IRV Debuts in San Francisco
Last July the Voting Systems Panel of the Secretary of State of
California voted unanimously to accept the final testing results from a
federal laboratory of San Francisco's voting equipment that has been
modified to run IRV elections. This was the final "condition of
certification" previously imposed by the Voting Systems Panel back in
April, which means that finally all the technical and bureaucratic
hurdles are over! Instant runoff voting has landed in San Francisco,
with both feet on the ground and nothing left that can trip us up. We
will use IRV to elect seven seats on our city council this November.
Now we are off and running to meet the next challenge, which is
community education and outreach to the 400,000 registered voters of San
Francisco. It is an immense task, and it's crucially important that we
have a good election, because we know that the nation's eyes will be
watching us. I have been contacted by reporters, legislators, city
councilors, and activists from all over the nation who are watching and
waiting.
We could not have gotten here without many of you, and your great
support. Please join me in basking in this moment of celebration and
recognition that San Francisco is showing the way toward a better
democracy.
Just think, if every state was using instant runoff voting for the
upcoming presidential race, voters would be liberated to rank their
favorite candidates unhindered by fears of wasting their vote on
"spoilers" or "the lesser of two evils," and confident that the winner
of each state would have a majority of the popular vote (unlike nine
states in the 2000 presidential election, most infamously Florida).
Unfortunately, our current system fails the most basic requirements of
"majority rule." But the US Constitution allows each state to decide how
to allocate its electors, and instant runoff voting is a better method
to adopt that will ensure majority rule (see below an article that I
co-authored recently in The Nation exploring these themes).
Congratulations to all!
Steven Hill, Center for Voting and Democracy
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