The voters made it clear – not by any squeaker of a margin, either – that they want to elect most county officials by ranking their choices in one election in November.
It’s called ranked choice voting or instant runoff voting; the terms are interchangeable. We’ll use RCV because county Auditor Pat McCarthy thinks it’s more descriptive of the process.
The council, incredibly, could decide Tuesday to ask voters to “tweak” the first RCV vote with as many four proposed charter amendments on this November’s ballot.
If any amendments are needed at all, just one will do.
The reason there’s even any talk of an amendment is that the auditor is worried that the only software available for tabulating RCV ballots in 2008 allows voters to rank just their top three choices. Last year’s charter amendment could be interpreted to mean voters wanted to rank all the candidates in each race.
To avoid any potential legal challenge, she asked for an amendment that would clearly specify that RCV in Pierce County means ranking the top three choices. She’d like to keep it that way in the future, too.
But the better alternative – and the only remotely justifiable one – is Councilman Tim Farrell’s proposed amendment. His would authorize top-three ranking in 2008 and thereafter require allowing voters to rank all candidates in each race – provided suitable software is available.
That’s it. That’s all the council needs to do to move ahead and honor the wishes of the voters.
McCarthy would prefer to stick with top-three ranking permanently because it’s simpler, and she wouldn’t have to buy any additional software after 2008. But the voters didn’t vote last year for an amendment that said “only your top three choices, folks.”
Councilman Dick Muri proposes delaying RCV voting until 2010, which would primarily spare all of the 2008 candidates for county executive, county council, assessor and sheriff from facing the unknowns of an RCV election.
Three council members are declared candidates for executive; auditor McCarthy is likely to declare after November’s elections. Only the politicians stand to gain from this proposal.
The worst of all is County Executive John Ladenburg’s proposed amendment, which would simply repeal RCV and restore primary voting for the applicable county races. Ladenburg complains about the expense of converting to RCV and even argues, weakly, that top-three ranking in 2008 would not legally be instant runoff voting.
The unspoken motivation for repeal is to ensure that the two major parties retain control of the primary nominating process. That is precisely what voters voted against last November.
On Tuesday, the council should do only one thing: Put Farrell’s proposed amendment on the ballot. Respect the voters.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.