Lisa Ayrault, executive director of FairVote Washington, will speak about ranked-choice voting during the Monday, Jan. 24 meeting of the Edmonds Civic Roundtable. The meeting will run from 4-5:30 p.m. at the Edmonds Waterfront Center, 220 Railroad Ave.
The Washington Legislature is considering a bill to allow cities and other local jurisdictions to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) to elect their public officials. Instead of casting one vote in each contest, voters could rank candidates as — for example — their first choice, second choice, third choice. Ranked-choice voting has recently been adopted in various places around the U.S.
This program is being offered by Edmonds Civic Roundtable as part of their ongoing commitment to help inform residents of the complexities of important issues and decisions facing Edmonds. After the presentation, there will be a question-and-answer period, and then an opportunity for discussion.
There is no cost for this event and registration is required. There is a limit of 75 attendees. Masks will be required and attendees are encouraged to be COVID-19 vaccinated with a booster.
You can register here.
Edmonds Civic Roundtable is a non-partisan, 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization. The organization’s goal is to inform and educate residents about key issues affecting local government and the community. To learn more, visit www.edmondscivicroundtable.org.
One vote period. Stop trying to change our votes.
I would attend the meeting if it was done on zoom. Given the high level of Covid infection in Snohomish County, I am not willing to attend in person meetings at this time.
We are taking steps to make this meeting accessible via Zoom~ the code will be published on the website mentioned in the article, and on the registration form. We want our events to be as accessible as possible to as many Edmonds folks as possible.
Roger Pence
Chair, Program Committee
Edmonds Civic Roundtable
This is a terrific idea for a forum.
There are many on-line sources talking about the pros and cons of RCV. The concept is confusing and expensive (as voting machines would need to be replace). After reading these, RCV does not seem to be a solution at all. A “majority” candidate is determined in a fake scenario, by eliminating voters first choice. There are extreme differences between candidates and some candidates I would never support, but RCV asks me to vote (by ranking #3 choice) when in fact I would never vote for that candidate. Or if I only vote for 1 candidate and that candidate is eliminated, then my vote is thrown out and only the remaining candidates share what is labeled “majority”.
https://qz.com/1676718/the-pros-and-cons-of-ranked-choice-voting/
https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/ranked-choice-voting-bad-choice
https://www.newsmax.com/fastfeatures/ranked-choice-voting-pros-and-cons/2015/07/03/id/653400/
Reading up on this is important. We do have a system that works, so why this change?
No thank you. One vote. And we need to get rid of top two, each party deserves a candidate, no way two democrats should ever be the only choice for a voter , messed up one party state WA is and getting worse. Born and raised here, sad to see.
Exactly this is clearly manipulation. Don’t be fooled anymore. Please.
Nick, I absolutely agree.
Yes, two candidates, one for each party with one vote per citizen. Historically this has worked relatively well, and the alternate option mentioned would be open to much manipulation.
Bette Bell
Nationwide polls from legitimate organizations are nearing 50% on this; nearly half of Americans believe the 2020 elections were not legitimate. Normally this is verboten, but now the Biden administration and the majority leaders are saying that the midterms will lack democratic integrity/legitimacy. Tallying a vote and giving a quick result with no controversy is really difficult. Look up patents for voting machines if anyone has the time. Through history it seems as though only pirate ships have been able to hold legitimate elections. For no other reason than the fact that the Election Integrity will be a hot topic in November, I wouldn’t introduce a new voting scheme until that simmers down. You mightn’t happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now?
Matt, I might turn your argument around. With so many people apparently believing (wrongly) that voting is somehow corrupted, this might actually be a good time to improve election methods. Give voters a better way to express themselves at the polls.
Could someone please inform us all as to where and when the “Biden administration and majority leaders are saying the midterms will lack democratic integrity/legitimacy? Just because Trump and pals started complaining about a stolen election six months before the election even occurred, doesn’t mean everyone is doing that. Not everyone uses the Big Lie.
What the Biden administration and majority leaders are saying is that voter suppression laws now being passed in Red states will result in many people who want to vote not getting to vote. I suspect the Democratic Party will lose big time in the mid terms and that they will not claim election fraud and failed election integrity. They may claim, probably truthfully so, that many of their potential voters were prevented from voting by voter suppression laws recently passed in Red States.
Both factions of the modern Republican Party (Trump and Anti-Trump) know that the less people that vote results in more Republicans of whatever stripe getting elected in the past and now. Republicans tend to be more dedicated and active voters than Democrats. It is to their definite advantage to limit the vote everywhere as much as possible.
On the subject of ranked choice voting, as far as I can tell it is mostly the party activist types that are so strongly opposed to it, particularly of the Trump Republican stripe. Trump’s control over the Republican party depends on the ability to crush opponents in Primaries. That might be something that works to help Democrats in some Purple states (West Virginia and Arizona for example), if the Primaries pushed candidates way too far to the right for swing voters to accept. That’s why Manchen and Senema voted with the R.s on voter suppression. Pure self interest to get re-elected by Independents in their Purple states. Might backfire on them, if Biden ever grows a backbone and starts dancing with those that brought him to the dance, instead of kissing up to old friends who aren’t really his friends anymore (and probably never were).
RCV is literally gambling with election candidates and then the voters get to gamble with their picks.