A Humboldt County citizens' group made their pitch Thursday for adopting ranked-choice voting here with a power point presentation and demonstrations on how the system would work during a forum on election reform issues.

About 45 people attended the town hall meeting hosted by Councilmen Mike Jones and Chris Kerrigan. While most of the audience appeared interested, if not enthusiastic about the idea, there were a few people who voiced vocal opposition to any such change.

Jones made it clear no decision was being made and he was there to listen to people's opinions.

Scott Menzies, a member of the fledgling Voter Confidence Committee, walked audience members through the process with several exercises, including having people vote for the "mayor of cartoon land" then showing how the votes would be processed.

"Basically, it's like the tradition runoff system, but instead of having another election, we have all the information we need," he said.

There are varying systems and calculation methods for ranked-choice voting -- sometimes known as "preference voting" or "instant run-off voting."

The process generally works by having voters select their first, second and third place choices and so on. In a situation where no candidate receives a majority vote, the candidate with the least votes is dropped. Anyone who selected the dropped candidate as their first choice would have their vote transferred to their second choice.

The votes are recounted and either a majority winner emerges or the cycle continues until one candidate breaks the 50 percent plus one mark.

In the cartoon vote, while Betty Boop had the most votes in the first round of voting, as each low vote recipient was removed and the votes were reprocessed, she ended up losing out to Yogi Bear, who started out in third place overall.

Menzies said the result is a winning candidate with the broadest vote base. The city of Eureka currently elects council members by whomever gets the largest numbers of votes, but not necessarily a majority.

Several people had questions about the in-and-outs of the process, including Jones who asked how the city would coordinate with the county, which runs the election, and what the financial implications would be.

Menzies said the committee's understanding was there would be a separate ballot for the rank-choice election and another for any county, state or national election going on at the same time. He said that the county's voting machines would be compatible with the ranked-choice system.

But not everyone was enamored with the idea. One man wanted to know why "you want to cheat a system that already works?" and local resident Aldo Bongio didn't mince words in describing his distaste.

"Socialism. That's what we've got in Arcata and that's what they're trying to bring to Eureka," he said to some hisses and sighs of exasperation.

Voters in San Francisco used the system for the first time in November 2004. A city of Davis task force has recommended its adoption for council elections. And, the Utah Republican Party uses the system for deciding its congressional nominations, according to Menzies.

In Sacramento, a state senator is working on legislation that would give general law cities the option of using ranked-choice voting in municipal elections.

Menzies said the benefits of ranked-choice include creating a more democratic election because no one has to worry about "throwing away" their vote or "spoiling" an election and candidates benefit too.

In order for the city of Eureka to adopt the system there would have to be a change to the City Charter, which requires a vote of the people. The subject could be placed on the ballot by an act of the City Council or a citizens' initiative, according to Kerrigan.