July 21, 2006

"Oakland to vote to eliminate midyear primaries"

"Oakland voters in November will determine whether to do away with midyear primaries and move to a system of ranking their picks for local elected offices, the City Council decided Tuesday.

The council, by a vote of 7-2, adopted a proposal to ask voters whether they want to switch to ranked-choice voting, also known as instant-runoff voting, which proponents say increases voter participation in elections, but which opponents say is too confusing and could lead to fewer people casting votes.

Several other cities, including San Francisco and Berkeley, have adopting ranked-choice voting.

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to pick their top three choices, in order of preference, for any race.

If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is dropped from the list, the second-choice candidates on those ballots are moved to the top spot and the ballots are recounted. The process continues until someone has a majority of the vote."

The story is here.

Posted by Randy Riddle at July 21, 2006 08:39 AM