Now the pitch in Burlington, VT is "elect officials with 51% majority." 40% plurality is required in local, strate, and national elections. Having lost mayoral IRV, the hype is now to change 40% plurality in mayoral elections to 51% majority. Like all the other word games played by IRV advocates, 51% amounts to nothing substantial -- it's a mere 2.5% increase in threshold.
So what's the payoff? It's a ploy by the majority parties so they don't have to build coalitions with minority parties, to lessen the chances of newcomers threatening the advantage of incumbents, and thus give major parties a chance to gang up against a candidate like Bernie Sanders -- who was elected mayor in Burlington as a third party, minority candidate. If Bernie had been forced into a runoff election, the major parties could have crushed him. The goal is to force run-offs and keep major parties in control. If you can't accomplish this quietly with IRV, then up the plurality to lessen the chances of a newcomer getting in.
This comes at a time when Burlington, VT desperately needs fresh, new leadership in the city -- top to bottom, in every department and on every board and commission.
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The pro IRV'ers have a history of moving the goal posts.
In North Carolina, they said "IRV is as easy as 1-2-3". We said no- its not. We also said "IRV is not instant."
Especially after Cary candidates found themselves having to divert campaigning time to "IRV explaining time" to their supporters. Especially when Wake County BoE officials couldn't count just 3,000 IRV ballots correctly, even though it took them all day.
So, FairVote and other pals abandoned their embarrassing old saw about "1-2-3" and they also decided to call IRV Ranked Choice Voting. Since, after one election, even the dumbest people figured out that IRV wasn't instant.
So, FairVote said - IRV provides a majority. HAH! They kept saying that in NC until we said - IRV doesn't provide a real majority, and the Cary IRV race was won with less than 50%+ 1 of all ballots cast on election day. And we kept finding places where IRV provided a plurality win, like Cary, like Hendersonville, like San Francisco, like Pierce Co.
So, in North Carolina, the pro IRVers said - well, uh IRV provides a "better plurality".
So, pro IRVers said IRV saves money. Well, thats a dubvious claim because in IRV pilots, the voter education was done under the table off the books and greatly augmented by pro IRV groups. They even came down from Maine to Cary NC, using fake southern accents and doing both voter education AND exit polling. Then we saw the report in Minneapolis MN, showing that IRV created new and continued costs of $244,000 a year. Of course IRVers are arguing that -in the future - Minneapolis will see a cost savings. Hmmm they said that in Pierce CO WA, who saved $500,000 by ditching IRV! The truth was in the actual accounting, not in the FairVote talking points.
Oh, there's the latest lie that IRV helps minority groups. Consider that in Takoma Park Maryland, FairVote's headquarters, they have no minority representation in their town government.
IRV is bad for voters, bad for election transparency, and bad for democracy. It is inherently unfair to the voters, most of all.
So, FairVote said - IRV provides a majority. HAH! They kept saying that in NC until we said - IRV doesn't provide a real majority, and the Cary IRV race was won with less than 50%+ 1 of all ballots cast on election day. And we kept finding places where IRV provided a plurality win, like Cary, like Hendersonville, like San Francisco, like Pierce Co.
So, in North Carolina, the pro IRVers said - well, uh IRV provides a "better plurality".
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