Liberty For All

by Brian Irving

Two North Carolina towns will take a step toward restoring free, fair and open elections in North Carolina when they conduct their October 9 municipal elections using the Instant Runoff Voting system.

Libertarians commend town officials in Cary and Hendersonville, and the State Board of Elections, for testing this voting system improvement. We only wish other municipalities were as progressive and hope that next year 10 counties will follow Cary’s example. North Carolina Libertarians have long championed the cause of electoral reform. We believe it should be easy for the people to express their will to government through as many democratic methods as possible, including referendum, recall and write-in votes.

Election reform should begin by making it easier to get on the ballot and giving voters more choice at the polls.

Instant runoff voting is one way to improve elections. Voters will be able to rank candidates in order of preference and so won’t have to worry about wasting their votes or spoiling the election and helping elect their least favorite candidate. IRV also often leads to higher turnout and stronger democracy.

IRV strengthens majority rule, something not guaranteed under our present system of plurality voting. When several candidates run, fewer votes are needed to win, which often means a minority decides the election. With IRV, however, the candidate elected will truly have a majority of the people’s support.

IRV also eliminates the waste of time and money for runoff elections. Cary estimates it will save $62,000 with IRV. Runoffs are supposed to produce a candidate with a higher level of support, but in reality voter turnout actually dwindles, so even fewer people decide who’s elected.

Finally, IRV will encourage candidates to avoid negative campaigning. Candidates will need to build a base of first choice support, but also reach out to the broader voting population in order to be acceptable to the majority.

Instant Runoff Voting is a step in the right direction — but it’s only one small step. It only addresses one part of what’s wrong with North Carolina’s electoral system. No matter what system is used to count votes, voters must be given more choices on the ballot in the first place.

North Carolina has arguably the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation. Libertarians have fought for years to surmount these barriers while at the same time working to lower them. We’ve been the only so-called third party in North Carolina to consistently achieve ballot access. But this has come at such a huge cost, in money and volunteer effort, leaving us with little to support candidates.

Nevertheless, we’ve fielded candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in all but one election since 1976. Since 2000, there have been more than 300 Libertarians on the ballot for every office from president to soil and water district supervisor.

In 2002, 145 people ran as Libertarians, including candidates for a majority of seats in each house of the General Assembly. When the Libertarian Party lost our ballot position in August 2006, the consequence was obvious. More than half of all state legislative races had only one candidate on the ballot in November. This may also be one of the reasons why less than half of eligible adults in North Carolina bothered to vote.

The Democratic-Republican duopoly controlling state government has stymied efforts to enact reforms. Yet one small reform survived in
2005. It lowered the vote percentage a third party must get to retain ballot access from 10 percent to 2 percent of the vote in a gubernatorial or presidential race.

A “new” party - that is any party except the Democrats and Republicans - must still collect more than 70,000 valid signatures on a petition in order to get on the ballot in the first place.

NC’s ballot access restrictions simply cannot be squared with the State Constitution, which says that all elections shall be free and that with very few restrictions every voter shall be eligible for election by the people to office.

This is the basis for the lawsuit Libertarians have filed against the state. We’re asking the court to strike down all of North Carolina ballot access law and replace it with something that will give the voters truly free, fair and open elections.

The case is scheduled for summary judgment sometime during the week of September 17. Not so ironically, that date is the 220th anniversary of the Constitution of the United States. It could soon also mark an historical milestone on the road to restore free, fair and open elections to the Tarheel State.

Brian Irving is the Communications Director for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina.  Mr. Irving is a columnist for Liberty For All and can be reached at brian@libertypoint.org.