British Columbia voters will have a second chance to adopt choice voting for the provincial legislature on May 12. Three years ago, 58% approved the measure, but it needed 60% to pass. Although the threshold is the same this time, both supporters and opponents will have some public funding. Unlike the previous British Columbia vote and the Novem­ber 2007 vote in Ontario (that one was on mixed member proportional representation rather than choice voting), voters should go to the polls with at least some understanding of electoral reform. Keep up to date and donate (yes, Canadian ballot measure campaigns can accept contributions from U.S. citizens) at www.stv.ca.

Assembly Member Paul Cook intends to reintroduce CfER's AB 1662, which would help overcome the frequent disenfranchisement of overseas absentee voters by providing them with a special ranked ballot whenever a runoff election might have to be conducted within 90 days of the preliminary round. AB 1662 died last August in the Senate Appropri­ations Committee. Although very cheap (and much cheaper if Los Angeles were to adopt IRV), this proposal isn't free and getting it through two appropriations committees will require a lot of hard work. Check frequently for updates at our legislation page.

On January 13, a trial court in Minneapolis rejected a challenge to that city's adoption of IRV and choice voting. The lawsuit raised a variety of issues, based on both the Minnesota and federal constitutions, none of which the court found convincing. IRV opponents plan to appeal the decision, but this opinion offers them little hope. See FairVote Minnesota for more information.

Oregon Senate Bill 29, introduced in January with support from the new Secretary of State, Kate Brown, and sev­eral legislators, would authorize cities and counties to adopt IRV. This bill is much like CfER's AB 1294 except that it doesn't provide for choice voting in multiple-seat contests (while possibly ambiguous, the wording appears to describe the Australian "bottoms up" method), and limits the number of candidates the voter can rank to three. Activists are setting up websites at www.irvoregon.org and www.afd-pdx.org.