Legislation to enact a single runoff voting system for next quarter’s A.S. elections was narrowly approved by the A.S. Council on Feb. 4 with a vote of 9-8 with 6 abstentions.

Before the change, election bylaws stipulated that elections would, for the first time, use instant runoff voting this year. But according to A.S. Elections Manager Tom Chapman, StudentLink will be unable to implement instant runoff voting this year.

“”[Runoff voting] is the closest thing we can do for instant runoff voting this year,”” Chapman said.

Under the new rules, a general election will be held on Monday through Wednesday of the second week of spring quarter. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, then the top two candidates will compete in a runoff election on Thursday and Friday.

Debate on the council floor lasted over an hour and focused on the possibility of decreased voter turnout and lack of investigation of the single runoff system’s effectiveness by the council.

“”It’s not fair and you haven’t consulted enough,”” Thurgood Marshall College Council Chair Travis Silva said.

Silva, along with Thurgood Marshall College Sophomore Senator Kate Pillon and other councilmembers, voiced concerns that switching to a single runoff system after only a few days of research flies in the face of the months-long research behind the recommendation of the voting systems research task force to implement instant runoff voting.

“”We decided that instant runoff voting was the more fair way. We did not decide that runoff was the more fair way,”” Pillon said. “”Instant runoff voting and runoff voting are two different things.””

A.S. Vice President Finance Eric Webster said that shortening the voting time frame and requiring students to vote in two elections will decrease voter turnout.

However, Student Council of Eleanor Roosevelt College Chair David Goodwin denied the claim that voter turnout will be lower than usual.

“”Voter turnout will be terrible anyways,”” Goodwin said. “”With that in mind, if voter turnout is going to be terrible, I don’t see why we don’t go with the system that seems the fairest.””

When problems with the timely implementation of instant runoff voting on StudentLink appeared two weeks ago, a straw poll of councilmembers revealed strong support for the use of instant runoff voting, even if it were to require paper ballots.

According to Chapman, paper balloting would cost about $20,000. With a budget of only $7,000 for the election, Chapman said that instant runoff voting simply is not feasible this year.

“”I could do [paper balloting] on $7,000 with one polling location on Library Walk, but that would not allow for sufficient access for people who want to vote to be able to vote,”” Chapman said.

Some councilmembers, like A.S. Commissioner of Enterprise Operations Jeremy Cogan, supported the implementation of runoff voting for other reasons.

“”I saw an election last year where two candidates ran with the same last names, one of those candidates doing so in order to confuse voters on a massive scale,”” Cogan said. “”I find that to be very unfair. I find runoff voting, whether it’s instant, whether it’s rapid, to be a solution to that problem.””

Halfway through the debate, Pillon introduced an amendment that would have effectively reverted the election system to a simple plurality.

“”We had plurality before and it worked … well,”” Revelle College Senior Senator Stefani Martinez said. “”It wasn’t that plurality didn’t work, we just wanted to find a better system. We should go back to plurality for this one year and then make IRV work without a problem next year.””

The amendment failed 7-9 with 7 abstentions, leaving the legislation to implement runoff voting intact.

The council also approved changes to the elections bylaws which add a 40-character “”expression statement”” under each candidate’s name, require candidates to remove campaign materials prior to the announcement of election results, and prohibit candidates to intentionally mislead voters.

Additionally, a bylaw prohibiting campaigning in classrooms was clarified to only prohibit active campaigning.

Those changes, which were debated separately from the voting method, were passed by consensus.

Unlike constitutional amendments, changes to the A.S. Elections Bylaws only require a majority of the senators’ approval to pass.

Chapman hopes that instant runoff voting will be ready on StudentLink by Spring 2005.

“”The dialogue we’re having now with StudentLink is the dialogue we wanted to have five months ago,”” Chapman said. “”But at least it’s happening now.””