Tuesday was a good day for IRV in Colorado. After the most expensive mayoral race in its history, Mick Ireland was elected Aspen"s new chief executive after a costly runoff election where the result was essentially preordained. Local election law calls for a runoff election if there is no majority winner in the first election, and in a three-way contest in May Ireland came in first with 47 percent of the vote. That necessitated a whole new campaign concluding with Tuesday"s runoff election.

The victor is taking the issue of reforming the city"s election system seriously, as the Aspen Daily News reports:

"Ireland said one of his first priorities as mayor would be election reform. Ireland wants to switch mayoral races to instant runoff voting, where voters would rank candidates, thereby nullifying the need for runoff elections."

Following the election, the Aspen Times opined that fixing the city"s current runoff system should be at the top of the agenda, saying, "as we've seen in the past few elections, the runoffs don't produce any different results and they invariably draw fewer voters."

Aspen Public Radio aired a piece on the election this morning, and it features an interview with FairVote program director David Moon. David thinks he sounds like he has a frog in his throat, but you should check it out anyway.