenced does not, in fact, do justice to other systems in comparison to IRV, but the RangeVoting folks are partisan in their assumptions as to just why that might be – the study was done based on Constitutional restrictions in Minnesota, where only IRV qualifies.
To summarize this League of Women Voters paper and election theory in general, there is a proven theorem – Arrow’s Theorem – that says that no election system is perfect. The paper compares several systems: Plurality, Approval, Borda (Range Voting), IRV, and Condorcet. Plurality precludes “sincere voting” (i.e. you can’t vote Green today if you don’t want to risk electing a Republican). Approval doesn’t allow voters to specify their preferred candidate, and so can revert to the Plurality system if partisanship takes over. Range voting is, by Borda’s own statements, limited to “honest people” – as my example above shows, partisans will win over sincere voters. IRV lacks “monotonicity” – voting for your favorite candidate sometimes hurts the candidate. And Condorcet requires “extra rules” in case of ties.
In Minnesota, the Constitution says the following (and this influenced the study’s conclusions, a fact which the RangeVoting.org site conveniently forgets): (1) one voter must receive no more than one vote, and (2) voting for a second candidate must not hurt the chances of the voter’s primary choice. Only IRV (and Plurality) meets these two criteria, despite its glaring flaws re: monotonicity, which isn’t covered by the MN Constitution. Approval and Borda fail the one voter one vote rule, while Approval, Borda, and Condorcet fail the second choice rule. These are the kinds of hurdles faced in reforming elections…
BTW, as a bit of a Condorcet proponent, I will note that even unmodified Condorcet is considered to be the “mathematical” best choice as an election system, despite its occasional propensity to produce ties. The LWV paper fails to go into now-standard methods (there are at least two that I know of) to resolve ties under Condorcet.
Saves money having second elections. Who wouldn’t be for this? Makes too much sense. Saves $$$.
Is saving money worth skewing the election’s outcome?
Say, not having a candidate that a majority of voters elect? Or having a least-desired elected because “too many” people vote on principle and not on strategy? This last is scarily similar to the possible mutant outcome of IRV, but it’s currently the law of the land.
If we’re going to get a new and better election system, we need to think about which complications are least objectionable and select a system based on that; IRV, Range, Condorcet, or good ole Plurality… At least if we have the discussion, we can (re)assure ourselves that we have the “best” system that we can offer the citizens of Colorado.