October 2021 | Vol. 17 Iss. 10
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HOW-TO: RANKED CHOICE VOTING By Cassie Goff | c.goff@mycityjournals.com
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he 2021 Municipal Election will be significant for the City of Cottonwood Heights. As mentioned in this edition of the City Journals, three out of the five seats for city council are up for election with none of the currently serving elected officials opting to run for re-election. This year, Cottonwood Heights residents will elect a new mayor, a new city councilmember for District 3, and a new city councilmember for District 4. Ranked Choice Voting will be used to tally up the residential votes for these races. Instead of voting for one candidate per race as residents have previously been accustomed to, voters will be able to rank candidates based on preference. The Cottonwood Heights City Council voted to approve the use of Ranked Choice Voting on May 4. Ballots will appear slightly different for voters using Ranked Choice Voting. Voters will be able to fill in their candidate preferences for each race based on a table. Candidate names will be listed in the left-hand column (or the y-axis). Preference based on numerical ordering will be listed across the top of the table (or the x-axis). Voters will be asked to fill in a bubble for each column. The most preferred candidate for a specific race should be bubbled in within the first column labeled “First Choice.” Then, the second choice candidate should be bubbled in within the second column, and so on. For voters, Salt Lake County recommends not ranking a candidate more than once. In other words, listing one candidate for
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first, second, and third choice will not benefit the candidate in any way. It is also not recommended to give a candidate the same ranking. However, voters can choose to rank as many of the candidates as they would like. Any of the remaining “choice” columns can be left blank, if preferred. “Voters have more of a voice,” said Cottonwood Heights City Recorder Paula Melgar in May. “Preferences are counted for second and third choice. That vote doesn’t just go away.” Instead of a single-choice, winner-takesall voting system, Ranked Choice Voting allows for a different methodology to be used when tabulating votes. Each voter's first preference for candidate is recorded initially. If a single candidate receives over 50% of the vote, they are announced as the winner. If there is not a clear majority vote, counting moves to phase two. If no one candidate receives over 50% of the vote after the first initial count, the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated from the race. Then, the ballots of the voters who ranked the (now eliminated) candidate as their first choice are revisited to count their second choice for preferred candidate. After those votes are redistributed based on second preference, the candidate with over 50% of the vote wins. If there is not a clear majority again, phasing continues until there is. An example is detailed below. Along with Cottonwood Heights, a
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Ballots can be dropped off at any Salt Lake Country dropbox location. (Cassie Goff/City Journals)
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