Ranked-choice voting is unfamiliar to most of the city’s nearly 5.6 million registered voters, so local election officials are racing to educate them.
This momentum follows a year in which Alaska and six cities throughout the country decided to adopt the voting method in upcoming elections, while several other municipalities used ranked-choice voting for the first time.
Along with Alaska, Nevada, Hawaii, Kansas and Wyoming also used the method for voting in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.
Even so, all agree that a robust public education effort and clear state-set standards are crucial to bolster voter confidence in ranked-choice voting.
Last week, Utah legislators voted to expand the state’s ranked-choice voting pilot program, giving cities more opportunities to try it out.
“There is a public awareness of how our voting system isn’t necessarily fair or gets outcomes that the voting public actually wants.”.
Then, in a system known as final-five voting, the top five candidates would advance to the general election. »