The New America Foundation today congratulated the people and city of San Leandro, California for being the latest city in Alameda County to decide to use Instant Runoff Voting for local elections this year.

"This is a momentous decision which will benefit not only San Leandro but also hundreds of thousands of East Bay voters beyond the city limits," said Blair Bobier, Deputy Director of the New America Foundation's Political Reform Program.

The San Leandro City Council voted late Tuesday night to switch from two round runoff elections to Instant Runoff Voting, also known as Ranked Choice Voting. With Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), voters rank candidates in order of preference instead of voting for just one. The voters' rankings are used to produce a candidate with majority support in a single November election. Previously, many of San Leandro's elections had been decided in June when voter turnout is about half of that in November.

Just two weeks before San Leandro's decision, the Oakland City Council approved using Instant Runoff Voting for local elections this year. The Berkeley City Council is also expected to vote to use Instant Runoff Voting, possibly as early as next week.

San Leandro will break even on its IRV investment in 2014 and after that will save approximately $50,000 in each election cycle.

"Besides saving money, this move to IRV means that San Leandro will increase voter participation in the city's most critical elections," said Bobier.

The Political Reform Program studies voting and election systems and advocates for increasing citizen involvement in the political process.

Please contact Elizabeth Wu with media requests at (510) 295-9859 or wu@newmerica.net.