On April 1, the Hendersonville, North Carolina, city council voted to continue using Instant Runoff Voting for its own city elections. See this story. The city used IRV in 2007 and 2009.
However, the city cannot continue to use it, unless the legislature extends the pilot program. The pilot program only authorized cities to use it twice.
Actually, what the city council was voting on was to affirm their support of IRV and to agree to ask their legislative delegation to draft another IRV pilot.
Apparently, the City Council mistakenly believes that a new pilot has to be legislated, but the current pilot includes the elections in 2011.
What the City Council DID NOT DO is advertise a public hearing and ask the citizens if they wanted to participate in the IRV pilot again.
In late 2009, legislation was passed in NC to ensure that citizens had a say in whether their city participated in the Instant Runoff Voting Pilot Program. This was to remedy an oversight. Previously, city officials and county Board of Elections could volunteer for this voting method without seeking public input.
Hendersonville NEVER asked their public if they wanted to participate in the IRV pilot, and I have even spoken with people who voted in the IRV elections who didn’t realize they were ranking choices. These elections were multi seat, while IRV is a single seat method. Voters were asked to pick 2 choices and then rank 3.
Here’s the law that Hendersonville City Council seem to be unaware of:
Session Law 2009-541 SL2009-0541
“…the local governing board that is the subject of the election must approve participation in the pilot and must hold at least one public hearing on the pilot before approving it, with notice of the hearing published at least 10 days before the hearing.”