Why use Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for Salt Lake City’s November 2 Local Elections?
by COUNCIL MEMBER CHRIS WHARTON, SALT LAKE CITY COUNCIL, DISTRICT THREE
Salt Lake City has been a leader in election reform efforts in the past and in recent years the City Council heard strong and consistent interest from residents in support of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in municipal elections. RCV ranks candidates and allocates votes through multiple rounds of elimination until a clear preferred candidate emerges. This is a more inclusive path for voters to have their voice heard and candidates to appeal to a broader audience. With a traditional two-candidate primary, voters are essentially forced to choose between the two final candidates, regardless of how much they might agree with their positions. With RCV, tabulation of election results goes through multiple rounds with the candidate who received the fewest votes being eliminated. Voters that ranked the last placed candidate as their first choice then have their votes allocated to their second choice. This ensures every ballot cast ‘counts’ even when a candidate eliminated is from a race.
RCV also eliminates the ‘spoiler effect’ that can happen in elections with primaries. For example, during the 2016 Presidential Election, fellow Utahn and third-party candidate Evan McMullin attempted to give voters in some states an alternative to the two major candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In the end, McMullin didn’t end up winning any electoral votes, but he did garner more than 240 thousand votes - about 21% - in Utah. While it’s doubtful that his candidacy tipped the outcome of the election in the state, it can’t be denied that he did take votes from the other candidates. If Utah had used a RCV system in that election, that 21% would not be merely 'spoiling' the chances of Trump or Clinton. Instead, for McMullin supporters, it would be selecting the candidate that best represents their top candidate while still providing a means of distributing votes to the other candidates resulting in a more accurate expression of voter’s preferences.
Additionally, in the last Presidential Election, some candidates withdrew after some residents had already returned their ballots. In a ranked choice system, ballots cast for a withdrawn candidate would still indicate second and third choices to represent that voter’s voice.
Everything mentioned here only represents a start to the benefits we’ve heard from cities adopting RCV. In cities like St. Paul, Santa Fe and San Francisco – where ranked-choice has already been implemented – voters reported being happier with the system. Running RCV elections has also been shown to increase civility in campaigns, since candidates can no longer win votes by simply dragging down their opponents, and instead have to make substantive arguments to broader coalitions of voters. Researchers have also found that ranked-choice voting has contributed to higher voter turnout in general.
Salt Lake City is only one of 23 cities and towns in Utah to opt-in to RCV for 2021 local elections. As the largest municipality in the state, we can serve as the best test case for future improvement and implementation of election reforms in Utah. Two Utah cities, Vineyard and Payson, have already used RCV and reported high satisfaction with the process. According to KSL, “Utah County sent a survey to Payson and Vineyard voters after the election and received responses from more than 10% of them. Of those respondents, 84% thought ranked-choice was easy to use and 83% would favor its continued use in the future.”
Other benefits of RCV include cost savings to taxpayers from no longer needing a primary election. Providing voters with greater choice at the general election when turnout is historically much higher than the primary also makes for a stronger election.
With more municipalities adopting ranked choice voting for this year’s election cycle, we should have an exciting opportunity to reap the benefits of this new system, and SLC can lead the way! Whether you’re a candidate or a voter you can learn more about RCV here: https://www.slc.gov/attorney/recorder/ranked-choice-voting/