The secretary of state's office remains
By Don Jenkins
Published March 23rd 2005 in Vancouver Columbian
The secretary of state's office remains "skeptical" of instant runoff voting, but supports letting Vancouver try the system in municipal elections, an office lobbyist said Tuesday.
"We're not in favor of (instant runoff voting), and we're not an advocate of it, but we understand that the voters in the city of Vancouver approved a charter amendment, and there is support in that region for this," office lobbyist Shane Hamlin told a Senate committee.
The Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee took testimony on House Bill 1447, which would give Vancouver long-sought permission to elect its mayor and council members by a system that allows voters to rank candidates.
Vancouver voters approved the method in 1999, but current state law doesn't allow it.
HB 1447 passed the House this session, even though Hamlin told a House committee that state elections officials don't like instant runoff voting.
On Tuesday, Hamlin reaffirmed those doubts, but said the secretary of state's office doesn't oppose a Vancouver experiment.
"I will just again say we're skeptical of it," Hamlin said. "Maybe one good point about this pilot project (in Vancouver) is that we could really have a discussion about the policy issues at hand."
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, said the endorsement should help.
"I'm hoping we can move this bill all the way through," he said.
The House has passed legislation authorizing Vancouver to use instant runoff voting for three straight years.
The legislation stalled in the Senate in 2003 and 2004, but senators this year leaped ahead on the issue by passing Senate Bill 5326, which authorizes 10 first-class cities, including Vancouver, to employ instant runoff voting in nonpartisan municipal elections.
A first-class city has a population of more than 10,000 and is governed by a home-rule charter.
Moeller's bill applies only to Vancouver.
Used by San Francisco in 2004 to select its board of supervisors, instant runoff voting lets voters rank their choices.
If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the second-choice votes of the last-place candidate are distributed to the other candidates. The process goes on until someone has a majority of votes.
Instant runoff voting eliminates the primary, saving the cost of an election, supporters note.
Advocates also say the system lets voters stick with underdog candidates and still influence an election. Also, candidates must broaden their appeal beyond their base of supporters.
Moeller, who was on the Vancouver City Council in 1999, said the concept is sinking in with legislators.
"I don't have to explain what instant runoff voting is. I don't have to explain ranked voting. They have a good idea of what it is," he said.
Vancouver city lobbyist Mark Brown said council members haven't decided whether to implement instant runoff voting if given the chance.
"We would like to have that option," he 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.