WATCHING THE COUNT

NORTH CAROLINA APPROVES IRV TRIAL RUN

NC GREEN PARTY - The North Carolina House voted in favor last week of a bill that would allow some counties to begin using instant-runoff voting in primaries. The bill passed on May 18 by a bipartisan vote of 79-32. "This was such a surprise," said Elena Everett, chair of the state Green Party. "We didn't expect this bill to come up for a vote in the House this year. This is such important legislation. It could save the state millions of dollars in election years and encourage more democratic
participation in government."

Instant-runoff is a form of balloting that prevents expensive runoff elections and, if used in partisan elections, encourages third-party participation while preventing "spoiling" by non-major party candidates.

On an IRV ballot, voters rank the candidates for each office in order of preference. If the first round of ballot counting does not yield a winner, the candidate with the fewest votes is thrown out and the second choices on those ballots are counted. This process continues until one candidate has received a winning portion of the votes. Although not all elections in North Carolina require a majority vote to declare a winner, if desired, instant runoff can assure a majority winner in any election.

The IRV bill passed by the House last week would allow a certain number of counties to give the procedure a try: "The counties will be volunteering," said Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, "and then the state Board of Elections would have to approve the counties' plans and would oversee the whole thing. Up to 10 counties could be approved by the Board of Elections to participate in what is essentially a pilot program."

http://www.ncvce.org