IRV wins again
By Rosalea Barker
Published November 13th 2006 in Scoop Independent News
I must confess that, after a great start, I had very little involvement with the effort to promote Measure O, the instant runoff voting measure on Oakland's ballot, but the stalwarts who persevered with the campaign brought it in at 67.41 percent of voters in favour.
One of the advisors on the campaign will be known to some of you Down Under. Lynne Serpe was the national coordinator for the New Zealand campaign to get the single transferable vote system approved for use in local elections. She is currently the Deputy Director of the New America Foundation's political reform program.
Two other cities and a rural county in the US also voted in favour of IRV on November 7. Lynne is quoted in a press release from the New America Foundation as saying:
"What was interesting about the four victories for IRV was that they happened in four very different locations. Oakland is a very diverse and working-class city; Minneapolis is a Midwestern values city; Pierce County is mostly a rural county with large numbers of independent voters; and Davis is a smaller, university town. Yet in every place Instant Runoff Voting provided a unique solution to problems with representative government and democracy."
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.