Instant-runoff voting urged for Alameda County
Supervisors hear of system that saves money and enhances participation

By Ian Hoffman?? The Oakland Tribune?? 21 April 2005??

Spurred by the nation's largest experiment in instant-runoff voting in San Francisco, activists and a handful of local politicians demanded the latest flavor of democracy for Alameda County voters.

Protesters criticized the county's reluctance to embrace instant-runoff voting, saying that casting ballots for multiple, ranked candidates would save money and foster richer, more issue-driven political campaigns.

But on Tuesday they saved the sharpest ridicule for the county's voting vendor, Diebold Election Systems Inc.

In 2002, Diebold promised Alameda Countythat its new touch-screen voting machines, purchased for $12 million, "can easily be programmed for preferential voting."

But recently Diebold and county elections officials have said new instant-runoff software for the touch screens will cost $2 million more.

"It's insulting to us to be told it's going to cost $2 million," said Kenneth Mostern, who ran a successful campaign in Berkeley to rally support for instant-runoff voting. Seventy-two percent of voters backed the measure more than a year ago.

"We passed it, it's the law. It has to be put in place," Mostern told a cheering audience?? of 45 instant-runoff protesters outside county offices.

With the county confronting a $92 million deficit this year, county politicians don't know how they'll pay for instant-runoff voting. But Keith Carson, president of the county supervisors, is backing the idea.

"Two million dollars is the ridiculous figure that Diebold has quoted," said Carson's chief of staff, Rodney Brooks. "I can't think of anything that's 'easy' that costs $2 million."

With instant-runoff voting, voters cast ballots for their first, second and third choices in each race. Backers say the system forces politicians?to broaden their appeal and woo voters beyond their own factions.

Oakland, for example, is holding a special City Council election to fill its District 2 seat. In the current field of eight candidates, the winner could claim the seat with as little as 12 percent of the vote.

Green Party candidate Aimee Allison said instant-runoff voting for the District 2 seat would encourage more people to run and campaign with other candidates on issues of wide appeal.

"Coalition building is a way that we as a community move forward," she said.

County elections officials could not be?? reached for comment Tuesday. But they've taken a wait-and-see approach, only recently gathering city clerks to study the issue in a panel that advocates say has been closed to public attendance.

Supporters say San Francisco's experiment last year was a resounding success. On the other hand, instant-runoff proponents pressed so aggressively to implement the system that the county's vendor, Elections Systems and Software, never performed full testing before the election. A bad line of code prevented the computer from calculating the ranked choices beyond 10,000 votes, and new software had to be?? written on the fly to get the final tally.

Exit polls showed a majority of voters were pleased with the new system, however.