Will King County learn from Pierce County's experience?

Hint: Aspen, Colorado did.

King County has the opportunity to move its county level elections to Ranked Choice Voting, and, if done efficiently, saving money for the taxpayers. To do this, King County must learn from the experiences in Pierce County, Washington and Aspen, Colorado. The potential for savings in odd-numbered years is in the millions of dollars. How can King County accomplish this?

In November, 2008, Pierce County held its first ever Ranked Choice Voting election with races for County Executive, County Assessor-Treasurer, and County Sheriff and County Council. The Elections Department chose to implement Ranked Choice Voting through buying the software from their existing election systems vendor. The software was expensive and required a second ballot card with the associated printing and postage costs.

In May, 2009, Aspen, Colorado chose to employ a specialist firm who used the existing hardware and software for the standard elections and a combination of off-the-shelf optical scanners plus open source software to generate the Ranked Choice Voting results. This off-the-shelf solution does not require a second ballot card and the associated expenses.

Both in Pierce County and in Aspen, the systems provided ballot image files of the voters' choices and reporting of the rounds of RCV results. These reports represent a significant step forward in openness and transparency in elections. This publishing of results and ballot images is a model for all elections.

In Aspen, the vendor charged $7,500 plus expenses of getting there. These expenses were obviously less than the savings from eliminating a run-off election. Thus, Aspen saved money on a net basis as compared to their old system.

If King County were to move to RCV to elect its county level officials, it would save $1+ million in each odd-numbered year by folding the primary for those positions into the general election. The additional expense would be associated with getting state certification of the cheaper outside vendor plus a nominal sum for consulting and expenses. On a net basis, there would significant savings by the county.

Of course, if entities such as the Port of Seattle were to follow King County's lead, the expense savings would increase since there are significant economies of scale in using elections systems. The Port would likely save as much money as the County in moving to RCV, but is not likely to be able to do so unless the County makes the first move.

The King County Citizens' Elections Oversight Committee should recommend to the County Council and the voters of King County the implementation of RCV for King County's county level officials. RCV will encourage voter choice and save money for the county.

Should the Elections Assistance Commission be more like Wikipedia?

Blogger's Note: This posting is off topic for this blog, but our work in the RCV world has made us aware of this broader issue of much importance to elections in the US. The purpose of this posting is to inspire debate about regulatory philosophy of the EAC.


Summary

Part of the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) has been charged with setting standards for elections software and hardware, licensing private certification companies to test such systems, and certifying these systems for use by the various county election departments around the country. The EAC approach to this process has driven up costs for both elections departments and systems providers. The EAC has stifled innovation by systems providers. The EAC has stifled competition amongst systems providers and prevented new firms from coming into the business. It is time for a change in the philosophy of how the EAC does its job. The EAC needs to consider being more like Wikipedia and other open source communities.

Current Situation

The EAC set standards in 2005 for elections systems to be certified and put them into effect in 2007. Thus far, no system has been certified under this set of standards. The elections systems of the US have stood still for years. Given the backwards state of elections systems in the US, this is an unacceptable level of progress for this industry.

The EAC procedures have driven the costs of getting an elections system certified up significantly. This has discouraged innovation by existing companies and prevented start-up companies from entering the business. This lack of robust competition has caused higher prices on existing systems and prevented the introduction of improved features which can help cut costs in implementation for elections departments throughout the country.

All of this is being done in an environment which is cloaked in secrecy and lacks transparency. The secrecy of the certification process inhibits public confidence in our elections systems and makes many wary of our existing systems. For example, the federal standards require that vendors document the capabilities of their systems in a technical data package, which is submitted to private testing labs as part of the certification process. The public does not have access to the technical packages, so the public doesn't know what the vendors claim their systems can and cannot do, nor does the public know the test protocols used to test the equipment or, even more importantly, the actual results of the tests of the systems.

New Paradigm

The EAC certification guidelines should be more results based and less prescriptive. Does the system generate data that allows members of the public to verify whether each ballot was counted correctly? In other words, the guidelines should promote systems that have intrinsic transparency, meaning they produce sufficient data for interested members of the public to independently verify whether or not every ballot was counted correctly.

The EAC should allow an open certification process along the lines of the open source community and/or the Wikipedia process. Companies willing to publish their software code on the Internet should be allowed to use the Internet community to test their systems rather than paying exorbitant amounts of money to private companies licensed by the EAC. Many people are concerned about the security and efficiency of our elections systems and would willingly test systems themselves and post their results on the Internet.

Openness and transparency will ultimately lead to systems with lower costs, higher levels of security and higher levels of trust by the voting public. For example, Sequoia Data Systems has software which produces a ballot image report for certain types of elections. This capability in a more open market would be standard for all elections types as it promotes openness and transparency for all. Indeed, through this capability, any one can "count" the votes. Such innovation has been stifled by the existing regime.

Other innovations such as Internet voting and ranked choice voting need more certified software to spread in use. These innovations have the possibility of improving our democracy and we need to facilitate their open and transparent implementation.


Conclusion

The EAC and the various Secretaries of State around the country need to change their paradigm in certifying elections systems to encourage innovation in technology, security and cost savings. The current system is like a hard copy Encyclopedia Brittanica...outdated. Wikipedia and open source is the future. We need to embrace the future...for our own good.