{news} response to Susan Bysewicz (letter to the Day of March 31, 2007)

[Robert Vogel]

Susan Bysewicz, the CT Secretary of State, supports a change in the law from settling a tied election with a coin toss, to a runoff election. Although there was such a tied election in Groton last year, it doesn't happen often. It would happen even less if we had Instant Runoff Voting. 

Using Instant runoff voting (IRV) voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives an overall majority of first preferences, the candidates with fewest votes are eliminated one by one, and their votes transferred according to their second and third preferences (and so on) and all votes retallied, until one candidate achieves a majority. The term 'instant runoff voting' is used because this process resembles a series of run-off elections. (wikipedia points out a number of places IRV is being used. Anyone paying attention knows that there is often little difference between our two major parties, and that third parties are rarely heard. Until instant runoff voting (IRV) becomes widespread reality,  third parties can only be spoilers. 

Although IRV would solve some of our election problems, the evaluation of our new voting machines from the University of Connecticut and others is considerably more troubling. According to the report: the Diebold machines "can be compromised with off-the-shelf equipment in a matter of minutes even if the machine has its removable memory card sealed in place. The basic attack can be applied to effect a variety of results, including entirely neutralizing one candidate so that their votes are not counted, swapping the votes of two candidates, or biasing the results by shifting some votes from one candidate to another. Such vote tabulation corruptions can lay dormant until the election day, thus avoiding detection through pre-election tests." 

We need secure voting machines, IRV, and a ballot initiative as well.

http://www.seconnecticut.com/elections.htm includes links.



Robert Vogel

East Lyme, Ct

860-739-4023
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