Reform Coalition Offers IRV to Solve WA Election Mess

from IRVWA

Recently a group of election reformers offered a clear solution to Washington's deeply flawed election system which has caused great confusion and a costly recount in the governor's race. "There is a proven, simple solution which can avoid these deadlocked elections and allow people to vote their hopes rather than their fears. It's called Instant Runoff Voting or IRV," remarked Taryn Gearhart, president of IRVWA, the organization that is promoting IRV with initiative 318 to legislators for elections in Washington State.

IRV is a democratic election method used around the world from Ireland to Australia and in US cities including San Francisco. It is based on the simple, democratic principle that people should be able to vote their true preference without helping elect someone they don't support. Under IRV, voters rank candidates running for a given position in order of preference.

If someone wins a majority, they are elected. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are automatically transferred to those voters' second choice. If necessary, this process continues up the line until someone earns a majority. In essence, IRV is a series of runoff elections, held on a single day to save time and cost, while promoting voter choice.

According to Joe Szwaja former Green party Candidate for US Congress, District 7, "Under IRV, we would have avoided the current mess in the Governor's race. Ruth Bennett, the Libertarian candidate for Governor received over 63,000 votes. With IRV, we would know who these voters and others who voted outside of the major parties preferred as their second choice. We'd most likely have a clear winner, save money on costly recounts and elect someone with majority support."

Another advantage of IRV is that it allows people to vote for candidates from different parties in different races. Thus instituting IRV in Washington would restore the choice eliminated when the dominant parties took away Washington's blanket primary. IRV helps build multi-party coalitions and is strongly associated with higher voter turnout in the places it has been used since voters feel their voices are heard.

Voters have shown strong support for IRV across Washington, including Vancouver, where a majority amended the city charter to enable IRV to be used in their democratic elections. Yet state law doesn't allow localities to use IRV at present. I-318 is being supported by a broad based grass roots coalition including members of the Green, Libertarian, American Heritage, Democratic and Republican parties which are working to promote IRV via an initiative to the legislature. The group has been supporting a local options bill which would allow localities such as Vancouver to use IRV. The bill drew bipartisan support in the legislature last year and has a good chance to pass in the upcoming session.

IRVWA board member Professor Rich Anderson-Connolly of Pacific Lutheran University urged people to get involved in promoting IRV in order to fix our broken election system. "We urge Washingtonians to join John McCain, Howard Dean, Washington State Legislators like Republican Toby Nixon and the US Political Science Association in supporting IRV. It's a fair and simple way to end many of our electoral woes and energize our citizenry by offering more voices and choices, without the fear of spoiling. Be part of renewing our democracy: contact your State Legislators and urge them to enact IRV."

For more information contact Taryn Gearhart at (360)-456-5586 or Joe Szwaja at (206) 523-3278, 252-3509 or check www.irvwa.org (website for I-318) or www.fairvote.org.