Instant runoff voting is slowing down.

Only one North Carolina town — Hendersonville — will use the voting method this year as part of a pilot project.

After using instant-runoff voting, plurality elections and traditional runoffs, the Cary Town Council decided to stick with a traditional runoff.

Instant runoff voting is a newer method that avoids the expense of a second election by allowing voters to designate a second choice on their ballot. If no candidate wins a majority, second-choice votes are then counted, essentially creating an "instant" runoff.

Wednesday was the deadline for a town or city to volunteer with the State Board of Elections for the voting method in this fall's elections.

Voter activist Joyce McCloy, who opposes IRV, called it a "blow to lobbying groups who had set their hopes" on Cary.

The runoff election cost more than $50 per voter, said Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina.

In a news release, Hall said Tuesday's vote took about $4 million to operate about 3,000 polling places and process the ballots of about 75,000 voters. In some counties, turnout was so low that the cost per vote reached $70, Hall said.

"Local taxpayers foot the bill, not the state, which may be one reason why state lawmakers have been slow to address the problem of expensive, low-turnout runoffs," Hall said in the news release.

Hall supports instant runoff voting, in which voters can mark a first and second choice on election day. The state has tested the system, but it is not used widely. 

"There's got to be a better way than these embarrassing statewide runoff elections," Hall said.

Both candidates for state labor commissioner have faced primary runoffs with extremely low turnout.

Democrat Mary Fant Donnan, a first-time candidate, won her party's nomination in a race Tuesday with less than 2 percent turnout. Incumbent Republican Cherie Berry also won a primary runoff in her first campaign in 2000, which also saw a record-low 2.5 percent turnout.

Donnan said she would be open to discussion about ways to avoid primary runoffs, such as instant-runoff voting, in which voters mark their second choice on the ballot.

Berry said she favors lowering the 40 percent threshold required to secure the nomination in a race with more than two candidates.

"I've always thought that the person that gets the most votes ought to win," she said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the threshold.

Rep. Paul Luebke says he'll press for instant runoffs in 2009.

The Durham Democrat, who sponsored a pilot project for municipal elections in 2005, says that the concept was "scary" to a lot of legislators, but after elections in Cary and Hendersonville he thinks they may be more open to it.

"In 2009, if I'm back I expect to participate in a discussion about how we could use instant-runoff voting as a statewide policy," he said.

The city of Wilmington has asked for a local bill seeking authority to do instant runoffs this session, though it is currently stuck in a committee, he noted.  

Citing today's labor commissioner runoff, Luebke said that the traditional primary runoff method has its own risks, including extremely low turnout.

"It's really not a good idea to have so few people deciding these runoff races," he said. 

Mary Fant Donnan would be willing to consider instant runoffs.

The candidate for the Democratic nomination for labor commissioner said she first learned about the voting method while living in Australia in the late 1980s.

That country uses both instant runoffs and other forms of preferential voting in various races.

"It made sense to me, but I think there are things I've heard about that raise questions about how well it works — both making it simple and being careful not to disenfranchise voters," she said. "I don't have a particular thought about instant runoffs the way it's been proposed."

Donnan said she has heard voters talking about instant runoffs as well as changing the required percentage for a winner in down-ballot races. She said she would be part of the discussion on either change going forward.

One thing she would not support is another Australian innovation: Compulsory voting.

"I couldn't see that would translate well into our culture," she said. 

Previously: Brooks opposes instant runoff voting. 

An animated short explaining instant-runoff voting from N.C. Fair Vote, a nonpartisan organization promoting the electoral reform.

Bob Hall says instant-runoff voting could have saved the state millions.

The executive director of Democracy North Carolina says that North Carolina could have avoided today's primary runoff, which will cost from $3.5 to $5 million, by asking voters their second choice in the initial ballot.

"Today is really a case where we have this miserably low turnout, and it really is not democratic," he said.

Under instant-runoff voting, voters mark their first, second and third choices in a given race. If no candidate gets a majority in the initial round of voting, the second-choice votes of people who voted for the losing candidate are counted.

State Rep. Paul Luebke proposed a bill to allow the method in statewide party primaries and judicial races in the 2005 session, but it was scaled back to a pilot program for municipal elections. The towns of Cary and Hendersonville successfully used instant runoffs in the 2007 races.

Hall, a campaign finance reformer, said that instant runoffs also help candidates budget wisely.

"You don't have to worry about squirrelling away money for a possible runoff," he said. "And you don't have a situation where the candidate who can raise a lot of money real quick has an advantage."

The labor commissioner runoff will cost between $3.5 and $5 million.

The cost will be shared by each of the 100 counties participating in the runoff between John C. Brooks and Mary Fant Donnan, though some may pay more if other local races drive turnout, said State Board of Elections deputy director Johnnie Mclean.

In previous primary runoffs, turnout has been as low as 3 percent and as high as 16 percent, though Mclean estimates it will be at the lower end.

Under state law, the runner-up may request a runoff if no candidate receives more than 40 percent of the vote. Brooks, who received 24.4 percent of the vote in a four-way race, came in second to Donnan, who received 27.5 percent.

He said he requested a runoff because it is an "educational opportunity."

"The people of North Carolina would have known nothing more about the issues in the Department of Labor than the man in the moon," he said. "The opportunity to save billions of dollars for the people of North Carolina could have gone by, just like it did four years ago."

Brooks also dismissed the idea of instant-runoff voting, in which voters' second-choice picks are counted if no candidate gets a majority. The towns of Cary and Hendersonville held instant-runoff elections last fall under a pilot program.