By Steven Hill

October 31, 2006--The campaign for Instant Runoff Voting in Oakland (known as Measure O) needs your URGENT help to buy radio ads to respond to negative attacks against Measure O coming from sleazy political consultants. Allow me to explain.

First, the good news: We have been making great strides towards winning on November 7, having secured most of the top endorsements in the city, and waging a vigorous voter contact/outreach campaign (see details below).

But here's the bad news: Suddenly Measure O is under attack by shady political consultants who are opposed to reforming our broken democracy.

July 21, 2006

The Oakland City Council voted on July 18 to let the city's voters decide whether to use instant runoff voting (IRV) for all city elections. The council vote was 6-2.

If the measure on the November 7 ballot passes, IRV will replace Oakland's existing two-round runoff system for all city offices.

July 12, 2006

Last night the Davis City Council placed a choice voting advisory measure on the November 7 ballot.

The text of the measure is, "Should the City of Davis consider adopting choice voting, also known as instant runoff or preference voting, as the system to elect City Council members?"

The following article was received from the Humboldt Voters Association. See also "Instant runoff voting to be demonstrated in Eureka on June 6", Eureka Reporter, May 29, 2006.

May 25, 2005

Did you know that our elected officials can be, and often are, elected without a majority? Have you had enough of negative campaigning? Wouldn’t you like to see elected leaders in office who have the clear mandate of demonstrated majority support?

On election day, June 6th, the Humboldt Voters’ Association will hold an Instant Runoff Voting demonstration election.

By Pete Martineau

May 24, 2006

This week Sacramento's C.K. McClatchy high school became the first California high school to use ranked choice voting to elect its student government.

Voting was Monday, May 22, and the manual count was Tuesday and Wednesday. Almost 1,240 votes were cast in 10 classroom and Associated Student Body single member office contests.

This article is reproduced with permission of the authors from the San Francisco Examiner, February 6, 2006 and BeyondChron.com, February 13, 2006.

by Richard DeLeon, Chris Jerdonek and Steven Hill

Recent studies of local election results in 2004 and 2005 (posted at www.sfrcv.com) show that the introduction of ranked choice voting in San Francisco is off to a good start. The shift from December runoffs to RCV has saved millions of taxpayer dollars, and voter participation was much higher and more inclusive than would be expected using the old runoff system. The voters themselves, when polled, overwhelmingly preferred RCV to the old December runoff system.

Reprinted from the San Luis Obispo Tribune, January 24, 2006.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/13698446.htm