By Krist Novoselic
Published February 13th 2009 in Seattle Weekly
The Pierce County Council has put Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) on the ballot with the intention that voters will approve its repeal.
I defended the system on KUOW this morning.
In the same radio interview, Pierce County auditor Jan Shabro complained about the extra work and cost of Ranked Choice. At first blush, this might be a concern to taxpayers. However, Ms. Shabro failed to mention the cost of the extra ballot for the August Top-Two primary election.
But these are the status quo talking points - RCV is expensive.
It could be a fair proposition to put this election reform in front of voters again if there were a reasonable assessment before hand. But Pierce County political insiders rushed RCV on the ballot even though there's a credible study of the system in progress. There also needs to be an objective fiscal audit of RCV in comparison with Top-Two elections.
Like I say in the interview - elected leadership hope RCV will wither on the vine. Lawmakers like no-contest or uncontested elections. Competitive elections are a threat to politics-as-usual.
The Seattle Times Ed cetera Blog has another piece on the repeal effort.
RCV, also known as Instant Runoff Voting is in the Los Angeles Times.
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.