Evaluating an Instant Runoff Voting Election (IRV) Public Posting of Raw Vote Data Reviewing eligible, exhausted, under-votes, over-votes, and total ballots San Francisco provides us the best example of accounting for IRV election results We don't know what Fair Vote means by "valid ballots" and the San Francisco Department of Elections doesn't use this terminology. To evaluate an IRV election, San Francisco provides the raw vote data as below.  This allows interested citizens to measure the number of ballots cast compared to votes counted,  and whether people ranked additional choices beyond the first choice. RCV District 4 Nov 2006 City and County of San Francisco Consolidated General Election November 7, 2006 RCV District 4 Go To: | Neighborhood Statistics | | RCV Assessor-Recorder | RCV Public Defender  | | RCV Dist 2 | RCV Dist 4 | RCV Dist 6 | RCV Dist 8 | RCV Dist 10 | OFFICIAL RESULTS RUN DATE: 12/05/06 11:43 AM Race and Candidate Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 3 Pass 4 Pre-RCV Count Pre-RCV Diff. MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 4 RON DUDUM 5,134 5,521 6,305 7,587 5,072 62 ED JEW (Winner 52.507%) 5,184 5,441 6,455 8,388 5,125 59 JAYNRY MAK 4,569 5,012 5,851* 4,504 65 DOUG CHAN 3,236 3,414* 3,192 44 HOUSTON ZHENG 234* 225 9 DAVID FERGUSON 1,455* 1,419 36 WRITE-IN 2* 2 0 Eligible Ballots 19,814 19,388 18,611 15,975 Undervotes 2,253 Exhausted Ballots 2,171 2,597 3,374 6,010 Overvotes 193 Total Ballots 21,985 21,985 21,985 21,985 Total 21,985 To understand the difference between the Pre-RCV and RCV vote totals: A number of undervotes reported were, in fact, advanceable ballots (Difference column) The RCV algorithm advances those ballots and sums them in Pass1. The candidate(s) with the lowest vote total is selected for elimination (indicated with an asterisk * ) Ballot Definitions: The number of Eligible Ballots (for Pass 1) is the number of ballots with a mark for a candidate in the 1st choice, plus those whose marks were advanced. The number of Exhausted Ballots is the number of undervotes minus the number of advanced ballots, plus the number of overvotes (invalid votes for multiple candidates). The number of Total Ballots is all cards, marked in any way, or blank. For more information, please go to www.sfgov.org/election/rcv Observations of raw vote data for District 4 :  There were 2,253 undervotes, for 10.25% of the 21,985 ballots cast. There were 193 overvotes, for .87% of the 21,985 ballots cast, In just the first pass alone, 2,171 ballots were exhausted, or 9.87% of all ballots cast. By the fourth pass, the number of exhausted ballots was 6,010, or 27.34% of all ballots cast. RCV District 6 Go To: | Neighborhood Statistics | | RCV Assessor-Recorder | RCV Public Defender  | | RCV Dist 2 | RCV Dist 4 | RCV Dist 6 | RCV Dist 8 | RCV Dist 10 | OFFICIAL RESULTS RUN DATE: 12/05/06 11:50 AM Race and Candidate Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 3 Pass 4 Pass 5 Pre-RCV Count Pre-RCV Diff. MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 6 VILIAM DUGOVIC 340 348 358* 330 10 GEORGE DIAS 230 231* 222 8 MATT DRAKE 679 688 725 830 869 669 10 CHRIS DALY (Winner 50.822%) 8,746 8,763 8,803 8,871 8,968 8,654 92 DAVY JONES 389 402 421 463 506 372 17 ROBERT JORDAN 125* 119 6 MANUEL JIMENEZ, JR. 317 328 375 399* 311 6 ROB BLACK 7,115 7,134 7,173 7,215 7,303 7,051 64 WRITE-IN * 0 0 Eligible Ballots 17,941 17,894 17,855 17,778 17,646 Undervotes 2,027 Exhausted Ballots 1,974 2,021 2,060 2,137 2,269 Overvotes 160 Total Ballots 19,915 19,915 19,915 19,915 19,915 Total 19,915 We don't know what Fair Vote means when they refer to "valid ballots" in their talking points, so we can only discuss how IRV (RCV) affects the number of ballots/votes cast and counted. For more information, please go to www.sfgov.org/election/rcv         .   Observations of raw vote data of RCV for District 6:    There were 2,027 undervotes (no votes cast on the ballot choice) for 10.17% of the 19,915 ballots cast There were 160 overvotes for .80% of the 19,915 ballots cast. In the first pass, 1.974 or 9.91% of ballots were exhausted, meaning the voters did not rank a 2nd or 3rd choice. By the fourth pass, the number of exhausted ballots was 2.269 or 11.39% of all ballots cast.   For more information, please go to www.sfgov.org/election/rcv