San Leandro Says "Yes" to Instant Runoff Voting

For the second time in two weeks, a late night down-to-the-wire vote has resulted in the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting in another city in Northern California.

At around 11 p.m. last night, the San Leandro City Council voted 5-2 to use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for city elections. The vote came two weeks after a similar late night cliffhanger resulted in Oakland adopting IRV.

Once again, the votes were seemingly evenly divided with the outcome in the hands of a single swing vote.

The vote drew an unusual amount of interest in San Leandro politics. With a population of around 80,000 people, San Leandro is considered a small city amidst the Bay Area megalopolis. However, an unusual arrangement which linked San Leandro with its more populous Alameda County neighbors, Berkeley and Oakland, meant that the outcome of the San Leandro vote had repercussions beyond its city limits.

Although using IRV saves cities money by eliminating unnecessary runoff elections, there is often a “start-up” cost associated with voting equipment upgrades and voter education to ensure that voters are aware of, and know how to use, the new voting method. The citizens of San Leandro, Oakland and Berkeley had all previously approved charter amendments allowing the cities to use IRV once the updated voting equipment was available. The three Alameda County cities are in the process of negotiating a cost-sharing agreement to proportionally allocate these costs. If any one of the three cities decided to not use IRV, the other two cities would have to take on additional costs. In this bleak economic climate, those potential extra costs could have been problematic for implementing IRV. This made the outcome of the San Leandro vote important to elected officials and IRV supporters in Berkeley and Oakland.

When the time came for IRV on last night’s agenda in San Leandro, fourteen speakers—quite a crowd for a small city—lined up to speak on the topic. Each and every speaker offered testimony in support of using Instant Runoff Voting. Several of the speakers were from the San Leandro Community Action Network. They said IRV would save the city money, increase voter turnout, rein in campaign spending and encourage more people to seek public office. A number of speakers pointed out that IRV would move the city’s decisive elections from June to November when voter turnout is about twice as high.

The League of Women Voters was also well represented with current and past presidents of three East Bay Leagues addressing the Leagues’ plans for voter education and outreach.

Lillian Litzey, president of the South Bay chapter of Black Women Organized for Political Action, used her turn at the microphone to address the importance of having only one city election, instead of two, and having that election when more people vote. Mrs. Litzsey noted that the electorate is more diverse in November and therefore more representative of the population at large. Like many California communities, San Leandro is becoming increasingly more diverse, with sizable Asian, Latino and African-American populations.

As expected by most observers, three council members—Diana Souza, Bill Stephens, and Vice Mayor Joyce Starosciak—argued against adopting the proposal though each said they supported IRV in concept. There were three votes for IRV: Mayor Tony Santos, Michael Gregory, and Jim Prola, who gave an impassioned speech urging adoption of the proposal.

That left the deciding vote in the hands of Ursula Reed who had repeatedly questioned whether switching to IRV this year was compatible with the city’s interest in putting a revenue measure on the ballot. Ms. Reed raised the question again last night.

Before casting her vote, Ms.Reed noted that she had received “a lot of email and phone calls” about IRV. She said people did not realize that she supported IRV but she needed to understand how it related to the potential revenue measure. Apparently, the questions she raised were answered to her satisfaction. She cast the deciding vote in favor of Instant Runoff Voting.  Surprisingly, Council Member Souza also joined the majority.  When the final tally was announced, the council chamber erupted in applause.

The San Leandro vote clears the way for Berkeley to embrace Instant Runoff Voting as early as next week. With three East Bay cities joining San Francisco in using Instant Runoff Voting and a potential Constitutional Convention in the wings, 2010 is shaping up to be a transformative year for electoral reform.