FairVote Washington will be holding its Snohomish County chapter meeting from 10-11 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 2.
The meeting will be held over Zoom.
According to Fair Vote Washington, with ranked-choice voting, you rank candidates in order of preference. You’d rank the candidate you want most first, rank your second choice second, and so on. When the ballots are counted, if your first choice has the least support, then your vote automatically goes to your next choice to help them win. You would still use just one ballot to mark your choices.
A news release announcing the event says that the Dec. 2 meeting will include updates about ranked-choice voting advocacy across the country and plans for the 2024 session of the Washington State Legislature.
To RSVP and for more information, visit this site.
Yes. Rank Choice voting if properly managed will discourage party voting and encourage electing majority preferred candidates from either party.
We have seen this type of voting manipulate outcomes in other states. Don’t agree we need to change a system that is not broken.
I like the idea that I can vote for my first choice without throwing away my vote. If my first-choice candidate doesn’t get over 50% of the vote, my vote for that person is recorded and then my next choice vote is used to select who gets elected.
Ranked choice voting could lead to even more domination by one party! Washington changing its primary system years ago has led to the long dominance of one party’s more autocratic control and thus diminishment of minority party voices. Less balance means less democracy! A move to ranked choice voting would be a move to ensure long continuation of one party dominance.
Actually just the opposite, Ms. Oczkewicz. RCV allows minority political groups to elect representatives in direct proportion to their voting strength. It does not give extra power or influence to the majority party, rather it allows minority parties to grow their strength among voters, empowering their voters who show up at the polls.
If we had a RCV system to elect state legislators, Republicans would have more representation west of the mountains and Democrats would have more east of the mountains, in proportion to voters’ preferences in each area. I expect overall it would actually weaken Democrats’ hold on political power in our state~ probably why Democratic power brokers have opposed RCV.
Are we trying to California-ize the Washington State voting system??
…Just sayin’
As the organizer of this meeting, I’d encourage you to attend to learn more! A few brief replies:
Helen – RCV has been shown to be an improvemnet with these benefits
1) Voters Like RCV: RCV is the fastest-growing non-partisan reform in the U.S. Voters who try RCV say it’s simple and they want to keep using it.
2) RCV Improves Representation: More young people, women and people of color run and win with RCV, so governments better reflect their communities.
3) Empowers Voters: Vote for who you really want, then rank your backup choices. No more voting for the lesser of two evils.
4) Creates Positive Incentives: RCV rewards politicians who reach beyond their base to build common ground, producing civil, issue-focused campaigns that focus on solutions.
Shirley – Actually, where adopted it shows just the opposite! Proportional Representation using RCV elects officials that proportionally represent voters. What a concept! I agree that any system biased towards any party isn’t desirable.
Donald – Well, actually it’s used statewide in Maine and Alaska, and in over 60 cites and counties. Including 10 cities in Utah (including Salt Lake City). The Republican party in Utah uses RCV to select their candidaters.
Rather than comment here without knowing accurate information, I invite you to attend the meeting and learn more!
For those interested in a deeper dive into RCV, I suggest researching information from these two sites.
https://fairvote.org/resources/data-on-rcv/#research_rcvrepresentation
https://www.vpirg.org/our-work/democracy/rcv/
I’m still a bit on the fence about it having seen a negative outcome in an election years ago. The least popular candidate in the first round in a three-way race ended up the winner.
Thanks Joan for sharing those resources. I hope you are able to attend the meeting at 10am today.
Without details, it’s challenging to respond to the outcome you expressed concern with. In a true 3 candidate race, with RCV the candidate with lowest vote totals in the first round of counting would have been eliminated. That’s how RCV works: If after each round, no canidate has more than 50% + 1 of the votes cast, the candidate with the lowest total is eliminated and the people who voted for that candidate have their 2nd choice votes counted.