By David Cary

February 24, 2008--Please help Davis takes its next step towards implementing choice voting. After AB 1294 was vetoed last fall, a two-member subcommittee of the Davis City Council began hearings on adopting a charter. The subcommittee is now presenting its findings and recommendations for consideration by the full City Council. This call to action is for all ranked voting supporters who are within striking distance of Davis.

Please attend the Davis City Council's hearing on the Charter City Subcommittee's report and show your support for choice voting this coming Tuesday, February 26, at 6:30 pm.

By Jack Santucci

February 23, 2008--Santa Fe, NM voters will decide March 4 whether to use instant runoff voting in municipal elections. The campaign website is here.

The area’s major daily, the Santa Fe New Mexican, has come out against Amendment 5.

Amendment 5 is for "instant runoff", or "ranked-choice" voting: Make your first choice, second choice, third choice, etc. This would, at last, ensure majority-elected politicians, más o menos — but it depends on well-run elections using special computer programs. We say wait and see how it works in huge numbers of other cities — and, for now, vote against.

Fear of technology is a bad reason to sideline principles like majority rule that the editors otherwise support - especially since the number of US cities successfully using IRV grows each year.

The campaign needs help. If you're in the region, you can get involved. No matter where you are, you can donate here.

Adapted from Jack Santucci's blog post at The Democratic Piece. Jack is a former staff member at FairVote and a graduate student at Georgetown University.

Last revised February 23, 2008

September 7, 2007 -- The September 5 Novato Advance includes this article about a Novato resident who wants the city to switch from a council elected at large to one elected from districts.

District proponent Gary Scheppke argues that the current system results in too many council members from one part of town and too few from another part of town. He may well be right, but there's a much better solution to this problem.

We now have a video transcript of the September 15 forum at the College of Marin, "Bring Democracy Home".

By Bob Richard

August 30, 2007 -- This afternoon AB 1662 joined roughly 200 other bills for an extended sojourn in the Senate Appropriations Committee suspense file. It will be considered again next year.

Marin Ranked Voting is a nonpartisan group of Marin County, California, residents working to make government more representative of all citizens. We promote better methods of choosing public officials in which voters can rank candidates in order of preference.