The Senate Government Operations and Elections Committee voted 7-6 Tuesday in favor of the bill, passed by the House earlier this month.

House Bill 2669 would establish a five-year pilot project overseen by the secretary of state to authorize instant runoff voting in nonpartisan elections for city officials. In instant runoff voting, each voter ranks ballot selections rather than simply voting for one candidate.

The bill was specifically tailored for Vancouver, said state Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver, who is the bill's primary sponsor. In 1999, Vancouver voters passed a charter amendment allowing election of council members by instant runoff voting. The city needs authority from the Legislature to proceed.

"The bill is just about local control in Vancouver," said Brent White, an advocate for the Coalition for Instant Runoff Voting in Washington.

The House supported similar legislation last year, but it died in the Senate committee.

Under the method, any candidate who receives a majority of the votes wins. If there is no majority of first-choice votes, the candidate who received the fewest first-choice votes is dropped. The second-choice votes of those who favored the dropped candidate then count as first-choice votes. The process of elimination continues until a candidate receives a majority.

"Nobody is ever elected that doesn't get more than 50 percent of the vote," Moeller said. "There is no more plurality."

Moeller said the method saves money for cities because it eliminates primaries, which, in Vancouver, cost about $100,000 a primary. He said the secretary of state would provide the $36,000 for the pilot project.

"It will also give more participation in the voting process because people won't just have to pick one," he said. "There is better voter choice. There is also less mudslinging, and it allows every candidate to run all the way through to the general election."

"I think it would capture the interest of voters if it could only be instituted," said Cherie Davidson, a lobbyist with the League of Women Voters of Washington.

Davidson expressed concerns about instituting the process initially in too large an area.

"It has a fairly complicated counting system," she said.

If instant runoff voting is passed, Moeller said, an educational campaign would inform voters on the new system. The votes would be hand-counted.

Rep. Marc Boldt, R-Hockinson, one of 26 who voted against the bill this year, said many of his constituents opposed the idea.

"I just felt that there were other ways to go about it," Boldt said. "The constituents said they like it the way it is, and I had to go with them."