Nothing in this Charter shall preclude the Board of Supervisors from authorizing the Instant Runoff Voting system for use in county elections, when such technology is available and in use in the County.

Instant Runoff Voting provides for majority winners, without requiring subsequent runoff elections. It is a majoritarian system. Winning candidates secure the support of over half the voters in a constituency. The vote is exercised by ranking the candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than half of the votes cast on the first count of first preference votes, the candidate who received the fewest first preference votes is eliminated and his/her second preferences are distributed between the other candidates. This process continues until one candidate has achieved an overall majority.

The decision to use or not use Instant Runoff Voting must be made at least 120 days prior to the election. If Instant Runoff Voting is used for any County office in an election it must be used for all County offices participating in that election.

Nothing in this Charter shall preclude the City Council from authorizing the Choice Voting system for use in City elections, when such technology is available and in use in the City. The decision to use or not use Choice Voting must be made at least 120 days prior to the election.

The Choice Voting system is a system of proportional representation which takes place in multi-member constituencies. It results in majority rule with fair minority representation.

Voters are to able to rank as many candidates, both within parties and across different parties, as they wish in order of preference. Any of those candidates who reach a certain threshold are deemed to have been elected. The threshold shall be defined as the smallest number of votes that guarantees that a candidate will win election. The surplus votes of candidates elected on the first count and the votes of those with fewest votes after subsequent counts are distributed on the basis of preferences to the remaining candidates until sufficient candidates reach the threshold and are, as a result, elected.