At the members meeting of the Dean Democratic Club on Monday, May 18, 2009, Blair Bobier of the New America Foundation made a presentation for Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a concept of voting where voters would rank the candidates in order of preference rather than vote for just one candidate. After the first choices are counted, if no one gets a majority, the candidate receiving the least first choice votes will be dropped and his or her votes will be distributed according to the voters' second choice. The process would continue until there was a clear winner. A modified version of this process will also work for seats where multiple candidates are elected on the same ballot. You can learn more about it on FairVote.org.
Santa Clara County voters had already approved Measure F to institute IRV pending available technology, and the technology has now become available. San Francisco has had IRV since 2004. The League of Women Voters and Common Cause are among the groups that support it. You can contact your Santa Clara County supervisor and ask them to support IRV; San Jose residents can also contact their city council members.
On June 11 there will be a panel on this topic with several speakers including Steve Chessin at the MLK Library in San Jose at noon; lunch will be provided. If and when there are more details, those will be added to our calendar
