THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations.

The Legislature of the State of California finds and declares the following:

(a) Special elections are burdensome to voters, because they often require voters to participate in two elections for a single office.

(b) Special elections are burdensome to taxpayers, who must cover the cost of multiple elections.

(c) Special elections are burdensome to candidates, who must raise money and campaign for two elections.

(d) Special elections are time consuming; the two-election process adds months to the amount of time that citizens are deprived of elected representation.

(e) Low turnout at special elections is a severe problem, sometimes dipping below ten percent of eligible voters.

(f) Instant runoff voting produces a majority winner in a single election. This can solve all of the above problems, especially if the special election is consolidated with a regular election.

(g) Instant runoff voting is a simple and proven method that allows voters to rank the candidates they support on their ballots. It finds the majority winner by eliminating last-place candidates one at a time and counting each ballot for the voter's favorite candidate who has not been eliminated. The method has decades of experience in Australia and Ireland, and has been approved for use by several local jurisdictions in California.

(h) Instant runoff voting could save taxpayers millions of dollars per year, save voters hundreds of thousands of hours, save candidates hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign costs, provide a clearer mandate, and fill vacancies more rapidly.

(i) The instant runoff voting procedure can easily accommodate the association rights of political parties.

SECTION 2. A new Section is added to the Elections Code between Section 10702 and 10703, to read:

10702.5. A special election to fill a vacancy in the office of Representative in Congress, State Senator, or Member of the Assembly shall be conducted using instant runoff voting unless the Secretary of State determines that the voting equipment in the affected county or counties is not compatible with a ranked-ballot voting system. If the equipment is compatible, the special election shall be conducted on a Tuesday at least 70 days, but not more than 77 days, following the issuance of an election proclamation by the Governor, or in a consolidated election, as specified in Section 10703. If the equipment is not compatible, the special election shall follow the procedures specified in sections 10703 through 10707.

SECTION 3. A new Section 363 is added to the Elections Code, to read:

363. 'Instant runoff voting' means the following procedure:

(a) On the ballot, voters rank the candidates they support in order of choice.

(b) Ballots are counted in rounds. Winning the election requires a majority of the votes in a round.

(c) In each round, each ballot counts as one vote for the candidate ranked highest on the ballot and who has not been eliminated in a previous round. If no candidate receives a majority of the votes in the round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and another round of ballot counting occurs. More than one candidate may be eliminated in a given round, as long as the total number of votes cast for candidates eliminated in that round is less than the number of votes cast for the remaining candidate with the fewest votes.

(d) If two or more candidates are given the same ranking on a ballot, that duplicate ranking is ignored.

(e) Any ties that could affect the outcome of the election are resolved by the procedures specified in Chapter 10 of Division 15 of the Elections Code.

(f) No later than two weeks after proclamation of the election, a party may specify tallying procedures that eliminate all but one of its candidates prior to execution of the above procedures. If no procedures are specified, no prior eliminations of that party's candidates are made. These procedures (or the default procedure) shall constitute the partisan primary. Alternative tallying procedures include, but are not limited to: discarding any intra-party first- choice plurality losers prior to IRV tally, and discarding the intra-party IRV losers prior to main IRV tally.

(g) Ballots used under this section allow a voter to rank all qualified candidates and at most one write-in candidate, unless district election officials determine that the number of candidates for a particular office exceeds the practical space requirements for ranking all candidates on the ballot, in which case the number of allowable rankings may be limited to not less than three.

(h) Ballots instruct the voter to rank the candidates they support in order of preference, indicating the most-preferred candidate by "1st", the second-most- preferred candidate by "2nd", and so on. If a voter uses an alternative, unambiguous means of indicating rankings, those rankings are counted. Sample ballots illustrating voting procedures are posted in or near the voting booth, and are included with instructions for absentee ballots.

(i) Further procedural specifications may be issued by the Secretary of State.