Voice for Democracy

Newsletter of Californians for Electoral Reform

Fall 2005

Marin Ranked Voting Launched

Marin Ranked Voting was formed in June of this year by a number of individuals wishing to pursue better representation of voters in Marin County. It is a nonpartisan organization that currently includes members of the Green, Peace and Freedom, and Democratic parties. We promote instant runoff voting for single seat elections and choice voting (also called single transferable vote or STV) to provide proportional representation in  multiple seat elections.

Since Marin is a general law county, ranked voting at the county level would require either a charter or a change in state law. There is no support on our Board of Supervisors to adopt a county charter just for ranked voting. In addition to concerns about Marin being “not ready for IRV,” board members have more general concerns about charters being ma­nipulated by myriad interests and about potential costs. Public education and mobilization around ranked voting will be necessary before a ballot initiative on ranked voting is a realistic possibility here. We are therefore focused on opening the door for local option in the future and preparing Marin to be able to use the option once popular support for ranked voting is established. Ten of the county’s 11 cities are general law cities (the exception is San Rafael). So our approach in cities and towns will be generally similar.

This fall we worked toward a Board of Supervisors resolution calling on the legislature to allow local option, as provided for in SB 596, Senator Debra Bowen’s bill, and to stipulate that future upgrades to voting equipment and soft­ware include a provision for possible future implementation of ranked voting. We are in communication with several of our county supervisors as well as our registrar, Michael Smith, who is eager to learn more about ranked voting, but also concerned about potential difficulties, especially in the event of a manual recount. We hope to have a resolution passed in January, 2006.

For more information, visit http://www.marinrankedvoting.org.