Ranked Choice Voting – Round 1

Round 1 – Ice Cream

And the winner is……

Nobody.  yet.

If you are flow charting out the tabulation, here are the easy as 1-2-3 steps:

• Step 1 – is someone over 50%+1 (Y – declare winner, N – goto Step 2)
• Step 2 – eliminate the lowest vote getter and reassign votes.  Easy, right?
• Step 3 – goto Step 1.  Easy, Right?

Step 2 is causing me some heartburn, because we immediately begin to run into issues / challenges.

The lead vote getter is Mint Chocolate Chip with 21% of the vote.

It would appear we should eliminate “Neapolitan”, but that would be incorrect. Neapolitan has three round 1 votes.

We first must deal with write ins, because some of them receive less than 3 votes.

The verbatim write ins are as follows:

We now have to decide on a classification for write ins.  Is Chocolate peanut butter the same as Chocolate/Peanut Butter?  Is it the same as Peanut butter cup?

We have to be extremely careful here for a couple of reasons, hypothetically “M. Mouse” as a write-in could mean “Mickey Mouse” or “Minnie Mouse”.   We shouldn’t be in the business of guessing or interpreting voter intent.

The next issue is what order, if tied, do we eliminate ballots and re-allocate votes.  This matters in the situation where the first place vote getter is one or two short of achieving victory.  It would also matter if the reallocation caused a selection to be eliminated in the following round or surviving another round.  Yes, the odds of these situations are small – but they do exist, and we need to consider this.  In addition, you have to make these decision when coding.

In what order do we eliminate tied lower tier ballots?  Do I eliminate “Coffee” or “Peach” first? What reasoning do i code-in?

In this case, we have the following write ins with 1 vote:

• Tiger tail
• Pralines ‘n Cream
• Coffee
• Peach
• Strawberry cheesecake
• Black raspberry
• Spumoni
• Raspberry
• New York Super Fudge Chunk
• Chocolate/Peanut butter
• Peanut butter chocolate

We have 2 votes for “Peanut Butter Cup”

We have 3 votes for “Chocolate peanut butter”

So, these are the coding decisions I am making:

I will ignore capitalization, but will not ignore spelling when classifying write ins.  If a voter misspells a write in, then so be it.  I am sure each state will have different rules if they enact RCV as to write ins (see Alaska and Murkowski write in election as an example of rules regarding write ins). I simply can’t interpret voting intent and need to take the write in as presented.

I will alphabetize … no…. changed my mind ….. I will randomize the tied ballots to determine the order they are eliminated and second choice reallocated.

I created a random number generated and sorted low to high and I will eliminate the write ins in the following order:

• Peach
• Tiger tail
• New York Super Fudge Chunk
• Spumoni
• Chocolate/Peanut butter
• Pralines ‘n Cream
• Black raspberry
• Strawberry cheesecake
• Raspberry
• Coffee
• Peanut butter chocolate

I stress this is a decision that I made.  I don’t know if it is the “correct” way to do this, and that could be a potential issue.  I am not sure enacting legislation considers this or is specific.

Again, the chances the order that I eliminated and re-allocate write ins will have a material effect on the eventual outcome is small – HOWEVER, if it were the decision I just made as a coder would be an issue.  I will need to talk to an RCV expert to explore this further.

WRITE INS FLOW

We immediately experience an additional issue.  The rules require that one does not vote any one choice more than once, and if one does – the ballot becomes “spoiled”.  Our voter with his love for “New York Super Fudge Chunk” is proving to be an issue.  An additional question, is the entire ballot spoiled?  Say for example, “NYSFC” voter in round three voted for Vanilla.  Do we count round 3 or is the entire ballot spoiled for all future rounds?  If we immediately spoil the entire ballot are we disinfranchising the voter for additional rounds?

I think for our excercise, I am going to make the decision that if a voter doesn’t follow directions and votes for one choice more than once – the ballot becomes spoiled for future rounds.  Sorry, NYSFC – your strident love for “New York Super Fudge Chunk” has invalidated your ballot because we are a strict father. 

So, to recap – we aren’t even out of the write-ins, and we have three major coding / tabulation issues:

• write in classification
• order of elimination for ties
• spoiled ballots

I am going to need another cup of coffee.

Round 1 Results (combination elimination of write ins)

So, after dealing with the write-ins, Mint-Chocolate Chip has increased its lead, and we start again. Thankfully, it’s not close enough to get sued…..yet.

Conclusion

As we observed in the previous post, it is the accumulation of small errors that could lead to a catastrophic failure.

So far we have seen possible issues with:

• Ballot presentation
• Allowing or not allowing voter error
• write in issues (classification)
• order of elimination of lowest tiers
• spoiled ballots – when in the process?

Yes, agreed, the chances are small – BUT – if some error were to cast doubt on the tabulations, it would be terrible for confidence in the process.