Here's the story that will appear in Saturday's paper:

Pierce County spent a lot of money on a new voting method for a few Pierce County offices this election, and most voters didn’t like it a bit.

Auditor Pat McCarthy said Ranked Choice Voting will cost county taxpayers about $1.7 million, which is half of the overall $3.4 million it cost to put on the 2008 general election.

Although Pierce County voters changed the county charter last year to allow the new voting method, it appears they have changed their collecting mind. Two of three voters who responded to a survey were opposed to the concept.

“It was overwhelming,” McCarthy told members of the state Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee on Friday. “The majority did not like it.”

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That was based on nearly 91,000 voters who filled out a questionnaire that accompanied mail-in ballots.

Ranked Choice Voting, sometimes called Instant Runoff Voting, allowed voters to indicate their first, second and third choice in a particular race. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the total number of votes in the first round of counting, the second choice on ballots of the last-place candidate are then counted. That continues until one candidate finally gets a majority.

McCarthy, who won a close election in a four-way race for county executive, joined other county election officials from Yakima and Chelan counties to give state lawmakers a report on the election. The state had on line voter registration and 37 of the 39 counties -- all but King and Pierce -- conducted their entire elections by mail.

Pierce was the only one of 39 counties to use Ranked Choice Voting, and only for a few county races. Pierce voters got a second conventional ballot to vote for president, governor, congress and other races.

McCarthy said she considered the election “an amazing success,” even though she didn’t care much for the new method. It was a success because the computer system and algorithms worked and most voters understood how to fill out the ballots, she said.

State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, a committee member, took issue with that assessment.

“How can you say it was a success when voters didn’t know who the executive was for two weeks?” Roach asked. “That absolutely was a disaster.”

Processing ranked choice ballots did slow down the tally, McCarthy said, but the method had nothing to do with how close the races were. Her own race for executive wasn’t decided until three weeks after the Nov. 4 vote at the polls. A couple legislative races were so close, using conventional voting methods, they required a recount and were not decided until earlier this week, McCarthy said.

McCarthy said she’s no fan of Ranked Choice Voting, but her staff executed the wishes of voters by processing twice as many ballots because of the dual ballots.

The decision to adopt the new voting method was approved by 53 percent of voters. McCarthy said she thinks voters were eager to switch to something else because they were still angry about the previous election when they were forced to pick a Democratic, Republican or other political party’s slate of candidates.

She said she hopes the County Council will give voters a chance to reconsider the charter amendment that created Ranked Choice Voting.
Susan Eidenschink, treasurer of the Tacoma-Pierce County League of Women Voters, blamed the long lines at the polls on Election Day on McCarthy’s decision to have fewer polling places.

“We’re interested in seeing it expanded,” she said of RCV. “We feel it definitely deserves more of a trial than this one election.”

Krist Novoselic, chairman of FairVote, echoed that sentiment. The former member of Nirvana band is now a local government official in rural Wahkiakum County and said he has worked to get Memphis, Tenn. and Telluride, Colo. to try Ranked Choice Voting.

Committee chairwoman Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, said she has been listening for years to people and groups who are supporters of the new voting method, but she has no interest in seeing it extend beyond the borders of Pierce County.

“I’m with those folks who said they were confused,” Fairley said.
“This sounds just insane,” said Sen. Eric Oemig, D-Kirkland, a committee member.

Many Pierce County voters agreed.

McCarthy said 90,738 voters answered the questionnaire that asked, "Did you like this new Ranked Choice Voting method?"

Of those, 56,751 said "No," 29,206 said "Yes" and 4,781 were undecided.

(Image courtesy of Mike Licht.)