By JEFF ADELSON
Published June 27th 2006 in Gainesville.com
Gainesville city commissioners on Monday expressed interest in investigating a new form of voting in city elections.
The commission unanimously approved plans to look into and start a community dialogue on "instant runoff voting," a proposal that would allow the city to consolidate its general and runoff elections into a single voting day.
The process was recommended by a committee reviewing the city's charter to examine ways to improve its electoral system.
In instant runoff voting, voters numerically rank as many candidates as they choose on a ballot, said Penny Wheat, the committee's chairwoman and a former Alachua County Commissioner. If no one receives a majority of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated. The second-choice votes of those who cast ballots for the eliminated candidate then are distributed to the others in the field, Wheat said.
The process is repeated until a candidate earns a majority of the votes.
Florida has not yet certified instant runoff voting, but the city approved a measure that would put this certification on Gainesville's state legislative agendas.
The City Commission also directed its staff to work on ways to cut the amount of time between an election and the swearing-in of new commissioners.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.