Thank yous to all the good people, with an emphasis on state Representative Chris Pearson (P) at this time, who put their time, efforts and cash into moving instant runoff voting forward in Vermont.

Yesterday the Vermont House Committee on Appropriations voted their version of S.108, Vermont's current IRV proposal, out of committee. According to Pearson he will be shepherding the bill onto the House floor tomorrow (Thursday).

More details below.

Follow up:

The only difference I can find between the House and Senate versions of S.108 is an addition from the House side. This added paragraph is simply a definition of instant runoff voting and is as follows:

Sec 2. 17 V.S.A. § 2103(43) and (44) are is added [sic] to read:

(43) "instant runoff method" means a method of casting, sorting, and counting votes as set forth in sections 2473a and 2593 of this title that accomplishes the same effect as all voters participating in a runoff elections, whereby the two candidates with the greatest number of first choices advance to a runoff count, and the ballots of voters who chose nonadvancing candidates as their first choice are re-examined so that their votes are counted during the runoff count for whichever of the final candidates is ranked higher on that ballot.

Other than the english usage and there being no changes to § 2103(44), it's a good common sense addition that shouldn't cause any problems in negotiation with the Senate.

Don't forget ... you can listen to the House proceedings over VPR's internet feed at this link.