Both San Leandro and Oakland have officially voted to use IRV for the first time this November. Berkeley will almost certainly be following suit; the city council is scheduled to vote on this in early February. [Editor's note: The Berkeley vote on February 10 was 8-1 in favor of going ahead with IRV.]

This is big news -- we are about to quadruple the number of California cities using IRV. With San Francisco having used IRV successfully six times now, we will have tremendous momentum. To fully take advantage of it, we need to redouble our efforts in the next couple of years.

San Leandro voters approved a charter amendment in 2000 which required a majority vote for single seat elections, and gave the council the option of using IRV. As the equipment is ready now, the council at its January 19th meeting opted to use IRV as a way to save time and money.

Oakland voters recently strongly endorsed IRV, requiring its use once the equipment was ready. Although a couple of recalcitrant council members attempted to scuttle the voters’ will, at their January 5th meeting the majority approved a memorandum of understanding with the county on the use of IRV for Oakland. Oakland used to hold a municipal primary election in June, and then any runoff elections in November, with newly elected officials taking office in January. Now, all city officials will be elected in single November elections, taking office in January.

Berkeley has already made it clear that they will use IRV in 2010. Its situation is similar to Oakland, in that an overwhelming majority of voters passed a proposition requiring its use when certain conditions were met. Because Alameda County now has equipment that is ready, and Oakland and San Leandro are using IRV, IRV is now affordable and is feasible for Berkeley, so they will be using it this November.

The three cities will split the one-time cost of the software upgrade and county wide educational campaigns to alert and prepare voters for their first IRV election.