Congressional District, that is primarily the city of Detroit, but also including some downriver suburbs, currently held by Rashida Tlaib. Is there a possibility that the general election would have been different [with ranked choice]? AH: I think it’s virtually impossible that she could have won [with ranked choice]. If you’re a Republican in that district, in the general election, under the current electoral system, your vote does not matter. If you have a choice of Rashida Tlaib, Brenda Jones, and Bill Wild, hey — that’s a choice. I’m a Democrat and I wouldn’t have voted for Rashida in that situation. I don’t know any Republicans that would have – you probably plunked for Bill Wild or Brenda Jones as the least-worst option. And functionally, from the perspective of a conservative, you’re absolutely correct. [Are] either of those people going to be a conservative in Congress? No, but they’re going to be a lot more conservative than Rashida.
JS: I’m not necessarily advocating for it, but something that would expand voter involvement in the way that we select our officials here...the nominating convention process, at least for the secretary of state and the attorney general, could be put out as primaries. We do it above them, but then all of our state senators and state representatives are all done at primaries and they’re going to have wider audiences. So that would be something more immediate that can be done here, or at least debated. AH: I think it’s a capital idea as long as the parties have to pay for them along with all the other ones. I don’t have a problem with partisan primaries under our current electoral system, they make all the sense in the world. I just have a problem with taxpayers being owed for it. • Melanie Barnett is the editor of Detroiter magazine. This converstaion has been edited for length and clarity.
The argument that I think these folks are trying to make is that you’re never going to get citizens to engage, to try to see the changes that they want to see in their government if they know that their vote doesn’t matter.
AH
JS: I think [ranked choice] doesn’t anticipate what would happen as you got into agenda – SH: How they throw it at each other. JS: Right. Could the others get so annoyed with number one that they bind together to cut a deal...? SH: Or could number one cut a deal with the others so that they go away? The premise of what [Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter], are saying is the system is broken and this is the solution to fixing it. I don’t know how anybody could agree that that’s true. Their fix makes this more complicated, way less predictable. AH: Each voter’s ranking the candidates one through four on their individual ballot. The people who prefer Rashida number one are going to put Rashida down as number one, and the people who don’t are going to put somebody else as number one. Whoever comes in fourth place gets knocked off and all of their secondchoice votes get a word in their first. The coordination between campaigns [doesn’t matter] all that much.
A GR AND MICHIGAN TR ADITION We invite you to experience the rich traditions and historic charm of America’s Summer Place, located on beautiful Mackinac Island. 1-800-33GRAND • grandhotel.com