title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore also faced the threat of Terrorism. By the 1970s, the Malayan Communist Party had split into smaller groups. While there were no longer a formidable, unified force, the communists still posed a danger to the internal security of Singapore. Police raids against these groups uncovered large quantities of weapons such as pistols and grenades. During this decade, the communists carried out acts of violence that included the killing of a 7-year-old girl in Changi in 1970. There was also an explosion of a bomb in Katong in 1974, as well as the attempted assassination of Singapore's Commissioner Police in 1976.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Independent Singapore experienced its first encounter with international terrorism on 31 January 1974 when foreign terrorists hijacked the ferry boat Laju and held crew members hostage. The Terrorists had earlier attacked the oil refinery on Pulau Bukom in an attempt to disrupt the oil supply from Singapore to South Vietnam. After days of negotiation, the hijackers finallu agreed to release the hostages in exchange for safe passage from Singapore to Kuwait. To ensure safe passage of hikackers of the Laju from Singapore to Kuwait, a group of Singapore government officials, led by S.R. Nathan, accompanied by the hijackers on their flight. Nathan was then Director of the Security and Intelligence Division at the Ministry of Defense, and would later go on to serve as the President of Singapore. The Singapore team comprised Nathan, eight government officials and four Singapore Armed Forces commandos. On 9 February 1974, the 13 Singaporean Officials returned to Singapore from Kuwait.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The unemployment rate ranged between 10 and 12% and it threatened to create civil unrest. The loss of access to the Malaysian hinterland market and the lack of natural resources meant that Singapore had no solid traditional sources of income. A large portion of the population lacked formal education, even taking into account Chinese schools, which the British did not recognize. Entrepot trade, the main use of Singapore's port and the original reason for Singapore's success in the 19th century, was no longer sufficient to support the large population.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore invested heavily to promote economic growth. The Economic Development Board was set up in 1961 by Goh Keng Swee, and with the assistance of Dutch economic advisor Albert Winsemius, national economic strategies were formulated to promote Singapore's manufacturing sector. Industrial estates were set up, especially in the reclaimed swampland of Jurong, and government ministers toured the world in order to try to attract foreign investment. The government offered new investors tax holidays of 5–10 years.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore's port gave her an advantage over her neighbouring countries, being a favourable spot for efficient exports of refined goods and imports of raw material. This meant that industries in Singapore found international markets easily, and cheaper prices for raw goods. Singapore's growing industrialisation meant that entrepot trade had been extended into processing of imported raw materials into exported finished products—leading to higher value-added goods which brought more income to the island. This ended up being a suitable alternative to a common market to the Malaysian hinterland, although later a form of it ended up being formed with the creation of ASEAN.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The service industry also grew at this time, sparked by demand for services by ships calling at the port and increasing commerce. This progress helped to alleviate the unemployment problem. With Winsemius's help, Singapore attracted big oil companies like Shell and Esso to establish oil refineries in Singapore which became the third largest oil-refining centre in the world by the mid-1970s.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The new direction that Singapore took demanded a skilled labour force to engage in her revised role of refining raw goods, as opposed to the traditional natural resource extraction industries of her neighbours. Its leaders decided early on that the population would need to be fluent in the English language, as they would be communicating and cooperating with expatriate employers or business partners abroad, and English was adopted as the medium of education for all schools.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The education system was designed to be rigorous and intensive, with emphasis on immediately practical, rather than intellectual, applications, such as on technical sciences as opposed to political discussion or philosophy. A large portion, around one-fifth of Singapore's budget, was devoted to education to facilitate a large and competent workforce upon graduation. The government of Singapore currently maintains it at this level.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: There was a lack of good housing and a proliferation of squatter settlements. Combined with the high unemployment rate, this led to social problems from crime, a low standard of living, and unrest. The other deleterious effect of squatter settlements was that many of these were built of highly flammable materials, were poorly constructed and thus posed a high fire risk. A prominent example in this case is the Bukit Ho Swee Squatter Fire that broke out in 1961. In addition, there was poor sanitation, which led to the spread of infectious diseases.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The Housing Development Board set up before independence continued to be largely successful under Lim Kim San. Huge building projects sprang up to provide cheap, affordable public housing to resettle the squatters, hence removing a serious social problem. 25,000 apartments were built in the first two years. It was remarkable that, within a decade, the majority of the population had been housed in HDB apartments. Possible explanations for the otherwise seemingly impossible success was the determination of the government, the large budget allocations, and efforts to eliminate red tape and corruption. In 1968, the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Housing Scheme was introduced to allow residents to use their CPF savings to purchase HDB flats, which gradually increased home ownership in Singapore.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Another problem facing Singapore was the lack of national identity and unity among most of the population. Many people were born in foreign lands and still identified themselves in terms of countries of origin, rather than being Singaporeans. This posed possible problems of loyalty, reliability and the possibility of further racial riots. In order to resolve racial tension, a policy to create national identity through education in schools and flag raising and lowering ceremonies was implemented. This is constantly re-emphasized within the curriculum and "National Education", a compulsory program of which the main goal is to inculcate students with a sense of "national fraternity". The Singapore National Pledge, written by Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, was introduced in 1966 emphasizing unity among the people "regardless of race, language or religion."


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The system of justice and law in Singapore was reformed and the government implemented several measures to overcome labour unrest and disputes. Strict labour legislation was passed to provide better protection to workers but yet allow for greater productivity by permitting longer working hours and reducing holidays. The labour movement was further consolidated under the National Trades Union Congress with close oversight by the government. By the end of the 1960s, the number of labour strikes was significantly reduced.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore took the step of nationalising companies that would not survive on their own, or could otherwise be detrimental for Singapore if they were not closely in line with government policy because they were a public service. Singapore Power, Public Utilities Board, SingTel and Singapore Airlines (SIA) are prominent examples. Such companies that were nationalized were often infrastructure or utility companies, companies meant to lay out services such as electricity or transport for the benefit of other companies. The extension of power infrastructure, for example, led to an increased attraction of foreign investors. Recently, the government has taken steps to privatize these previous monopolies—SingTel and Singapore Airlines are now publicly listed, limited liability companies, even though the government still holds large shares in them.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Another major issue brought up around this time was national defence. Following independence, the British were still defending Singapore, but had announced they would be withdrawing by 1971, due to pressures at home and military commitments elsewhere in the world. This caused considerable alarm locally, particularly among those who remembered the Japanese occupation during World War II. Therefore, Singapore introduced National Service in 1967, which rapidly expanded the defence force, known as the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). Thousands of men were conscripted for at least two years of full National Service. Upon completing National Service, they would be liable for reservist duties, which meant they would continue to receive occasional military training and take up arms in times of emergency.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: In 1965, Goh Keng Swee became Minister for the Interior and Defence, and initiated the formation of a national defence force, called the Singapore Armed Forces, which was to be established by the time of the British withdrawal. The British agreed to postpone the withdrawal for half a year, but no longer. "Our army is to be engaged in the defence of the country and our people against the external aggression. This task we are unable to do today by ourselves. It is no use pretending that without the British military presence in Singapore today, the island cannot be easily over-run by any neighbouring country within a radius of 1000 miles, if any of them cared to do so..." Dr Goh Keng Swee made a speech to Parliament on 23 December, 1965.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore consulted international experts from West Germany and Israel to train their armed forces and equip them. As a small country surrounded by larger neighbours, Singapore allocated a large portion of its budget, around 19%, to defence and this still continues today, having the fourth largest per capita military expenditure in the world, after Israel, the United States and Kuwait.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore was especially interested in Israel's model of national service, a factor in its decisive victory in the Six-Day War over its Arab neighbours in 1967. This led to the implementation of Singapore's own national service programmed starting in 1967. All eighteen-year-old males would be required to participate in national service and train full-time for two and a half years, and then required to repeatedly come back each year to maintain their skills in order to carry out an effective mobilisation at any time.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: This policy meant that Singapore could quickly mobilize enough defence forces to deter any invasion, especially against Indonesia during the Confrontation, when the British withdrew in September 1971. Females were left out of national service—the explanation being that, during a time of war, they would be required to support the economy while the men were fighting. This policy is sometimes questioned as being sexist and has been discussed in the mass media a number of times together with the length of training involved. The creation of the national service policy is thought to aid the strengthening of national and racial ties since there is a sense of unity when training as a youth with peers of other races.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Further economic success continued through the 1980s onwards, with the unemployment rate falling to 3% and real GDP growth averaging at about 8% during this time until 1999. In the 1980s, Singapore faced the challenge of needing to upgrade its industries to higher-technology industries, in order to compete with its neighbours which were exporting the same things at a lower price. Originally, Singapore manufactured goods such as textiles. A skilled workforce with an aptitude for learning helped ease the transition, for example, to new jobs in the wafer fabrication industry, which was quickly being established in Singapore.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore Changi Airport was opened in 1981. The development of air transport meant further extension of entrepot trade as well as its intended purpose of attracting investors through a convenient way to enter and leave the country. In conjunction with Singapore Airlines, for example, the hospitality industry grew immensely, which led to growth in the tourism industry.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The Housing Development Board continued to promote public housing. New towns, such as in Ang Mo Kio, were designed and built. They have larger and higher-standard apartments and are served with better amenities. Today, 80–90% of the population lives in HDB apartments. With the justification of fostering national unity, "racial harmony" and loyalty, the government explicitly planned to group the different races together within the same estate, in order to integrate the races. This HDB policy became a major contribution towards the Singaporean culture.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore also had to upgrade its military, for instance upgrading the standard infantry weapon of its army. Formerly it had been the L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle, it was upgraded to the lighter, United States-made M16. A "Total Defence" policy was created in 1984 with the intent of the population being prepared to defend Singapore on five metaphorical fronts: economically, on a civil level (including hospitals), a social level, a psychological level as well as on a military level.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: With continuous strong economic growth, Singapore became one of the world's most prosperous countries, with strong international trading links. Its port is one of the world's busiest and with a per capita GDP above that of the leading nations of Western Europe. The education budget remains at one fifth or more, and many of its practices, such as racial harmony, continue today.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: A side effect of this is that traffic congestion became increasingly more common, and in 1987, the first Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line was established and would later grow to become a famous epitome of what is often viewed as a well-integrated public transport system. This network also improved the convenience of travelling from one side of the island to the other—a benefit which did not exist in the 1960s.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The political situation in Singapore is extremely stable. The PAP had a 15-year monopoly in parliament during 1966 to 1981, winning all seats in elections before J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers' Party of Singapore won the Anson constituency in a 1981 by-election. The PAP rule is termed authoritarian by activists who see some of the regulations of political and media activities as an infringement on political rights, perceiving them as authoritarian. This has been the greatest complaint about the PAP by the opposition parties so far, the Workers' Party of Singapore and the Singapore Democratic Party being two of the prominent opposition parties who accuse the PAP of authoritarianism.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The government of Singapore underwent several significant changes. Non-Constituency Member of Parliament was introduced in 1984 to allow up to three losing opposition parties candidates be appointed as MPs. Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) was introduced in a 1988 amendment to the Parliamentary Elections Act to create multi-seat electoral divisions, intended to ensure minority representation in parliament. Nominated Member of Parliament was introduced in 1990 to allow non-elected non-partisan MPs.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The Constitution was amended in 1991 to provide for an Elected President who has veto power in the use of national reserves and appointments to public office. The opposition parties have complained that the GRC system has made it difficult for them to gain a foothold in parliamentary elections in Singapore, and the plurality voting system in the constituencies of Singapore, especially large group representation constituencies, tends to exclude minority parties. The system has been defended by the PAP because the system encourages representation of the minority "races" by requiring a minority candidate in group representation constituencies.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: This however increases the difficulty of the opposition parties being able to gain a seat. Until the general election in 2006, the PAP had always managed to return to power on nomination day, even before the elections commenced since the amendment to the Parliamentary Elections Act. The opposition accuses that the group representation constituency is an intentional hindrance, as between 1991 and 2001 did not manage to put forward enough qualified candidates to even contest the PAP's mandate.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The arrest of Chee Soon Juan, and the lawsuits of slander against J. B. Jeyaretnam, both opposition MPs, have been cited by the opposition parties as examples of such authoritarianism. They also have been charged on the grounds of slander for political criticism. The lack of separation of powers between the court system and the government led to further accusations by the opposition parties of miscarriage of justice. Further arrests of those who were politically active against the PAP, such as Francis Seow, and even students who have recently entered tertiary education are part of these accusations of authoritarianism.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: In 1990, Lee Kuan Yew passed the reins to successor Goh Chok Tong, who presented a more open and consultative style of leadership as the country continued to modernise. In 1997, Singapore experienced the effect of the Asian financial crisis and tough measures, such as cuts in the CPF contribution were implemented.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: In the first few years of the 21st century, Singapore went through some of its most serious postwar crises, including the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the threat of terrorism. In December 2001, a plot to bomb embassies and other infrastructure in Singapore was uncovered and 15 members of the Jemaah Islamiyah were arrested under the Internal Security Act. Major counter-terrorism measures were put in place to detect and prevent potential terrorism acts and to minimize damages should they occur. Meanwhile, the economy was affected marginally during the crisis, and in 2003, the average monthly household income was SGD$4,870.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: In 2004, Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, became the third prime minister of Singapore. A number of national policy changes have been proposed and carried out since then. One of these changes was the reduction of National Service training requirements from two and a half years to two during 2005. The government also introduced a "Cutting Red Tape" program, which allows citizens to share their views on law, punishment, social and world issues.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The general election of 2006 has been considered by analysts to be a landmark election in the history of Singapore, because of the heavy use of the internet and blogging that covered the election, which escaped government regulation. Just before the election, on 1 May 2006, the government issued a cash bonus, called the "progress package" to all adult citizens, worth SGD $2.6 billion. The PAP returned to power in the election winning 82 out of 84 seats, and 66% of the votes. During the election campaign period, there were large turnouts at many opposition rallies, with Malaysian newspaper "The Star" estimating that over ten thousand people attended one rally held on 30 April 2006.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: Singapore's bilateral post-independence relationship with Malaysia is complex and rocky at times. Despite their differences, Malaysia remains an important, albeit partial, economic hinterland and a regional ally, especially due to both their memberships in ASEAN. This importance becomes especially apparent when considering that much of Singapore's water supply comes from Malaysia. Both countries have been known to chide or even issue threats to the other due to differences in paths taken after independence, but fortunately this has never become serious enough to develop into embargo or hostility.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: There are increasing reforms in the education system. Primary education was made compulsory in 2003. This style of educational policy was still extremely competitive, and favoured those that did well initially, and tended to ignore the suffering students, in the process of streaming. This remains a controversial issue even today. It was theme for the successful local film "I Not Stupid" which also addresses the culture of competition induced by the post-independence education policy. Although the education policy has evolved over the years to address such concerns, the streaming issue is still prominent.


title: History of the Republic of Singapore

text: The 2013 Population White Paper was officially released by the government proposing a future national population of 6.9 million due to growing concerns of rising life expectancy, declining birth rates and ageing population foreseen of Singapore in 2030. This came after the formal launch of two integrated resorts, which also became the most profitable in the world in the same year.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: Héctor Eduardo Reglero Montaner (born September 8, 1957), better known as Ricardo Montaner (), is an Argentine-born Venezuelan singer and songwriter. Since starting his career in the late 1970s, he has released more than 24 albums, and many successful singles. He has sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling Latin music artists.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: Montaner was born as Héctor Eduardo Reglero Montaner, in Valentín Alsina, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. His family moved to Venezuela when he was 6 years old. During his youth, he performed in the church choir in the city of Maracaibo. The first song he internationally performed in a festival in Peru was "Canta, viejo, canta". After this, he decided to choose his artistic name "Ricardo Montaner" (using his maternal family name).


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 1976, he recorded his first single named "Mares" produced by the Venezuelan italian singer Roberto Luti. The same year he participated in the Ancon Festival (a Peruvian music festival from 1968 to 1984), where he gained some popularity after performing his song "Murallas".


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 1983, he released his first album titled "Cada Día". Although the album was not a great success in Venezuela, it was a start for Montaner's career in Venezuela. It wasn't until 1987 that Montaner became widely popular in Venezuela, with the singles "Yo Que Te Amé" and "Vamos a Dejarlo" from his self-titled album.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: The following year he came out with "Ricardo Montaner 2" which featured hit songs like "Tan Enamorados" and "A Donde Va el Amor". At the same time, he acted in the popular "telenovela" (soap opera), "Niña Bonita". This became a starting point to make his songs known to the rest of Latin America where he won 4 platinum albums in Argentina alone. His next two albums, "Un Toque de Misterio" and "En el Último Lugar del Mundo", became big hits in the Mexican charts, also in Central and South America he had hits such as "La Cima del Cielo", "Me Va a Extrañar", "Déjame Llorar" and "Será".


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: By 1992, Ricardo decided to hit the Spanish Caribbean with "Los Hijos del Sol", an album that contained songs like "Castillo Azul", "Honda" and "Piel Adentro". That year, he also recorded a duet with Michelle, which was the Latin American version for the Aladdin song "A Whole New World" titled "Un Mundo Ideal". In the same year, he performed his live concert in Madison Square Garden with more than 16,000 people who attended the concert. Additionally, he released singles such as "La pequeña Venecia" in which he demonstrates his immense love and appreciation towards his naturalized country of Venezuela, in which he refers to Venezuela as his country. Montaner was nominated for three Lo Nuestro Awards in 1993: Pop Artist of the Year, and Pop Song and Video of the Year for the single "Castillo Azul".


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: Although Montaner has written most of his songs he has worked closely with other songwriters in Latin America such as Pablo Manavello, Ilan Chester, and Oscar Gómez. But in 1994, Ricardo Montaner wrote and produced all the songs in his album "Una Mañana y un Camino", which became popular only years after his release due to the lack of promotion by his new record label EMI Latin, with which Ricardo would also release "Viene del Alma" in 1995, an Italian pop music themed album. Also in 1995, he teamed up with Yolandita Monge to establish a Guinness World Record for performing three concerts in different cities on the same day in Puerto Rico. This was only possible by air transportation via helicopter from stage to stage.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: By 1997, Montaner again worked with Pablo Manavello and was signed under a new record company, Warner Music. "Es Así" brought Ricardo attention in the Spanish-speaking areas of the United States and allowed Montaner to tour more than 17 countries in Latin America. Songs like "La Mujer de Mi Vida", "Para Llorar" and "Es Así" became very popular all around.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 1999, Montaner recorded his greatest hits album of his well-known songs featuring the London Metropolitan Orchestra. This was also a hit upon release, selling over 1 million copies. Ricardo made another attempt in 2001 with "Sueño Repetido" that included the bolero-style song "Bésame" arranged by Bebu Silvetti. Again, the song enjoyed immense success all over the world. Succeeding collaboration with Juan Carlos Calderón, Kike Santander, and Silvetti further propelled Ricardo's career to new heights in 2002, 2003, and 2004.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: 2002's "Suma" (Bolero style songs) and 2003's "Prohibido Olvidar" (balada pop) had fair results in terms of sales. "Si Tuviera Que Elegir" in "Suma" was written for his daughter. In 2003, he broke the record for the most concerts on the same tour in the theater of Bellas Artes in Puerto Rico. He sold out 18 concerts breaking his past record of 12, which was held previously by Yolandita Monge and Ricardo Arjona. In 2004, he made another album with the London Metropolitan Orchestra named "Con La London Metropolitan Orchestra Vol. 2" featuring his latest hits songs and two exclusive songs such as "Desesperado" and "Esta Escrito". In 2005, Montaner launched "Todo y Nada" which featured the songs "Cuando a mi Lado Estas" and "Nada". For this album, he was nominated in the Latin Grammys for Album and Song of the Year for "Cuando a mi Lado Estas". "Amarte es mi Pecado" and "Heridas de Amor" are non-album songs that have been chosen to be the theme songs on two Mexican soap operas.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 2007, Ricardo released "Las Mejores Canciones Del Mundo" produced by Argentinean producer Adrian Posse with the songs "Hoy Tengo Ganas de Ti", "Nostalgias (Argen Version)", "Échame A Mí La Culpa (Artista Invitado: Juanes)".


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 2008, he released "Las Mejores Canciones Del Mundo II – Y Algunas Mías...!" with the songs "Cuando Un Amigo Se Va", "Ansiedad", "Bésame (Featuring Pasión Vega)". In 2009, Montaner received the ASCAP Latin Heritage Award. His album "Viajero Frecuente" (Frequent Traveler) was launched on October 16, 2012, on iTunes, his first with Sony Music. The recording features a duet with his daughter actress and singer Evaluna Montaner, "La Gloria de Dios" (The Glory of God) whose video has more than 433 million views on YouTube/Vevo. Ricardo Montaner has sold over 65 million albums and keeps breaking records in arenas and theaters all over the world. One of the most remarkable was in Mar del Plata in Argentina where 220,000 people attended the concert that night. Montaner started his "Viajero Frecuente Tour 2013" in Mexico on January 24, 2013. The Special Edition of the "Viajero Frecuente" album released also in México featured a duet with Spanish musician Alejandro Sanz.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In October 2016, "Ida y Vuelta" was released, containing 20 songs, of which 11 were written by him. This album is different because he sang nine songs written by well known Mexican singers; in return, those Mexican singers sang some of Montaner's songs, all in the same album. A month later, Montaner received the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: Montaner is married to Marlene Rodríguez Miranda, the daughter of shareholder and owner of the former Venezuelan record company Sonorodven, where Montaner started his career. He has three children with Marlene: Ricardo, Mauricio, and Evaluna. He also has two older sons from a previous marriage with Ana Vaz: Alejandro and Héctor Jr. All of them are singers: Evaluna, Héctor, and Alejandro perform independently, while Mauricio and Ricardo formed a duo together known as Mau y Ricky.


title: Ricardo Montaner

text: In 1994, after Montaner fell out with his record label Sonorodven, he signed with Sonográfica. This was cause for a legal dispute between the two companies, exacerbating a struggle between them which has gone on since about 2006.


title: She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

text: "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain" (sometimes referred to as "Coming 'Round the Mountain") is a traditional folk song often categorized as children's music. The song is derived from the Christian spiritual known as "When the Chariot Comes". It has been assigned the number 4204 in the Roud Folk Song Index.


title: She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

text: The first appearance of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" in print was in Carl Sandburg's "The American Songbag" in 1927. Sandburg reports that the Negro spiritual "When the Chariot Comes", which was sung to the same melody, was adapted by railroad workers in the Midwestern United States during the 1890s. It is often heard today with responses that add on to the previous verse.


title: She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

text: The original song was published in "Old Plantation Hymns" in 1899. It ostensibly refers to the Second Coming of Christ and subsequent Rapture, with the "she" referring to the chariot that the returning Christ is depicted as driving. Like many spirituals that originated in the African-American community, this was probably a coded anthem for the Underground Railroad. It was also used in labor circles to refer to Mother Jones, who frequently visited far-flung communities with labor issues.


title: She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

text: The secularized version that developed among railroad work gangs in the late 19th century has become a standard over the years, appearing in printed collections of children's music while also being performed by both children and adults in sing-alongs, particularly as a campfire song. Since the mid-1920s, "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" has been recorded by numerous musicians, ranging from Tommy Tucker and Bing Crosby to Pete Seeger and Neil Young.


title: Database transaction

text: A database transaction symbolizes a unit of work, performed within a database management system (or similar system) against a database, that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions. A transaction generally represents any change in a database. Transactions in a database environment have two main purposes:


title: Database transaction

text: In a database management system, a transaction is a single unit of logic or work, sometimes made up of multiple operations. Any logical calculation done in a consistent mode in a database is known as a transaction. One example is a transfer from one bank account to another: the complete transaction requires subtracting the amount to be transferred from one account and adding that same amount to the other.


title: Database transaction

text: A database transaction, by definition, must be atomic (it must either be complete in its entirety or have no effect whatsoever), consistent (it must conform to existing constraints in the database), isolated (it must not affect other transactions) and durable (it must get written to persistent storage). Database practitioners often refer to these properties of database transactions using the acronym ACID.


title: Database transaction

text: Databases and other data stores which treat the integrity of data as paramount often include the ability to handle transactions to maintain the integrity of data. A single transaction consists of one or more independent units of work, each reading and/or writing information to a database or other data store. When this happens it is often important to ensure that all such processing leaves the database or data store in a consistent state.


title: Database transaction

text: Examples from double-entry accounting systems often illustrate the concept of transactions. In double-entry accounting every debit requires the recording of an associated credit. If one writes a check for $100 to buy groceries, a transactional double-entry accounting system must record the following two entries to cover the single transaction:


title: Database transaction

text: A transactional system would make both entries pass or both entries would fail. By treating the recording of multiple entries as an atomic transactional unit of work the system maintains the integrity of the data recorded. In other words, nobody ends up with a situation in which a debit is recorded but no associated credit is recorded, or vice versa.


title: Database transaction

text: A transactional database is a DBMS that provides the ACID properties for a bracketed set of database operations (begin-commit). All the write operations within a transaction have an all-or-nothing effect, that is, either the transaction succeeds and all writes take effect, or otherwise, the database is brought to a state that does not include any of the writes of the transaction. Transactions also ensure that the effect of concurrent transactions satisfies certain guarantees, known as isolation level. The highest isolation level is serializability, which guarantees that the effect of concurrent transactions is equivalent to their serial (i.e. sequential) execution.


title: Database transaction

text: Most relational database management systems support transactions. NoSQL databases prioritize scalability along with supporting transactions in order to guarantee data consistency in the event of concurrent updates and accesses.


title: Database transaction

text: In a database system, a transaction might consist of one or more data-manipulation statements and queries, each reading and/or writing information in the database. Users of database systems consider consistency and integrity of data as highly important. A simple transaction is usually issued to the database system in a language like SQL wrapped in a transaction, using a pattern similar to the following:


title: Database transaction

text: A transaction commit operation persists all the results of data manipulations within the scope of the transaction to the database. A transaction rollback operation does not persist the partial results of data manipulations within the scope of the transaction to the database. In no case can a partial transaction be committed to the database since that would leave the database in an inconsistent state.


title: Database transaction

text: Internally, multi-user databases store and process transactions, often by using a transaction ID or XID.


title: Database transaction

text: There are multiple varying ways for transactions to be implemented other than the simple way documented above. Nested transactions, for example, are transactions which contain statements within them that start new transactions (i.e. sub-transactions). "Multi-level transactions" are a variant of nested transactions where the sub-transactions take place at different levels of a layered system architecture (e.g., with one operation at the database-engine level, one operation at the operating-system level). Another type of transaction is the compensating transaction.


title: Database transaction

text: Transactions are available in most SQL database implementations, though with varying levels of robustness. For example, MySQL began supporting transactions from early version 3.23, but the InnoDB storage engine was not default before version 5.5. The earlier available storage engine, MyISAM does not support transactions.


title: Database transaction

text: A transaction is typically started using the command codice_1 (although the SQL standard specifies codice_2). When the system processes a codice_3 statement, the transaction ends with successful completion. A codice_4 statement can also end the transaction, undoing any work performed since codice_1. If autocommit was disabled with the start of a transaction, autocommit will also be re-enabled with the end of the transaction.


title: Database transaction

text: One can set the isolation level for individual transactional operations as well as globally. At the highest level (codice_6), the result of any operation performed after a transaction has started will remain invisible to other database users until the transaction has ended. At the lowest level (codice_7), which may occasionally be used to ensure high concurrency, such changes will be immediately visible.


title: Database transaction

text: Relational databases are traditionally composed of tables with fixed-size fields and records. Object databases comprise variable-sized blobs, possibly serializable or incorporating a mime-type. The fundamental similarities between Relational and Object databases are the start and the commit or rollback.


title: Database transaction

text: After starting a transaction, database records or objects are locked, either read-only or read-write. Reads and writes can then occur. Once the transaction is fully defined, changes are committed or rolled back atomically, such that at the end of the transaction there is no inconsistency.


title: Database transaction

text: Database systems implement distributed transactions as transactions accessing data over multiple nodes. A distributed transaction enforces the ACID properties over multiple nodes, and might include systems such as databases, storage managers, file systems, messaging systems, and other data managers. In a distributed transaction there is typically an entity coordinating all the process to ensure that all parts of the transaction are applied to all relevant systems.


title: Database transaction

text: The Namesys Reiser4 filesystem for Linux supports transactions, and as of Microsoft Windows Vista, the Microsoft NTFS filesystem supports distributed transactions across networks. There is occurring research into more data coherent filesystems, such as the Warp Transactional Filesystem (WTF).


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: Venkatesh Iyer (born 25 December 1994) is an Indian cricketer who plays for Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket and Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL).


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: Iyer made his Twenty20 debut against Railways cricket team at Holkar Stadium in March 2015 and made his List A debut against Saurashtra cricket team at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in December of the same year, while he was pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce degree. After passing the CA Intermediate examinations, he decided to dropout and enroll himself in a Master of Business Administration in finance to allow him to pursue cricket further. He made his first-class debut for Madhya Pradesh in the 2018–19 Ranji Trophy on 6 December 2018. Iyer finished as Madhya Pradesh's top scorer in the 2021-22 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 155 runs at an average of 51.66. He continued his form in the 2021-22 Vijay Hazare Trophy scoring 379 runs at an average of 63.16 with a strike rate of over 133, batting in the lower middle order. This included two centuries, one of which was a score of 151, which made him the first batsman to score a score of 150 or more whilst batting at number six or lower in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He also took 9 wickets in six matches.


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: In February 2021, Iyer was bought by the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL auction ahead of the 2021 Indian Premier League. On 20 September 2021, upon resumption of the IPL in the United Arab Emirates, he made his IPL debut against Royal Challengers Bangalore. On 23 September 2021, he scored his maiden IPL fifty against Mumbai Indians.


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: Iyer emerged as a key player for KKR for the rest of the tournament, aiding in their run to the final, by scoring 370 runs at an average of 41 and a strike rate of 129. He was named as player of the match in the second qualifier, after scoring 55 runs and he followed this up with another half century in the final. Alongside his opening partner Shubman Gill, he put on an opening stand of 91, which proved to be in vain as KKR lost the match.


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: He was asked to stay back in UAE to be a net bowler in India's 2021 ICC T20 World Cup squad. In November 2021, he was named in India's Twenty20 International (T20I) squad for their series against New Zealand. He made his T20I debut on 17 November 2021, for India against New Zealand. He made his international bowling debut in the final match of this series, returning figures of 3-0-12-1.


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: In December 2021, he was named in India's One Day International (ODI) squad for their series against South Africa. He made his ODI debut on 19 January 2022, for India against South Africa.


title: Venkatesh Iyer

text: In January 2022, he was named in India's T20I squad for their series against the West Indies, where he played all three matches, playing a finishing role in the lower middle order scoring his runs at a strike rate of 179.24. He also picked up two wickets in the series.


title: Skrillex discography

text: American record producer, DJ, singer and songwriter Skrillex has released one studio album, seven extended plays, 44 singles (including nine as a featured artist), and 23 music videos.


title: Skrillex discography

text: After departing the post-hardcore band From First to Last, he released his debut extended play, "Gypsyhook", on April 7, 2009, through Atlantic Records as Sonny Moore. He then began producing music under the pseudonym Skrillex, released a second extended play, "My Name Is Skrillex", as a free download from his Myspace page. The release was succeeded by a single, "Weekends!!!", featuring Sirah, which was released on October 25, 2010, in the United States. Skrillex rose to fame in late 2010 when he released a third EP, "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" on October 22 through labels mau5trap and Big Beat Records. The release saw moderate success, peaking at number 49 on the "Billboard" 200 and receiving an award for Best Dance/Electronica Album at the 54th Grammy Awards. The album's title track, also released as the lead single, saw international acclaim, receiving an award for Best Dance Recording at the aforementioned ceremony, and peaking at number 69 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Moore's remix of "Cinema" by Benny Benassi also won a Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical.


title: Skrillex discography

text: On June 7, 2011, Skrillex released a fourth EP, "More Monsters and Sprites", which primarily featured remixes of previous tracks. The release charted in the lower regions on the "Billboard" 200, spawning the singles "First of the Year (Equinox)", which reached number 85 on the Hot 100 and "Ruffneck (Full Flex)" which peaked at number 89 in the United Kingdom. In December 2011, Skrillex released "Bangarang", a fifth EP, featuring collaborations with The Doors, Ellie Goulding and Wolfgang Gartner. "Bangarang" has since become his most commercially successful EP, peaking at number 15 on the "Billboard" 200, number six in Canada, number 31 in the United Kingdom, and number four in Australia. His sixth EP, "Leaving", was released on January 2, 2013, exclusively to The Nest. Skrillex released his first studio album "Recess" in March 2014. In 2015 Moore collaborated with Diplo under the name Jack Ü, releasing a self-titled album in February of that year.


title: Ashley Liao

text: Ashley Liao (born October 21, 2001) is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the series "Fuller House" and "The Kicks". She has since appeared in the Disney+ film "Secret Society of Second-Born Royals" and the Apple TV+ series "Physical".


title: Ashley Liao

text: Liao was born in Orange County, California, United States on 21 October 2001 into a Chinese family. She started acting in local musical theater productions when she was in fifth grade, landing the role of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" in her second ever production. She pursued an associate's degree graduating with a 4.0 before going on to study Communication at UCLA. She also sings on YouTube.


title: Ashley Liao

text: After signing with an agent in 2013, Liao began her professional career with a guest appearances in "Bad Teacher", followed by guest appearances in "Fresh Off the Boat" and "Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn".


title: Ashley Liao

text: In 2016, she landed the role of Mandy in Debby Ryan produced Disney XD film "Jessica Darling's It List". Liao played the role of Lola Wong in the Netflix spin-off of "Full House", "Fuller House" for its first three seasons. She was promoted to series regular for season two. She also had a recurring role as Parker Zhao in season one of the Amazon Prime Video series "The Kicks".


title: Ashley Liao

text: In 2019, she appeared in the Netflix film "Always Be My Maybe" as a younger version of Ali Wong's character. She also starred in the 2020 Disney+ film "Secret Society of Second Born Royals" as Princess Eleanor.


title: Ashley Liao

text: Liao played Simone in the 2021 Apple TV+ series "Physical". In November 2021, it was announced Liao would star opposite Ross Butler in the film adaptation of Abigail Hing Wen's "Loveboat, Taipei".


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: Jabberwocky is a 1977 British fantasy comedy film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam. Jabberwocky stars Michael Palin as Dennis, a cooper's apprentice, who is forced through clumsy, often slapstick misfortunes to hunt a terrible dragon after the death of his father. The film's title is taken from the nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871).


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The film is Gilliam's solo directorial debut, after he co-directed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with Terry Jones in 1975. The film received a mixed response from critics and audiences.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: In the depths of the Dark Ages, a carnivorous monster ravages the domains of King Bruno the Questionable. Life carries on as normal in isolated villages; in one of which, innocent young Dennis Cooper pursues a career as a cooper in his ailing father's workshop. Mr. Cooper, senior, despises his son for valuing profit over craftsmanship, and when his illness becomes terminal he publicly disinherits Dennis in an abuse-ridden deathbed speech. Dennis decides to travel to the kingdom's capital city, establish a new career, and then return to marry his love, a local woman named Griselda Fishfinger who doesn't reciprocate his affection. While trying to say goodbye to an inattentive Griselda, she throws away a rotten potato which Dennis catches and keeps as a cherished memento.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: King Bruno's city is full of terrified refugees from villages destroyed by the monster. The only people pleased with the situation are a cabal of rich merchants selling overpriced goods to the refugees. None of the overburdened local craftsmen will listen to Dennis' suggestions for "improving efficiency", and he struggles to find work or food. Meanwhile, the king has decided to send a knight against the monster, and organizes a jousting tournament to find the best warrior for the job. If successful, the knight will be promoted to prince and married to the Princess, who lives in a tower, wishing a true prince will arrive and marry her.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: A man named Ethel, squire to the Knight of the Red Herring, befriends Dennis and gives him a meal. Misunderstandings ensue and Dennis finds himself fleeing from a tavern keeper whose wife Ethel seduced. He seeks refuge in the tower, where the Princess, in a great feat of wishful thinking, takes him for an adventuring prince disguised as a peasant. Dennis is too bewildered to explain the truth, but he does convey that he already has a lover and the Princess sorrowfully lets him go. She lends him a nun's habit to use as a disguise, which leads to a run-in with a group of religious fanatics who believe he is Satan in the guise of a nun (or possibly a nun in the guise of Satan).


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The joust grows increasingly bloody, and Passelewe, King Bruno's chamberlain, worries that all the knights will end up killed or incapacitated. He convinces the king to call off the fighting and instead pick a champion based on the outcome of a game of hide and seek. Red Herring emerges victorious. Ethel wants to stay in the city and pursue his affair with the tavern keeper's wife, so he bullies Dennis into taking his place as squire. The huge and dimwitted knight appears never to notice.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: In order to continue profiting from the crisis the city merchants hire another warrior, the Black Knight, who rides to the monster's lair and assassinates Red Herring. He is about to kill Dennis as well, but the monster appears—a horrific, dragon-like biped—and the Black Knight is compelled to fight for his own life. After a titanic struggle, he appears to slay the monster, but it revives and knocks him off a cliff. Dennis accidentally slays it when it impales itself on a sword he was holding while cowering, and then cuts off the monster's head, brings it to the king, and takes credit for the exploit. Griselda is more interested in Dennis now that he is a hero, but he never gets the chance to marry her. King Bruno the Questionable keeps his word, and Dennis is given half the kingdom, married to the Princess, and swept off to his honeymoon and an uncertain fate.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The film is close in setting and comic style to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", on which Gilliam had co-directed. In addition to Palin, Python Terry Jones and Python contributor Neil Innes appeared in "Jabberwocky", giving it a Python-esque feel, with many scenes (such as the "hide and seek" jousting tournament) reminiscent of "Holy Grail". For its American premiere the film was advertised as "Monty Python's Jabberwocky" despite protests from Gilliam.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The film was shot on location in Wales. There are two castles in the film: Pembroke Castle and Chepstow Castle. The Jabberwocky battle scenes were filmed in an old Pembroke stone quarry.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The Jabberwock is a man in costume similar to the classic Japanese "Godzilla" film effects. To recreate the illustrated monster of the 19th century storybook, the costume is designed to be worn by a man walking backwards. Hip and knee joints are reversed giving it a bird-like gait. The actor's head is hidden within the monster's torso – the large marionette head on a serpentine neck is controlled by an offscreen pole and lines, which are visible on the print. Long bird-like claws extend out of his shoe heels and his arms become the Jabberwock's wings. Film speed is altered in some scenes to slow the monster's movements and camera angles manipulate perspective in scenes with live actors to depict the monster's immense size. Director Terry Gilliam, during the DVD commentary, stated that the Jabberwock's 'Death Fall' came about accidentally when the actor tripped during filming but because the fall was so natural it was used in the final print.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: One of the most noticeable themes in the film is that of commerce. Dennis Cooper is unable to continue his work as a cooper after being gleefully disowned by his dying father. Despite Cooper having good ideas about raising productivity, the merchants and businessmen he meets are unwilling to listen to him. He moves from his village to the enclosed town in search of business opportunity. Dennis discovers that the guilds and merchants control business and that outsiders are struggling to survive. While in the city he discovers Wat Dabney, a legendary cooper and inventor of the "inverted firkin". Despite his skill, Wat is excluded by the guilds and has cut his foot off in an attempt to become a beggar – an act so successful that he ends up cutting off his other foot by the film's end.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The top merchants in the town profit handsomely from fear of the Jabberwock and are reluctant to help the King end the crisis. The Bishop is happy that fear has led to increased donations to the church and increased attendances at mass and confession ("piety ain't never been higher!"). The Bishop is so unimpressed by the King's choice of a champion to slay the monster that he blesses the champion by simply flicking holy water at him with his index finger. The merchants conspire to send the "black knight" (portrayed by David Prowse in his last pre-Darth Vader role) to kill the king's champion (also played by David Prowse) and are aghast when Dennis comes back with the monster's head.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: King Bruno the Questionable and his aide, Passelewe are aged rulers in a castle that is falling apart. Darkness, dust, cobwebs and fallen plaster lie everywhere. It is so dark and decrepit that the town outside is refreshing in comparison. So entrenched are these two in their misrule that the only way the King can find an answer to the Jabberwock is to emulate the deeds of his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (Max the Vainglorious) and hold a tournament to select a champion; a decision which works because Dennis manages to accompany the champion (Dennis chances to slay the Jabberwock after the champion is killed by the Black Knight).


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: The "creaking bureaucracy" also includes the inept behaviour of his herald, who is far more concerned with heralding than in the message he is communicating, a process which eventually prevents the King from speaking and ends with the herald losing his head.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: An important theme that Gilliam cited on the film's audio commentary is happiness. By the end of the film Dennis gets everything a fairy tale hero would want (recognition for killing the beast, the princess' hand in marriage and half of the kingdom) by accident. All Dennis wanted was to live a humdrum life, with an overweight peasant girl who didn't even like him.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: "Jabberwocky" received a mixed response from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a rating of 48%, based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 5.9/10.


title: Jabberwocky (film)

text: Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote the film a positive review, describing it as "the most marvelously demented British comedy to come along since "Monty Python and The Holy Grail", to which "Jabberwocky" is a sort of stepson." "Variety" gave the film a mixed review, praising the monster as "inspired dark imagination," but ultimately describing the film as "long on jabber but short on yocks." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film a one-star negative review, calling it "a film suitable for those who like unfunny comedies" and added that "to link it to Lewis Carroll or to his poem is to insult both." He further commented:


title: Ranked-choice voting in the United States

text: Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is a ranked voting system used in some states and cities in the United States in which voters may prioritize (rank) their choice of candidates among many, and a procedure exists to count lower ranked candidates if and after higher ranked candidates have been eliminated, usually in a succession of counting rounds. In practice, there are several ways this can be implemented and variations exist; instant-runoff voting (IRV) and single transferable vote (STV) are the general types of ranked-choice voting systems used in the United States.


text: Ranked-choice voting is used for state primary, congressional, and presidential elections in Alaska and Maine and for local elections in more than 20 US cities including Cambridge, Massachusetts; San Francisco, California; Oakland, California; Berkeley, California; San Leandro, California; Takoma Park, Maryland; St. Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Portland, Maine; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and St. Louis Park, Minnesota. New York City is the largest voting population in the US using RCV.


text: Ranked-choice voting ballots are used by all overseas voters in federal elections that might have a runoff election: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. RCV is also widely used in non-governmental elections in the United States. Examples include: student elections at more than 85 colleges and universities; state arms of the Republican Party in elections held as part of state conventions in three states in 2020 and in Virginia for nominating statewide candidates in 2021; elections for officers in major associations such as the American Chemical Society, American Mensa, American Philosophical Association, and Society of Actuaries; and the selection of the Oscar for Best Picture by the Academy Awards. RCV was used by all voters in four states in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.


text: Between 1912 and 1930, limited forms of RCV (typically with only two rankings) were implemented and subsequently repealed, as also occurred in some cities in 2009–2010.


text: In the 2020 Alaska elections voters approved Measure 2, ranked-choice voting for state and federal (including presidential) elections. It replaces party primaries with a single nonpartisan blanket primary; so the top 4 candidates advance to a general election.


text: Five states used RCV in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and Wyoming for all voters and Nevada for absentee caucus voters. Rather than eliminating candidates until a single winner is chosen, voters' choices would be reallocated until all remaining candidates have at least 15%, the threshold to receive delegates to the convention. While all candidates but one had dropped out by the time of the four primaries, use of RCV ensured that voters who selected them as their first choice would not have their votes wasted but rather used toward determining delegate allocation among viable candidates.


text: On August 26, 2019, the Maine Legislature passed a bill adopting RCV for both presidential primaries and the general election. On September 6, 2019, Governor Janet Mills allowed the bill to become law without her signature, which delayed it from taking effect until after the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in March but would have Maine use it for the 2020 general election, making Maine the first state to use RCV for a presidential general election. The law continues the use of the congressional district method for the allocation of electors, as Maine and Nebraska have used in recent elections. However, in June the Maine Republican Party filed signatures for a veto referendum to ask voters if they want the law repealed and preclude the use of RCV for the 2020 election. Matthew Dunlap, the Maine Secretary of State, rejected a number of signatures that had not been collected by a registered voter as required under the Maine Constitution, resulting in there being insufficient signatures for the veto referendum to qualify for the ballot. A challenge to Dunlap's decision in Maine Superior Court was successful for the Maine Republican Party, but the case was appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. On September 8, the Court issued a stay of the Superior Court ruling pending appeal on the merits, causing confusion and uncertainty regarding the 2020 election. Nevertheless, ballots began being printed later that day without the veto referendum and including RCV for the presidential election, and the Court ruled in favor of the Secretary of State on September 22, allowing RCV to be used. An emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming a First Amendment violation was denied by Justice Stephen Breyer (the circuit justice for the First Circuit) on October 6. It was predicted that implementation of RCV could potentially delay the projection of the winner(s) of Maine's electoral votes for days after election day, and could also complicate interpretation of the national popular vote. However the 2020 United States presidential election in Maine was won statewide and in the 1st congressional district by Joe Biden and in the 2nd congressional district by Donald Trump with majorities, so the instant runoff did not need to be held, and did not impact the projection of the winners or the national popular vote tally. Outside of the presidential election, RCV was used in the primaries for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House and was used in the general election.


text: In the 2022 Nevada elections, voters approved Question 3, which similarity will replace party primaries with a single nonpartisan blanket primary, in which the top 5 candidates will advance to a general election that uses ranked-choice voting. It will be used for all state and federal elections. However, given the Nevada constitution, this proposed change will be asked again in the 2024 Nevada elections to reaffirm it, before taking a effect in 2026.


text: In the 2020 Alaska elections, voters approved Measure 2, which will replace party primaries with a single nonpartisan blanket primary, in which the top 4 candidates will advance to a general election that uses ranked-choice voting. It will be used for all state, federal, and presidential elections. The first election using the system was held on August 16, 2022, and elected Democrat Mary Peltola to Congress over former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Republican Nick Begich.


text: Maine Question 5, 2016 asked Maine voters whether to implement RCV for primary and general elections for governor, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state legislature, starting in 2018. It was approved by 52% to 48%, making Maine the first state to use RCV for all such elections. However, on May 23, 2017, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued an advisory opinion stating that the state constitution specified that for general elections for governor and the state legislature only a plurality was required to win, which is not consistent with the use of RCV and its multi-round vote transfers to ensure majority support. In June 2017, the legislature debated legislation to propose a constitutional amendment, to repeal the measure entirely, and to keep RCV in place for elections for U.S. Senate, U.S. House and primaries. All bills failed to pass in the regularly scheduled legislative session, but the legislature voted in October 2017 to delay implementation until 2021, by which time either a constitutional amendment must be adopted or the entire law would be considered repealed. Maine voters then collected enough signatures to force a veto referendum of the parts of the new law that blocked use of RCV for primary and congressional elections. In April 2018, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled against a legal challenge seeking to prevent RCV from being used in state primaries and elections for federal office starting in June 2018. The people's veto, Question 1, passed in the June 12, 2018 election, which was also the first election that used RCV for state and federal offices, including Republican and Democratic primaries for governor, the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District, and the Republican primary for House District 75.


text: In the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Maine, though Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin led by 2,171 votes in the first round of vote tabulation in the 2nd Congressional District, he did not have a majority of the votes, initiating the ranked-choice tabulation process. Poliquin filed a lawsuit in federal court on November 13, seeking an order to halt the second-round tabulation of ballots and declare ranked-choice voting unconstitutional, but his request for an injunction to halt the counting was denied. On November 15, the Maine Secretary of State announced Democratic candidate Jared Golden as the winner by 3,509 votes, after votes for independent candidates Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar were eliminated and ballots with these votes had their second- or third-choice votes counted.


text: Poliquin requested a recount of the ballots just before the deadline of November 26. On December 14, with almost half of the votes recounted and with the result not being significantly changed, Poliquin ended the recount after incurring $15,000 in fees.


text: Poliquin also continued his lawsuit and asked the judge, Lance Walker, to order a new election be held should he decline to hold ranked-choice voting unconstitutional. Judge Walker ruled against Poliquin on December 13, rejecting all of his arguments. Poliquin appealed to the Court of Appeals in Boston and requested an order to prevent Golden from being certified as the winner, but that request was also rejected. On December 24, Poliquin dropped his lawsuit, allowing Golden to take the seat.


text: As a result, Poliquin became the first incumbent to lose the 2nd Congressional District since 1916, whereas Golden became the first member of Congress to be elected via ranked-choice voting (along with 1st district Representative Chellie Pingree and Senator Angus King, who won with majorities that did not require subsequent rounds of counting).


text: In 2022, Golden, Poliquin, and Bond all ran in the 2nd congressional district election. Once again, Bond received enough votes to prevent Golden or Poliquin from crossing 50% of the vote (although this time Golden led in the initial round) and once again Golden prevailed in the second round of tabulation.


text: A 2006 law had established that RCV would be used when judicial vacancies were created between a primary election and sixty days before a general election. In November 2010, North Carolina had three RCV elections for local-level superior court judges, each with three candidates, and a statewide RCV election for a North Carolina Court of Appeals seat (with 13 candidates). The Court of Appeals race is believed to be the first time RCV has been used in any statewide general election in the United States.


text: The statewide RCV law was repealed by the General Assembly in 2013 as part of a sweeping voter ID bill, meaning that special judicial elections with more than two candidates would once again be decided by a simple plurality.


text: In the United States, RCV election laws were first adopted in 1912. Five states (Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) used versions of RCV for party primaries, typically with each voter having two rankings and candidates needing to finish in the top two to advance to the instant runoff (also known as supplementary voting). By 1930 each jurisdiction had replaced RCV.


text: After voting to authorize its use, the Republican Party of Utah used RCV in 2002, 2003 and 2004 at its statewide convention, including in a contested race to nominate a governor in 2004. In 2005, Republicans used repeated balloting for its statewide convention and has done so in subsequent years. Some county Republican parties like Cache County continue to use instant runoff voting at their conventions, and IRV was used by Republicans to fill several state legislative vacancies in 2009-2011.


text: In 2014, the Democratic Party of Arlington, Virginia used RCV in two "firehouse primaries" for countywide office that each drew several thousand voters, and it joined with the Democratic Party of Fairfax county that year to use RCV in a seven-candidate primary election for a special election for the House of Delegates. Arlington Democrats also used the system in 2016.


text: RCV was also used in 2014 by leaders of the Henrico County Democrats in a three-candidate special election nomination contest for the House of Delegates in December 2014


text: In May 2009, the Democratic Party of Charlottesville, Virginia, held its first open caucus to select its nominees for city council and sheriff, using RCV. Voter turnout was close to 1,600 voters. One of two city council incumbents was renominated and another was defeated by a challenger without the need for an instant runoff. Three candidates ran in the sheriff's race. No candidate won an initial majority. In the instant runoff, James E. Brown III defeated Mike Baird.


text: In August 2011, the Party again used to nominate candidates. Voter turnout rose to 2,582 in the city council race for three nominations. Two candidates were nominated with a majority of the first round vote. The final nomination was determined by RCV.


text: In part to increase awareness of the voting method and to demonstrate it in a real-world situation, the Independence Party of Minnesota tested RCV by using it in a straw poll during the 2004 Minnesota caucuses.


text: The poll allowed a none of the above option which could not be eliminated. Their rules eliminated one weakest candidate at a time, or all candidates in a tie at the bottom. They continued the elimination until only one candidate remained to confirm that this candidate had more support than none of the above.


text: This summary table shows the first round, and final five rounds, excluding five rounds during which 18 weak candidates were eliminated.


text: The city of Berkeley, California passed (72%) RCV in 2005 to use RCV to elect the mayor, auditor and city council. The city used RCV for the first time in November 2010 for elections for four city council seats and the city auditor. Berkeley used IRV for electing its mayor and four city council seats in November 2012. The city continues to use RCV, including in city elections in November 2014 and November 2016.


text: The city of Oakland, California, passed (69%) a measure in November 2006 to adopt RCV for 18 city offices. In November 2010, Oakland used RCV to elect its mayor, three city council races and four other local offices, with elections for mayor and council district four requiring multiple rounds of counting. It used RCV in the city's remaining elected offices in 2012. IRV was again used in 2014 and 2016, including in the 2014 mayoral election in which incumbent Jean Quan was defeated by Libby Schaaf.


text: Oakland's 2010 mayoral election was an open-seat election in which no candidate earned more than 34% of votes in the first round. In the tally, candidates were eliminated sequentially, with three candidates far ahead in first choices. After the count of first choices, Don Perata was in first place, Jean Quan in second place, and Rebecca Kaplan in third place. They remained in that order of votes after all other candidates were eliminated and their votes re-allocated. When Kaplan was then eliminated, Quan picked up 18,864 votes from Kaplan backers while Perata was the next choice of only 6,407 Kaplan backers. As a result, Quan won a final round majority when matched against Perata, which means she was ranked ahead of Perata on a majority of ballots in which one of them received a ranking.(11% of voters did not rank either of them, making their votes exhausted by the time of the final round.)


text: Oakland used RCV for several elections in 2012, including a citywide election for city attorney and for several seats on the city council and school board. Several races were decided after multiple rounds, including the District 3 city council race where the winner trailed in first choices. Of the 18 Oakland offices elected by RCV in 2010 and 2012, sixteen of the RCV winners received more votes than the previous winner had won before adoption in the last non-RCV election


text: San Francisco has used RCV for its Board of Supervisors and most citywide offices nearly every November since 2004. In March 2002, an initiative backed by a broad coalition of civic organizations won 55% of the vote to adopt ranked-choice voting. The initial configuration afforded a voter up to three choices for each candidate.


text: A unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld San Francisco's RCV law as constitutional.


text: RCV was first used in October 2004 for YouthVOTE, an election held throughout San Francisco's public schools which elected the San Francisco school board's student delegate; after that, it was used in the November 2004 supervisorial races and every November since that time for at least one election in the city. RCV has played a decisive role in at least one city election in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014. Exit polls by San Francisco State University have shown support for the new system from all groupings of voters.


text: The San Francisco Department of Elections prefers the term ranked-choice voting rather than instant-runoff voting because "the word 'instant' might create an expectation that final results will be available "immediately" after the polls close on election night." The department used to release first-choice totals immediately but wait until more absentee ballots arrived before running subsequent rounds of counting. That practice has since changed.


text: San Francisco continues to hold RCV elections, several of which have gone to multiple rounds of counting. In 2010, for example, two candidates won who were not the leaders in first-choice rankings. In 2011, all three citywide elections up for election- mayor, sheriff and district attorney— were decided in RCV tallies. In the wake of the November 2012 elections, sixteen of eighteen offices elected by RCV were held by people of color.


text: In November 2000, the voters of San Leandro, California approved a charter amendment by 63% to 37% requiring use of a two-round runoff or ranked-choice if no candidate won a majority of first round votes. In January 2010, the city council voted 5-2 to use RCV for its elections for mayor and three city council seats in November 2010. The mayor's race required multiple rounds of counting. Challenger Stephen H. Cassidy narrowly defeated incumbent Mayor Tony Santos in the final vote by a 50.57% to 49.43% margin.


text: In November 2012, San Leandro held RCV elections for three city council seats. One election was decided in first choices, and two with multiple rounds of counting. In November 2014 and November 2016, San Leandro used RCV for electing six city council seats and the mayor.


text: To settle a California Voting Rights Act challenge, Palm Desert, California will switch from an at-large election for its city council to a new system, with RCV to be used starting in 2022. One of its five members will be elected in a single-member district, while the other four will be elected in a multimember district, electing two members every two years.


text: In the 2020 election, Albany, California adopted RCV for city council and Albany School Board elections. It will use the single transferable vote (STV) to attain proportional representation on both.


text: Aspen, Colorado passed RCV in November 2007 for the mayoral race and for at-large council races with two winners. In March 2009, the Aspen council adopted a unique variation of RCV for the council races. A block voting tally based on the first and second rank choices was used to determine first round support. Any candidate with initial majority support was elected. If there were not two first-round winners, there was a batch elimination of low-placing candidates to reduce the number of continuing candidates before the instant runoff. In the latter case, separate rounds of ranked-choice counting would be conducted for each council seat, with the winner of the first seat eliminated from the race for the second seat.


text: Aspen's first elections with RCV and the new city council system were on May 5, 2009. The number of voters was the highest in the history of Aspen elections. Mick Ireland was re-elected as mayor in the fourth round of a four-candidate race. Both city council incumbents were defeated in the two-seat RCV election in which nine candidates participated. The winners were selected after RCV tallies. 168 spoiled ballots were recast by voters alerted to errors by their optical scanning machine. The city reported 0% invalid ballots in the mayor's race and 0.9% invalid ballots in the two-seat city council elections.


text: The elections were close, and some Aspen observers argued that a traditional runoff system would have given more time to consider their top choices. There also was debate over how to implement audit procedures. In 2009 voters rejected an advisory measure to maintain IRV and in 2010 approved a binding amendment to return to a traditional runoff system.


text: The city of Basalt, Colorado adopted RCV in 2002 for mayoral elections in which there are at least three candidates. The city was ready to run ranked-choice elections in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 but it did not have more than two candidates file for the mayor's office. In 2020, RCV was used as there were three candidates for mayor, with Bill Kane receiving a majority in the first round.


text: In the 2020 election, Boulder, Colorado voted to make the mayor an elected position, rather than appointed by the city council, and elected by RCV.


text: On November 4, 2008, voters in the town of Telluride, Colorado, passed an ordinance with 67% of the vote to adopt RCV for the next three mayoral elections, starting in November 2011 if three candidates file for the office. The system was used for the city's 2011 mayoral election. The incumbent mayor Stu Fraser was re-elected by securing a majority of first choices. In the 2015 mayoral election, Sean Murphy handily won an open seat election for mayor after trailing in first choices.


text: The city of Sarasota, Florida passed RCV (78%) in November 2007. While initially precluded from implementation by the lack of compatible voting machines, in 2015, new compatible machines were purchased by the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections. Implementation now hinges on the adoption of certification criteria for ranked-choice voting tabulation equipment by the Florida Department of State's Division of Elections.


text: In 2022, Evanston, Illinois voted to use RCV in future elections for mayor, city council and city clerk.


text: In November 2010, voters in Portland, adopted a charter amendment with 52% to establish a directly elected mayor, using RCV. The first election was in November 2011. Fifteen candidates ran. The winner, Michael Brennan, led with 27% of first choices and won decisively in the final instant runoff voting.


text: In November 2015, Brennan ran for re-election against two opponents and was defeated by Ethan Strimling, who won a majority of votes in the first round. In November 2019, Strimling was defeated by Kate Snyder, who won by 62% to 38% over Spencer Thibodeau in the final instant runoff.


text: The Portland city council in November 2019 voted unanimously to place a charter amendment on the March 2020 ballot to extend use of RCV to all city elections. The amendment passed.


text: The city of Takoma Park, Maryland adopted RCV for city council and mayoral elections in 2006 after voters approved it with 84% support in November 2005.


text: In January 2007 the first RCV election was held to fill a city council vacancy in a three-way race with a majority winner in the first round. Voters selected Reuben Snipper with 107 votes (52.7%), defeating Eric Hensal with 72 votes (35.5%) and Alexandra Quéré Barrionuevo with 23 votes (11.3%) and one write-in. Snipper said the possibility of using the RCV system changed the race's dynamics. "I had every reason to believe this was going to be a close race," he said. "It meant that when I knocked on a door, if a person indicated they were going to vote for another candidate, I didn't just leave right away. I tried to persuade them I would be a good second choice."


text: In November 2007 the mayor ran unopposed, and, out of six ward seats on the ballot, one was contested. Runoff provisions were not exercised. In November 2009, the mayor and one city councilor each faced one opponent. In November 2011, one city council race drew three candidates; it was won by a candidate securing a majority of first choices.


text: In July 2012, the Ward Five race again was vacant. In another three-way race, first-time candidate Jarrett Smith was elected. After securing 44% of first choices, Smith won a majority in subsequent rounds against Eric Hensal.


text: RCV was used in regularly scheduled city elections in 2013, 2015 and 2017, along with a special election that required two rounds of counting.


text: Massachusetts rejected Ballot Question 2 in the 2020 general election, which would have authorized ranked-choice voting for "primary and general elections for all Massachusetts statewide offices, state legislative offices, federal congressional offices, and certain other offices beginning in 2022," but not "for President of the United States, county commissioner, or regional district school committee members."


text: Cambridge, Massachusetts has been using RCV for city council and school committee since 1941. For decades it was the only location in the US that used the multi-member version of RCV, also known as single transferable vote (STV), but now four other municipalities are using it as well. Unlike IRV, STV produces proportional representation.


text: Six other Massachusetts towns were using the system by 1947, but all except Cambridge abandoned it due to concerns about Communists being elected. (Albany, Minneapolis and Amherst (Mass.) use STV as well.)


text: Amherst, Massachusetts adopted RCV in 2018 as part of a new town charter. The details of implementation were delegated to a Ranked Choice Voting Commission, with expected first use in November 2021 for the town council, school committee, and library trustees. All of these races will be in multi-member districts, varying from two to six members.


text: The Commission found that the town cannot use RCV without state approval, which has not yet been granted. The November 2021 election did not use RCV. Instead block voting, where each voter casts multiple votes, was used, as in the past.


text: Easthampton, Massachusetts voted to adopt RCV for mayoral and city council elections in 2019 with 55% in favor. First use will be in 2021.


text: RCV (then called preferential voting) was adopted for mayoral races in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1974 after a successful ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party. RCV was used in the 1975 mayoral election. Democratic Party nominee Albert H. Wheeler, the city's first African-American mayor, won after trailing the Republican incumbent 49% to 40% in the first round of counting, with remaining votes cast for the Human Rights Party nominee. The ousted incumbent Stephenson alleged in a lawsuit that RCV violated the equal protection clause, but the county circuit court upheld the voting system.


text: In April 1976, 62% of voters voted to repeal RCV in a low-turnout special election petitioned by city Republicans.


text: Eastpointe, Michigan entered a consent decree with the US Department of Justice to implement RCV for city council elections for at least four years starting in 2019 to address claims of racial discrimination. Multi-winner RCV in the form of the single transferable vote is used, with two city council members elected at each staggered election.


text: The city of Ferndale, Michigan passed (68%) RCV in 2004, however the system has not been implemented.


text: The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, passed (65%) RCV in November 2006. Although a citizen group filed a lawsuit in 2007 challenging the constitutionality of the system and to block its implementation, the lawsuit was dismissed in a ruling on January 13, 2009. The Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously upheld this ruling in an opinion on June 11, 2009.


text: On November 3, 2009, the City used RCV to elect the mayor, 13 city council seats, and seven other local offices and used a multi-seat variation of RCV, the single transferable vote (STV), for park board elections. In November 2013, it again used RCV for those same elections, including in the open seat for the 2013 Minneapolis mayoral election.


text: On November 4, 2009, voters in the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, passed a charter amendment with 52% of the vote to adopt RCV for future elections for mayor and city council. In February 2011, the city council adopted rules governing the November 2011 elections. RCV elections took place for city council races, with two council races requiring multiple rounds of counting.


text: RCV was used in St. Paul's 2013 election for mayor and in an open seat election for city council. RCV was also used for city council elections in 2015, including one election decided after multiple rounds.


text: In the 2020 election, Minnetonka, Minnesota voted to eliminate the primary and use RCV in city elections.


text: On March 4, 2008, the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, passed a referendum for RCV by a vote of 5659 to 3044 (65% for). RCV was authorized to begin with the regular municipal election in March 2010 or as soon as equipment was available at a reasonable price. Responding to a petition to force the city to implement RCV, the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered RCV to be used in municipal elections, beginning with the March 6, 2018 races for mayor and city council.


text: Following successful implementation of RCV in Santa Fe, the city council of Las Cruces, New Mexico voted in June 2018 to adopt RCV, beginning with the November 2019 municipal elections.


text: On November 5, 2019, New York City voters passed Ballot Question #1 to amend the City Charter to "Give voters the choice of ranking up to five candidates in primary and special elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough President, and City Council beginning in January 2021." In its October endorsement, "The New York Times" editorial board wrote: "Ranked-choice voting is a smart, tested reform that would help New Yorkers elect candidates who have support from a majority of voters. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?" The first election in the city to use ranked choice voting was in the 24th Council District in Queens, which took place on February 2, 2021.


text: The 2021 New York City mayoral election took place on November 2, 2021. The primaries were held on June 22, 2021, and were the first New York City mayoral election primaries to use RCV during which voters were able to rank up to five candidates. The Democratic primary was won by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and the Republican primary was won by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa.


text: A 2006 law established that RCV would be used when judicial vacancies were created between a primary election and sixty days before a general election. The law also established a pilot program for RCV for up to 10 cities in 2007 and up to 10 counties for 2008; to be monitored and reported to the 2007–2008 General Assembly. In November 2010, North Carolina had three RCV elections for local-level superior court judges, each with three candidates, and a statewide IRV election for a North Carolina Court of Appeals seat (with 13 candidates). The Court of Appeals race is believed to be the first time RCV has been used in any statewide general election in the United States.


text: Several municipalities considered participating in the RCV pilot in 2007. Cary, Hendersonville and Kinston voted to participate; Kinston dropped out because there were not enough candidates running to use RCV. Other cities declined to participate in the pilot. No North Carolina counties volunteered to participate in RCV in the 2008 elections held in conjunction with state and federal races. In August 2008 the governor signed legislation extending the pilot program for local elections to be held in 2009–2011.


text: There was much debate whether RCV was successful when it was used. This debate continued in the North Carolina legislature when it debated legislation to extend the pilot program. Some "verified voting" advocates contended that the RCV tabulation procedures used were not legal. Both advocates and opponents of the provision supported amendments to the pilot program to ensure that the local governing body of any jurisdiction participating in the pilot must approve their participation; the jurisdiction must develop and implement voter education plans; and the University of North Carolina School of Government must approve procedures for conducting RCV elections by January 2009. After these amendments were adopted, the state House of Representatives, by a majority of 65-47, rejected an amendment designed to remove the pilot program from the legislation, and the legislation ultimately won approval by both houses.


text: In 2009, Hendersonville again used RCV, Three candidates ran for mayor in Hendersonville in November 2009; five candidates ran for two seats on the city council using a multi-seat version of RCV. All seats were filled based on first choices without the need for further counting.


text: In 2011, Hendersonville's city council unanimously voted to use RCV a third time, although ultimately not enough candidates filed for office to trigger the need for the system.


text: The RCV pilot program was repealed by the General Assembly in 2013 as part of a sweeping voter ID bill, meaning that special judicial elections with more than two candidates would once again be decided by a simple plurality.


text: In October 2007 the city of Cary, North Carolina used RCV for municipal election for three council seats and for mayor. The mayor's race (with two candidates) and two of the council seats (with four and three candidates on the ballot) were won with a majority in the first round. The remaining council seat, with three candidates, went to a second round of counting; the plurality winner in the first round went on to win with 50.9% of the final round vote, amounting to 46.4% of first-round ballots cast, with 8.9% of the ballots offering no preference between the top two candidates.


text: Cary used hand or machine-marked paper ballots that are read on optical scanners manufactured by ES&S. First column choices were tallied at the precinct. The second and third column choices were counted at a central location. In 2009 the Cary Town Council voted to use a traditional runoff method.


text: On November 8, 2016, voters in Benton County, Oregon, passed a charter amendment with 54.3% of the vote to enact RCV for county elections. The first use of RCV took place in November 2020, after the state legislature in 2018 appropriated funds to enable the county to administer the elections; neither race on the ballot required an instant runoff.


text: In February 2022, the Tennessee General Assembly prohibited the use of ranked choice voting statewide including all municipal elections.


text: On November 4, 2008, voters in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, passed a charter amendment with 71% of the vote to enact RCV for city elections. The first use of RCV has been dependent on the city's ability to administer the election: it was scheduled for 2019, however, the city council voted in 2017 to place a referendum to repeal RCV on the 2018 ballot. 63% of voters elected to keep RCV but it remains unclear when it will be implemented.


text: In 2021 Austin voters approved a ballot measure 59–41% to adopt RCV for city elections, replacing the two-round system. However, it is not clear if the reference to "majority" in state law allows its use.


text: In 2018, Utah passed a law allowing municipalities to opt in to RCV voting starting with 2019 municipal elections. Six cities indicated interest in using RCV in 2019, West Jordan, Vineyard, Salem, Cottonwood Heights, Lehi, and Payson, with Vineyard and Payson following through with the trial.


text: Both the Utah Republican Party and Utah Democratic Party used RCV at their state conventions in 2020.


text: Following a successful trial in Vineyard and Payson in 2019, 21 more cities and towns intend to use RCV in 2021 municipal elections: Salt Lake City, Draper, Lehi, Riverton, Springville, Goshen, Newton, Woodland Hills, Heber City, Moab, Genola, Sandy, South Salt Lake, Magna, Bluffdale, Nibley, Millcreek, River Heights, Cottonwood Heights, Elk Ridge, and Midvale. This was enabled in part by a new law allowing cities to contract with counties besides their own to administer elections.


text: The city of Burlington, Vermont approved RCV for use in mayoral elections with a 64% vote in 2005. The 2006 Burlington mayoral race was decided after two rounds of tallying, and the mayoral race in 2009 was decided in three rounds. Unlike Burlington's first RCV mayoral election in 2006, the RCV winner in 2009 (VT Progressive candidate Bob Kiss) was neither the same as the plurality winner (Republican candidate Kurt Wright) nor the Condorcet winner (Democratic candidate Andy Montroll).


text: The results caused a post-election controversy regarding the RCV method. In late 2009, a group of several Democrats (who supported Republican Kurt Wright) led a signature drive to force a referendum on RCV. According to a local columnist, the vote was a referendum on Mayor Kiss, who was a "lame duck" because of a scandal relating to Burlington Telecom and other local issues. However, in an interview with Vermont Public Radio, Mayor Kiss disputed that claim. RCV was repealed in March 2010 by a vote of 52% to 48%.


text: The repeal reverted the system back to a 40% rule that requires a top-two runoff if no candidate exceeds 40% of the vote. Had the 2009 election occurred under these rules, Kiss and Wright would have advanced to the runoff. If the same voters had participated in the runoff as in the first election and not changed their preferences, Kiss would have won the runoff. In 2011, an initiative effort to increase the winning threshold from the 40% plurality to a 50% majority failed.


text: In 2021, Burlington approved RCV for a second time, this time for City Council elections with another 64%–36% vote. Since the referendum is an amendment to the city's charter, it also has to be approved by the Vermont General Assembly and the Governor.


text: The legislature passed a bill in 2020 providing a local option for municipalities to use RCV through 2031.


text: Pierce County, Washington, passed (53%) RCV in November 2006 for most of its county offices. Voters upheld the 2008 implementation timing with a vote of 67% in 2007 and made minor adjustments to the charter language involving ballot access and numbers of rankings. Seven RCV elections took place on November 4, 2008 and one on November 3, 2009. The introduction of RCV was marked by controversies about costs and confusion about the simultaneous introduction of the top two election system following a Supreme Court ruling that restored it after it passed statewide in 2004, but was struck down by courts in 2005. On November 3, 2009, voters repealed RCV.


text: Several states jurisdictions that hold runoff elections allow certain categories of absentee voters to submit ranked-choice ballots, because the interval between votes is too short for a second round of absentee voting. Ranked-choice ballots enable long-distance absentee votes to count in the runoff election if their first choice does not make the runoff. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina have all used ranked-choice ballots for overseas and military voters in federal elections that might go to a runoff since 2014, with Georgia starting to do in 2022. A city using this practice is Springfield, Illinois after voters approved it with 91% support.


text: Between 1912 and 1930, limited forms of RCV (typically with only two rankings) were implemented and subsequently repealed in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. In the 1970s, it was implemented and repealed in Ann Arbor, Michigan. More recently, it was adopted and repealed in Pierce County, Washington (2006–2009); Burlington, Vermont (2005–2010); and Aspen, Colorado (2007–2010); and in North Carolina, which allowed its use in elections between 2006 and 2013.