I have excellent news! Alameda County will be conducting IRV elections for the cities of Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro this November. (The city of Berkeley officially signed on February 10, very close to the newsletter deadline.) We owe a grateful thanks to the CfER activists who live in those cities, as well as to our colleagues in the League of Women Voters and the New America Foundation who also lobbied heavily for Oakland and San Leandro to implement their charter provisions requiring (Oakland) or allowing (San Leandro) the use of IRV. See this article for more information.

The CfER Board voted to oppose the so-called Top Two Open Primary Act that will be on the June ballot. I signed the rebuttal to the argument supporting this measure in the Official Voter Information Guide. Our opposition is based on the conclusion that Top Two will limit voters' choices, not expand them, and this is in direct conflict with CfER's stated belief that all citizens must have equal and satisfactory representation in government. A longer statement of our position by Board member Richard Winger can be found here.

Finally, I'd like to welcome Richard Winger and Christina Tobin to our Board of Directors. Our by-laws allow the elected Board members to appoint additional members if (a) there is no one from a given ballot-qualified political party, or (b) there is no one from an identifiable demographic that represents at least five percent of California's population. Richard fills the Libertarian Party gap in our Board. In addition to being an active Libertarian, Richard publishes Ballot Access News and has been a long-time CfER supporter (and a former elected Board member). Christina represents the under-30 demographic; she is also founder and Board Chair of the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, an organization dedicated to election reform and improving ballot access laws in the United States. Please join me in welcoming them to our Board.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: due to a breakdown in our internal processes, our Sacramento post office box bill went unpaid for a few months last fall. We have taken steps to make sure that this does not happen again. However, all mail sent to CfER from early September to late November was returned to sender as "undeliverable". If you sent us anything during that time and the Post Office returned it to you, please send it to us again. I apologize for the inconvenience.