After spending Saturday morning helping to leaflet for the Instant Runnoff Voting referendum in Takoma Park, I spent last evening at the polling place, passing out literature and helping convince the handful of people who hadn’t made up their minds, including one woman whose husband had told her the reasons to vote against the referendum but came to me to get the real facts. (n.b. husbands)

IRV won with an impressive 84% of the vote, 1,992 to 390. It had the support of religious leaders, PTA presidents, and neighbhorhood association
presidents so the outcome is no surprise. However, I still count this as a Green Party victory since we provided much of the shoe leather for the leafleting and poll watching.

Instant Runoff Voting has won by lopsided margins in the last four cities where it has been on the ballot: Ferndale, Michigan, Berkeley, California, Burlington, Vermont, and now Takoma Park. San Francisco ran its first IRV election.

This issue will continue to spread.