North Carolina: Cary uses IRV for town council
The Asheville Citizen-Times reports: Cary on Tuesday became North Carolina's first test of instant runoff voting, a system the state will try out next month in Hendersonville's City Council election.
Letting voters make backup choices eliminates the need for runoff elections that cost extra money and tend to draw low turnout.
Opponents of the movement, like Raleigh resident Chris Telesca of the N.C. Coalition for Verified Voting, say it makes voting and counting the votes more complex.
In Cary, though, voters interviewed at the polls all said they understood how to vote using the system. Most of them said they had come prepared to rank candidates after receiving mailers, viewing the county Elections Board's Web site or hearing about it in the media.
"I thought it was really positive," said Alex Funk, a retired engineer who biked to the Herbert C. Young Community Center to vote. "I mean, why do this all twice?"
Corey Cook, an assistant professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has studied instant runoff voting, said most voters understand it, but governments must spend money before every election to educate those who don't. -- CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Instant runoff gets test run