(Published in the Los Angeles Daily News) To entice Angelenos back to the polls after record-low turnouts in recent years, the city is mulling a host of changes, including new election dates, more mail-in voting and instant runoff voting. In this year's elections, 10 percent of registered voters participated in the March primary and 7 percent turned out for the May general election. The reason?

In a hearing Wednesday, voter education groups cited voter fatigue from too many elections, complicated initiatives, language barriers, negative campaigning, lack of interest in local races and a growing belief that voting doesn't matter. "We really need to bring back what the importance is of local elections," said Jimmy Valentine with the African American Voter Registration, Education and Participation Program. "Your council members, your school board members, those are the ones that figure in your daily lives in your community." One proposal to increase voter turnout - or at least reduce voter fatigue - is instant runoff voting. The system, now used in San Francisco, allows voters to rank the candidates in order of preference.

To determine the winner, officials tally first-choice candidates. If a candidate has a majority, he or she wins. If there is no majority, the last place candidate is eliminated and ballots that listed the candidate as the first choice are recounted using the second choice. That elimination and recount process is continued until a candidate gets a majority of votes.

Supporters said instant runoff voting would be cheaper since there's only one election and it could increase participation, since the number of voters tends to decrease in local elections between the primary and final election.

Councilman Jose Huizar said he began pushing instant runoff voting after the last election when he went to vote for the community college board trustee runoff, and was told only two other people (beside him and his wife) had voted.

"I asked myself, wasn't I just here a few months ago to vote for this person?" Huizar said.

So far the proposal has support from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and several City Council members, but it's still in the discussion phase and would require changing the city charter and election code.

[Lynne’s Note: The Daily News edited Kerry Cavanaugh’s article incorrectly: the Mayor actually submitted a letter in support of a vote-by-mail/extended early voting proposal. He did not weigh in on IRV.]