On a day that produced mixed results for ranked voting proposals around the country, voters in Davis rejected a proposed home rule charter by a 54% to 46% margin. If adopted, the charter would have allowed Davis to adopt choice voting, which voters approved in an advisory measure two years ago.

The final tally was 14,137 against the charter and 11,913 for it. There were 6,823 abstentions, or almost 21% of those who cast ballots in the election.

The campaign was led by Stephen Souza and Lamar Heysteck, two city council members who have consistently supported choice voting and who drafted the proposed charter. They decided not to mention choice voting in the charter itself, but to leave that for the future, a decision motivated in large part by their desire to gain the support of Council Member Ruth Asmundson, who opposes choice voting, and more generally by the idea that charter city status and choice voting should be presented to the voters separately rather than together.

While not formally organized and funded, the opposition was vocal. Many opponents said the charter had been drafted without enough public input and discussion. (In fact, it closely followed the recommendations of two governance task forces, in 1996 and 2005, both of which solicited public input.) Opponents also argued against the model on which the charter is based, which gives the city council maximum flexibility rather than making specific changes in governance or policy. This is called a "broad charter", while a charter whose effect is limited to its specific provisions is called a "narrow charter". They claimed that Measure N would increase the power of the city council at the expense of the voters. (In fact, it would move a modest amount of power from the state legislature to the city council, and none from the citizens to the city council.) Most new charters in California – about one every other year – are based on this broad charter model.

The Davis Enterprise came out against Measure N without even interviewing the proponents. The Sacramento Bee took no editorial position. The UCD student government supported the charter, but not until October 30, while the campus daily paper, the California Aggie, came out against it. Having signed the ballot argument for the charter, Council Member Asmundson changed sides and opposed it without offering any explanation for her change of heart.

CfER activists played an important role in the successful Measure L campaign in 2006. But this year, because the ballot measure and campaign were about charter city status rather than directly about choice voting, our role was primarily advisory. While we participated in several discussions with charter proponents before the measure was finalized and put on the ballot, we were not in a position to shape the proposal. We also contributed financially – and in the process became a "sponsored general purpose committee" registered with the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

The campaign was dominated by discussion of the pros and cons of the broad and narrow models for city charters. Unfortunately, opposition to the broad charter approach, based on concerns about giving the city council too much power, overlapped support for choice voting. Some of the "no" votes would have been "yes" votes for a narrow charter that adop­ted choice voting and did little else, but we don't know how many. We also don't know how many "yes" voters would have voted "no" on the same alternative proposal.

As time goes on, ranked voting will intersect with other local issues in different ways in each community where our proposals get a hearing. The article on Measure Y in Albany elsewhere in this issue leads to a similar conclusion. As activists in these campaigns we will have to become increasingly well-informed about topics that can seem far afield from our core issues of proportional representation and IRV.