A bill has been introduced in South Carolina to set up an Instant-Runoff Voting pilot project, somewhere in the state. The city or county chosen would use IRV in elections for its own officers. The bill is HB 4409, and it is pending in the Judiciary Committee.
This link may take you to the legislation itself.
While not perfect nor comprehensive by any means, the legislation looks like a step forward at first blush. I think it doesn’t make sense in a state with nine ballot qualified parties to limit the choices to the top three, but in truth, it’s unlikely that there will be many county council or municipal races with more than three candidates. Many municipal races are non-partisan, which does not diminish the utility of IRV.
Unfortunately it looks as if this legislation was introduced in early January and has not moved since. Perhaps if a particular municipality and county stepped forward to ask that they be allowed to be the guinea pig?
PS…to the “Regular” readers, if you are not already hitting the links at Ballot Access, I would encourage you to do so. I open them in new tabs, and close them all when I shut down the browser. I know it’s kinda cheating, but I figure Richard could use the $$ at least as much as his advertisers.
I suspect that IRV supporters are following the lead of San Francisco which limited voters to 3 preferences because of voting mechanics. In that case, optical scanners were used, and a format of candidate names in one column followed by 3 columns of boxes for a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd preference fit the ballot form used.