Time to learn something new!

It's time to learn a new way of voting statewide - it's called IRV which is short for Instant Runoff Voting.

Our State Board of Elections knows and has admitted that we have no software to count IRV ballots on our voting systems. The staff knew it in 2007, and the board knew about it in 2008.  They admitted it on Tuesday in Asheville.

They know and have admitted that the Instant Runoff method conflicts with state and federal elections laws and rules that contributed to our state being ranked #1 in election integrity in 2006 - only two years after the 2004 General Election (a Florida-style election meltdown) that led to the passage of our Public Confidence in Elections Act in 2005.

So now our SBOE is going to dump an new and untested election method on NC voters that more likely than not will result in confusing among voters, contested elections because no one is sure how they will be counted, if the count is right or even legal (since the contest in question is a judicial race where all candidates will or should be lawyers).

So it's time to learn the meaning of a new word that applies to IRV anywhere, but especially to our elections under the circumstances: "clusterf@#k"

The Urban Dictionary has several definitions for "clusterf@#k", according to the Urban Dictionary:

1. Military term for an operation in which multiple things have gone wrong. Related to "SNAFU" (Situation Normal, All F@#ked Up") and "FUBAR" (F@#ked Up Beyond All Repair). In radio communication or polite conversation (i.e. with a very senior officer with whom you have no prior experience) the term "clusterf@#k" will often be replaced by the NATO phonetic acronym "Charlie Foxtrot."
2. Traditionally/originally of military origin. Today, however, "clusterf@#k" is commonly used to descriptively generalize any situation with a large scale of disarray. Possibly synonyms: mess, disaster.
3. A combination of things going extremely wrong in a short period of time within the same general activity -- caused by stupidity and/or ineptitude. A polite term using the same initials would be "compound fiasco".

The word has been integrated most successfully by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show in their segment entitled  "Clusterf@#k to the White House!"

So I hope I have peaked your curiosity about North Carolina's Instant Runoff Voting method that will foisted on the voting public in two months.  Come on back and learn more about IRV and get ready for the "ClusterF@#k to the Court of Appeals"!