Mary Fant Donnan would be willing to consider instant runoffs.
The candidate for the Democratic nomination for labor commissioner said she first learned about the voting method while living in Australia in the late 1980s.
That country uses both instant runoffs and other forms of preferential voting in various races.
"It made sense to me, but I think there are things I've heard about that raise questions about how well it works — both making it simple and being careful not to disenfranchise voters," she said. "I don't have a particular thought about instant runoffs the way it's been proposed."
Donnan said she has heard voters talking about instant runoffs as well as changing the required percentage for a winner in down-ballot races. She said she would be part of the discussion on either change going forward.
One thing she would not support is another Australian innovation: Compulsory voting.
"I couldn't see that would translate well into our culture," she said.
Previously: Brooks opposes instant runoff voting.
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Re: Donnan: Not sure about instant runoffs
Scotland's use of ranked choice ballots is widely seen as successful in Scotland -- all city elections there will continue to use the system when they next vote. The problems at the polls were in the NON-ranked voting elections, not the ranked voting results, and tied to a bad butterfly ballot-type ballot design for those elections. Note that Scotland used optical scan ballots.
Burlington, Vermont used instant runoff voting for the time first time in a hotly contested, five-candidate election for mayor in 2006. All votes fit on one ballot -- for mayor, city council and ballot questions. More people voted for mayor than any other office/question, and the rate of those voting for mayor was 99.9% -- only one in a thousand voters spoiled their ballot. Like every other city that has used instant runoff voting after voters passed it, it will continue to use the system.