NEWSFLASH: Is "13" a lucky number?

It won't be for the statewide IRV Court of Appeals race.  As of the close of business today, we now have a 13-way ClusterF@#K!

COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE (WYNN) (WYNN SEAT)

BLOSS, JOHN F (U-W)

John F. Bloss

CASTEEN, JOHN WESLEY JR (U-W)

J. Wesley Casteen

DILLON, ROBERT CHRISTOPHER (R-W)

Chris Dillon

FARLOW, JEWEL ANN (R-W)

Jewel Ann Farlow

GARNER, DANIEL E (R-W)

Daniel E. Garner

HAMMER, STANLEY F (D-W)

Stan Hammer

KLASS, MARK E (D-W)

Mark E. Klass

MCCULLOUGH, JOHN DOUGLAS (R-W)

Doug McCullough 

MIDDLETON, ANNE (D-W)

Anne Middleton 

PAYNE, HARRY E JR (D-W)

Harry E. Payne, Jr 

SULLIVAN, JOHN C (D-W)

John Sullivan

THIGPEN, CRESSIE (D-B/AA)
Cressie Thigpen

VESPER, PAMELA M there is no Pamela Vesper registered to vote in NC

Pamela M. Vesper

There is a Pamela Vesper Millward registered as (UNA-W) 

Let's look at some stats:

D - 6 - 46.1%
R - 4 - 30.8%
UNA- 2 - 15.4%
unknown - 7.7%

Men -10
Women -3
% of women in NC in 2009 - 51%,
% of women in the Court of Appeals race - 23%

White - 12 - 92.3%
Black - 1 - 7.7%
Hispanic - 0
But blacks make up 21.6% of the population

There is no way this race is gonna be settled in the first round. It's gonna go to IRV.

Problem is, there is no certified software to count the second and third column votes.  I don't even think that these races can go on a single ballot with the non-IRV races and not violate both state and federal laws.

You can't determine overvotes between columns, and the 2nd and 3rd column votes won't be counted where they are cast.   And I don't see the DRE folks wanting to port all these votes over to an MS Excel spreadsheet like they planned to do in Hendersonville in 2007 or 2009.  Luckily, Herndersonville never had to actually do that - they got winners in every first round election.  Which meant that IRV was a waste of time for their voters.

The only way I can see doing this with the least amount of law-breaking and troubles would be to put all the IRV races on one 14" ballot for all 100 counties for ABM, early voting and precinct voting.  That way the races will be counted the same way across the entire state.

If IRV races are put on the regular ballot, you won't be able to start counting IRV races until each and every single-column race is settled - meaning if there are any challenges to any race, calls for recounts, etc. - you can't start doing IRV until you are done with everything.

Then there are three counties that have Superior Court IRV races. If any of them need tabulation of the 2nd and 3rd column votes, which race will they count first - the local Superior Court race or the statewide IRV race?  And they will have to handle that first race and make sure that no one wants a recount before starting to tabulate the other IRV race, since you can't disturb the tabulation piles in one race until you resolve another IRV race. 

What a train wreck this is gonna be!