This week, we add Jacksonville, FL and Colorado Springs, CO to the growing list of cities that make the case for ranked choice voting (RCV). On Tuesday, Jacksonville and Colorado Springs held costly runoff elections that could have been avoided with RCV. 

Both cities had open mayoral seats, sparking the first seriously competitive mayoral elections since 2015. Competitive elections should be synonymous with choice and accountability – but where runoff elections are involved, they cause a host of problems. Runoff elections are expensive, limit voter choice, and incentivize negative campaigning. RCV, on the other hand, allows voters to make decisions when the field is widest and turnout is highest, while rewarding candidates for running more positive campaigns. 

Let’s start with the Centennial State’s second-largest city (and the 40th-largest nationwide). Colorado Springs held local elections in April, including for the open mayoral seat. The mayoral contest invited dozens of candidates. Business leader Yemi Mobolade and city councilor Wayne Williams came out on top with 30% and 19% of votes, respectively. 

However, when no candidate earns 50% of votes, the city holds a runoff election to determine who the majority of voters support. With just 49% of first-round voters having supported Mobolade and Williams in April, the majority of voters did not see their favorite candidate on the runoff ballot. 

Over a month and hundred of thousands of dollars in campaign spending later, Colorado Springs elected its mayor. The election was technically nonpartisan, though many candidates affiliate with a party. Faced with two sharply distinct choices – the progressive-minded independent Mobolade and longtime Republican Williams – runoff voters elected Mobolade with 57% of votes. 

Colorado Springs started directly electing mayors in 1979. Mobolade will be the first elected Black mayor, as well as the first elected mayor who isn’t a registered Republican. Mobolade had a resounding win for a first-time candidate running against Williams, a long-time GOP politician in this traditionally Republican stronghold. One commentator suspects Williams’ chances were harmed by Republican infighting in the initial election. 

On the same day, the Sunshine State’s largest city – and the 12th-largest in the nation – held a slew of runoff elections. In Jacksonville, voters returned to the polls to decide the mayoral race, seven city council races, and the property appraiser race. Jacksonville uses a partisan “top two” system. Candidates run under a party label. If a candidate wins 50% of votes in the initial election, that candidate is the winner. If not, the top two candidates face off in a runoff election, regardless of their party affiliation. 

Democrat Donna Deegan and Republican Daniel Davis competed in the mayoral runoff after winning 39% and 25% of votes, respectively, in the initial seven-way race. The runoff was held nearly two months after the initial election, leaving plenty of time for bickering between Deegan and Davis.  However, the negative ads started airing much earlier in the year, particularly between the Republicans in the race. Deegan won the runoff with 52% of votes, and will be Jacksonville’s first female mayor. 

Similar to Colorado Springs, Jacksonville voters had two staunchly different options in the mayoral runoff. And in Jacksonville’s 8th council district, two Democrats advanced to the runoff, meaning Republicans in that district had no candidate on the runoff ballot (despite 27% of District 8 voters having voted for a Republican in the initial election). 

With a runoff system, voters have limited choices in the decisive election. The options on the ballot are not necessarily indicative of the variety of opinions in the electorate. 

If Colorado Springs and Jacksonville used RCV for their local elections, races would be decided when the field is still wide and representative. With RCV, voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of votes, an “instant runoff” is triggered. If your favorite candidate is eliminated, your vote counts towards your next choice. The runoff repeats until one candidate emerges with a majority mandate. Since the runoff is instant, voters wouldn’t have to return to the polls, or foot the bill for holding another election. 

Voters can also expect more positive campaigns. Runoff elections are zero-sum, meaning any vote for one candidate is essentially a vote against another candidate. Candidates are wise to attack ideologically similar candidates – and quash potential threats to their chance of making the runoff. With RCV, candidates can benefit from being the second choice of another candidate’s supporters. As a result, they have incentive to play nice(r). 

Our current incentives may have hurt Republicans the most in these contests; the GOP previously held both seats. In the initial elections in both Jacksonville and Colorado Springs, the Republican candidates demonstrated great animosity towards one another – a natural incentive in a two-round system. RCV would help build intra-party consensus by incentivizing same-party candidates to find common ground. 

Colorado Springs and Jacksonville are both fast-growing cities with shifting demographics. Their voters, old and new, deserve a fair electoral system that reflects their preferences. Colorado Springs and Jacksonville should join the dozens of municipalities that have abandoned runoff elections in favor of RCV – a faster, better, cheaper way of electing leaders. 

Images by The Center for Land Use Interpretation sourced from: https://clui.org/newsletter/spring-2005/there-something-about-colorado-springs and by paulbr75 sourced from: https://pixabay.com/photos/jacksonville-florida-skyline-1706107/ under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Generic license.