Kansas 2014 US senate race insanity. Score & approval voting, but not necessarily IRV, would cure. ================================================================================================== http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/ks/kansas_senate_roberts_vs_orman-5216.html Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) was highly unpopular. Nevertheless, Roberts was forecast to win re-election, since Kansas was a highly Republican state, and more importantly since he was running against TWO opponents, Democrat Chad Taylor, and independent candidate Greg Orman, who split the anti-Roberts vote. Also running: the Libertarian party's Randall Batson. Specifically, here are older plurality-voting polls: CANDIDATE\POLL P1 R P2 F ROBERTS: 32% 39% 34% 40 TAYLOR: 25% 9% 6% 11 ORMAN: 23% 38% 41% 38 BATSON: 3% excluded 4% 2 (Undecided) 17% P1 = Public Policy Polling, 19 August 2014, sample 903, telephone R = Rasmussen Reports, 16-17 Sept, 750 likely voters P2 = Public Policy Polling, 11-14 Sept, sample 903, telephone F = Fox News, 14-16 Sept (640 likely voters telephone) However, the win forecast for Roberts by 3 of the 4 above polls would have been an undemocratic result caused by the "vote splitting" flaw in the plurality voting system. That is clear because PPP, Fox, and Rasmussen also conducted "HEAD-TO-HEAD" polls, where the voters were asked who they'd choose if restricted to only 2 candidates: P1: ROBERTS vs TAYLOR: 43 : 39 (Undecided 17) P1: ROBERTS vs ORMAN: 33 : 43 (Undecided 24) P2: ROBERTS vs ORMAN: 36 : 46 (Undecided 17) F: ROBERTS vs ORMAN: 42 : 48 (Undecided 11) R: ROBERTS vs ORMAN: 40 : 45 (Undecided 15) P3: ROBERTS vs ORMAN: 43 : 46 (Undecided 11) These all made ORMAN the truly desired choice of the public ("Condorcet winner"), but he was doomed to come in third thanks to the USA's horrible plurality voting system according to the polls at top. Also note that Instant Runoff Voting would NOT necessarily have cured this problem: first Batson & Orman would be eliminated, then Roberts would beat Taylor in the final round, thus denying Orman his deserved victory, at least based on the August poll data. But Orman would indeed win (with IRV) using mid-September poll data. And not only that, pundits believed there was a good chance control of the entire US senate rested on this Kansas race, thus showing the immense damage the USA suffers from our undemocratic plurality voting system. BUT THEN Taylor, seeing the writing on the wall, DROPPED OUT OF THE RACE!!! This suddenly converted Roberts' fairly clear victory, to a fairly clear defeat to Orman!!! Specifically, here are plurality-voting polls with Taylor out of the race: CANDIDATE\POLL P1 P2 P3 R N U S2 C F2 RCPavg OfficialTotal ORMAN: 43 46% 44 38 48 46 47 48 48 43.4 53.3 ROBERTS: 33 36% 41 39 38 41 42 49 44 42.6 42.6 BATSON: 3? 5 9 5 4 4 3 (Undecided) 10 P1 = Public Policy Polling, 19 August 2014, sample 903, phone (hypothetical question re no-Taylor) P2 = Public Policy Polling, 11-14 Sept, sample 903, telephone P3 = Public Policy Polling, 9-12 Oct, telephone, 1081 likely voters. R = Rasmussen Reports 16-17 sept 2014, 750 likely voters N = NBC News / Marist college 27 Sept-1 Oct, sample 636 LVs, telephone U = USA Today / Suffolk University, Late September S2 = SurveyUSA 2-5 Oct 2014, 549 likely voters C = CNN/ORC 2-6 October 2014, 687 likely voters F2 = Fox News, 702 likely voters, October 4-7 RCPavg RealClearPolitics many-poll average 18oct-3Nov. OFFICIAL ELECTION: ?? Orman won Approval-style polls all along (before & after Taylor withdrew): P1: Greg Orman 24% favorable / 12% unfavorable. Pat Roberts 27 / 44 Chad Taylor 15 / 14 P2: Greg Orman 39% favorable / 19% unfavorable. Pat Roberts 29 / 46 P3: Greg Orman 42% favorable / 38% unfavorable. Pat Roberts 37 / 47 N: Greg Orman 46% favorable / 26% unfavorable. Never heard of 6, unsure 22 Pat Roberts 37 / 47 2 14 U: Greg Orman 39% favorable / 25% unfavorable. Pat Roberts 39 / 47 Randall Batson 7 / 11 Indeed, even among Republican voters only, Orman still had a better fav/unfav rating 29/34 than Roberts had among the whole voter population. Score-style polls: Rasmussen Reports 750 likely voters, 16-17 sept 2014 using 4-level very-unfavorable, somewhat-favorable, ..., very-unfavorable scale. Candidate VF SF SU VU average Pat Roberts Chad Taylor ??? sorry, results hidden behind paywall Greg Orman After Taylor dropped out, INCREDIBLY, Roberts got the powerful Republican establishment that runs Kansas, to SUE to try to force Taylor to run, whether he wanted to or not!! (Kansas had as of 2014 had a Republican controlled government for 50 years, had never elected a senator who was not Republican since the 1930s, and its "Secretary of State," 2014 SoS Kris W. Kobach, who was in charge of elections, appeared completely pro-Republican biased.) I am not making this up. The Republicans actually sued to FORCE the Democrat to run against their man!! And the Democrats/Taylor contested the suit! Kobach ruled that Taylor's name was going to remain on the ballot! But the Kansas Supreme Court then unanimously overruled Kobach, so Taylor's name was going to be taken off ballot. But then, Kobach said he was going to force the Democrats to put SOMEBODY on ballot to replace Taylor -- nobody knew who -- but soon gave up on that when nobody volunteered. The ballots then indeed had no Democrat on them. The basis for the Republican lawsuit was, that, according to Kansas law, the withdrawing candidate must write a letter saying that they are "incapable of fulfilling the duties of office." Obviously, Taylor seemed "capable" of serving, he just found it inconvenient, so such a letter would seem to have been a lie. The law, however, does not require letter to be truthful! Meanwhile, the Republicans were trying to delude Kansas voters into thinking Taylor was still running -- also a lie. Secretary of State Kobach claimed Taylor's withdrawal letter was insufficient since it did not explicitly "declare he was incapable." Taylor claimed someone at the SoS office told him his letter was OK, and the letter contained a statement his withrawal was "pursuant to" the statute number KSA 25-306b, thus indirectly making whatever claims were required. The court looked up "pursuant to" in "Black's law dictionary" and concluded Taylor's letter was ok and on time... case closed. Part of the problem for the Republicans in that lawsuit was that, in every other instance that could be dug up during the last 50 years in which a Democrat wanted to drop out of a race, the Republican SoS was ULTRA-HAPPY to oblige! Please, let me help you! In particular, in the very same 2014 year, Miranda Rickel, a university undergrad who had been running for the state house of representatives as a Democrat, dropped out. Just like Taylor she was "capable" of serving, but found it inconvenient. But unlike with Taylor, Rickel's withdrawal clearly helped her Republican opponent's winning chances. Her letter was just like Taylor's, and Kobach speedily approved it. Oops.