FairVote and its allies are working to change American electoral rules so that our political system can breathe with the fresh air of multi-party, multi-candidate politics. We’re finding fertile ground in more states and cities across the country – places where at least one major party has decided that accommodating voter choice is better than fighting it.

Here’s a review of recent reform progress.

United Kingdom referendum on IRV. The new British government led by the Conservative party has committed to its Liberal Democratic Party coalition partners to hold a national referendum to adopt IRV for elections to the House of Commons, perhaps as soon as in 2011 – a proposal that earlier this year overwhelmingly passed the House of Commons under the previous Labor Party government.

The new British government is also committed to moving to an elected House of Lords with a proportional voting system. Due to changes in the past 13 years, proportional voting is now used for the UK’s European Parliament elections (using party lists), local elections in Scotland (using choice voting) and regional assembly elections in Wales and Scotland (using mixed member PR).

Proportional voting will be on defensive next year in New Zealand, however, when its voters start a two-step national referendum process. The mixed member form of proportional voting was adopted in a similar two-step referendum in the 1990s and is anticipated to survive this vote. New Zealanders also now use choice voting for local elections to their health boards (policy bodies relating to their national health care system), and cities such as national capital Wellington use choice voting for city council elections and IRV to elect mayors.

IRV Advances in the United States. As CfER members know, city councils in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro (all in Alameda County) voted to implement IRV for their elections this November, including in a highly competitive mayoral vote in Oakland. San Francisco will also hold its 7th IRV election, and city leaders in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Jose are debating prospective ballot measures.

IRV has had to play defense as well. Frustrated losing candidates in mayoral and county executive races in Pierce County (WA), Burlington (VT) and Aspen (CO) all have led efforts to repeal IRV. The repeals were successful in Pierce County, where the biggest factor was statewide implementation of a Top Two system making IRV seem redundant and costly to many voters, and in Burlington, where the impressive coalition defending IRV included Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Howard Dean but narrowly lost when opponents successfully framed the measure as a referendum on an unpopular mayor.

Vermont, however, remains a state where a majority coalition seems ready to embrace accommodation of multiple parties through IRV. Minnesota is another such state, and strong and capable reform coalitions in 2009 helped pass IRV in St. Paul and ensured Minneapolis effectively implemented IRV. Now there’s serious talk of statewide adoption, backed by several leading candidates for governor. Maine also has a history of multi-party politics, and a charter commission in its biggest city of Portland voted 9-1 to put IRV for mayor on the November ballot. Reformers in Fort Collins (CO) are moving forward with plans for an IRV ballot measure in yet another state where the stars may align for statewide change, and <a href="http://www.voterchoicema.com">Voter Choice Massachusetts</a> has made impressive headway.

IRV also gained serious editorial and policymaker attention this year in Hawaii (where its one-round special election system for US House races led to election of a Republican when two Democrats split 55% of the vote) and North Carolina (where two cities have tried IRV in local pilot elections, and its runoff system for primaries faces criticism for costs and turnout declines). Utah's state legislature in January seated its third member elected by IRV in the past year when former Layton mayor Jerry Stevenson won a majority in the final instant runoff against four fellow Republicans; county Republican parties have the option to use IRV when filling vacancies.

Progress for proportional voting. FairVote sees choice voting, the proportional voting cousin of IRV, as the most promising way to advance proportional voting in the United States. But ballot measure defeats in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2008 (by 5%) and in Lowell, Mass. (by 14%) show that being close isn’t good enough. We need to do more to increase understanding of its value and how to implement it.

The most concrete progress has come in cases brought under the federal Voting Rights Act resulting in adoption of other non-winner-take-all systems. Just in the past year two localities have gone to limited voting (Euclid, Ohio and Lake Park, Florida) and one to cumulative voting (Port Chester, NY) in voting rights cases brought by the Department of Justice. Port Chester also committed to a major voter education campaign, which has been run by FairVote (see <a href="http://www.PortChesterVotes.com"></a>), and held its first elections on June 15th. As we head to a new round of redistricting and new opportunities to uphold voting rights, we see many potential opportunities to advance proportional voting in these situations.

An Oscar for IRV. The use of IRV for the Best Picture Oscar garnered major attention (often under the name "preferential voting," as used by Robert's Rules of Order when recommending IRV). Two former White House officials wrote commentaries about how the Oscars explain their support for IRV: Democrat Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker and Republican Donald Marron in IStockAnalyst. Other major profiles ran in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today, which also backed IRV in an editorial.

The Broader Climate – and Your Role. These advances complement new and exciting energy for major changes to our politics. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling opening the door for huge increases in corporate spending in politics has created serious talk of constitutional change; the filibuster rule in the Senate looks increasingly vulnerable; universal voter registration gains growing support; and the National Popular Vote plan for president continues its state-by-state progress toward effectively sidelining the Electoral College. Change breeds change, and FairVote sees the 2010’s as promising to be a reform decade of equal or greater magnitude to the 50-year waves of constitutional and statutory reform in the 1860s, 1910s and 1960s.

But we won’t seize this moment without each one of us thinking creatively about what we can do. Foundation money is all too slim for voter choice reform work and it’s going to take all of us to figure out how best to use both modern and traditional communication and organizing tools to seize this moment. Stay tuned!