Let's give instant runoff voting a try.
Let's hope
the state Senate follows the House's lead and gives Vancouver and other
cities the opportunity to try instant runoff voting. Vancouver
residents want the chance; a city charter amendment allowing the
alternative voting method passed with 53 percent support in 1999. But
that amendment ran into a brick wall called state law, which allows
only traditional, winner-take-all balloting.
It's that
system's deficiencies that instant runoff voting is designed to
address. With Senate passage of House Bill 1390, our state would be one
step closer to learning whether the alternate method really does result
in fairer, less expensive elections.
Instant runoff
voting sounds complex, but in practice it's relatively straightforward.
Instead of a primary election to winnow the field for a particular
office, the general election ballot lists all comers three candidates
or 10 or whatever. Rather than choosing just one favorite, voters mark
their first, second and third choices in each race.
If no
candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, the last-place finisher
is eliminated and those ballots are retallied with their respective
second choices. The process continues until somebody wins.In effect,
instant runoff voting combines the primary and general elections by
asking voters to list their preferences on one ballot, rather than
forcing them to go to the polls a second time. That's a potential
dollar savings in the long run, although Clark County elections
officials have warned of start-up costs ranging from $30,000 to $50,000.
Proponents
also say instant runoff voting better reflects the will of the
electorate by increasing the chances that a winning candidate will be
at least acceptable to most voters. State Rep. Jim Moeller, a Vancouver
Democrat and sponsor of HB 1390, also hopes the method will make
campaigns more civil. "You don't want to sling mud and call people
names if you have a chance of being the second choice," Moeller told
The Columbian's Don Jenkins last week.
The system is
already used in Great Britain, Ireland and Australia; San Francisco
voters will use instant runoff voting to choose their mayor, district
attorney and sheriff this November. Moeller's bill would allow the
state's 10 largest charter cities to give instant runoff voting a try,
but would not obligate them to do so.
The only way to
find out whether instant runoff voting will live up to its billing is
to give it a try. And the only way to do that is with Senate
approval and a signature from Gov. Gary Locke. 
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.