County official blocks IRV
Alameda's registrar of voters says he won't implement instant-runoff elections in Berkeley

By Sitara Nieves

The Alameda County registrar of voters is refusing to implement Berkeley's instant-runoff voting system, which voters in that city approved overwhelmingly March 2.

Registrar Bradley Clark, who runs all elections in the county's 14 cities, acknowledges the Diebold voting machines already used in Alameda County have the ability to process IRV ballots. He insists, however, that he can't put IRV into effect without explicit directives from the state legislature.

"I've always been of the opinion that we could not do IRV until there was a state law that told us exactly how it should be done," Clark told the Bay Guardian.

IRV uses a ranked-choice system to essentially administer a general election and a runoff at the same time. Judy Cox, cochair of the Oakland branch of the League of Women Voters, explained its appeal: "After the 2000 election, many people felt Nader was a spoiler. IRV keeps that from happening and ensures that people won't lose their vote."

Clark said there are technological issues with Berkeley's plan. He insists it would be impossible to administer both local IRV elections and regular state elections at the same time on the Diebold machines.

But Frank Kaplan, Diebold's western region manager, told us, "The ability to do that is currently in development."

Caleb Kleppner, senior analyst with the Center for Voting and Democracy, put it another way: "What needs to happen to enable IRV in Berkeley is that Clark tells Diebold what needs to be done. Then Diebold does the work. It shouldn't take much more than that."

San Francisco is moving forward on IRV without any specific state directive, but Clark insists his turf is different. "Alameda County is much different than San Francisco County – Alameda County has 14 cities, where San Francisco County only has one," he said.

Nobody seems to disagree that working out the details for IRV would be more complicated in a multicity county. But Kenny Mostum, campaign manager for Berkeley's IRV ballot measure, maintains that whether to implement IRV is not under Clark's jurisdiction: "Clark is an employee of the government – he doesn't make policy, he implements it."

In fact, county supervisor Keith Carson, who represents Berkeley, told us the Board of Supervisors could order Clark to implement the system.

Clark disagrees. He has told Berkeley that if it wants to use IRV, he will no longer run the city's elections. California law allows cities to run their own elections, which might be Berkeley's only option if it wants to abide by the will of the voters. But that decision could come with prohibitive costs and increased bureaucratic issues for both the city and county.

This month IRV software produced by San Francisco firm Election Systems and Software underwent an extensive, three-day battery of tests by federal and state testers. On March 30 in Sacramento, they will report on whether ESS's software should be certified for IRV. By all accounts, the testing went well, paving the way for implementation of the system in San Francisco for the next election.

"If IRV goes well, it could be one of those San Francisco phenomena that starts a wave of IRV going throughout the country," Kleppner said. "That's my hope."