For additional coverage of this story, see

• Santa Monica Mirror, September 21-27, 2005
• Santa Monica Daily Press, September 14, 2005
• Santa Monica Ranked Voting

By Kevin McKeown

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

The Santa Monica City Council last night authorized staff resources to investigate the use of ranked voting in our local elections. The vote on my motion was 5-1, with the mayor absent last night. Among the actions approved were

* sending our City Clerk to San Francisco to monitor their IRV elections

* investigating how we might coordinate ranked voting with the County

* tracking state legislation creating approved ranked voting procedures

That last, of course, involves SB 596, which has become a two year bill. Santa Monica is now on the list of "interested cities," along with Davis, Berkeley, etc. When discussion of SB 596 again becomes active, I'll seek a statement of support from Santa Monica.

Thanks to the advocacy group Santa Monica Ranked Voting for their presentation last night (actually, this morning -- it was after midnight by the time their item came up at the end of a long City Council meeting).

Kevin McKeown is a member of the Santa Monica City Council