Ranked voting OK'dNew election system operable by November
The state certification comes more than two years after the electorate approved the ranked-choice voting method, also known as instant-runoff voting, by charter reform.
The voting system will allow voters to rank their choices from one to three in order to avoid a December rematch, which could save The City more than $3 million per election. A panel appointed by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley did recommend making some design changes to the ballot.
"They want the ballots looked at to see if they can be made more voter friendly," said Steven Hill of the Center for Voting and Democracy.
In the past, the grassroots organization Chinese American Voter Education Committee had opposed ranked-choice voting, arguing it would confuse and disenfranchise more than 15,000 voters who use Chinese-language ballots.
But executive director David Lee said the organization was resigned to the new system and now planned to now focus on providing voter education.
"The reality is we're going to have it regardless of how we feel about the system," he said. "The train has left the station."
He said a recent poll showed that 30 percent of Chinese-American voters were totally unfamiliar with ranked-choice voting.
"We don't have much time and [have] seven supervisors to elect," Lee said.
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.