What to expect in November’s ranked choice voting elections: Part 2
21 cities across seven states will use ranked choice voting this November.
This month, 21 cities in Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Utah will use ranked choice voting (RCV) to elect their leaders. Last week, we shared some highlights about what to expect from the RCV elections. Here’s a closer look at the high-profile races of 2023:
Portland, Maine
Portland Mayor Kate Synder is not seeking reelection, opening up room for five new candidates to run for the position. Synder offered a ranked endorsement of Mark Dion and Andrew Zarro, saying she will rank Dion as her first choice and Zarro as her second choice.
A recent debate reveals two main ideological groups among the candidates: Dion and Justin Costa believe the city provides too many services to people experiencing homelessness, while the other three candidates support more services for the unhoused.
In a single-choice election, voters supporting a candidate in either bloc could “split the vote” and allow a candidate from the other group to win. Thanks to RCV, voters aren’t penalized when several candidates who share their point of view run for office. Their vote can count for a backup choice if their favorite candidate can’t win.
Boulder, Colorado
For the first time, voters in Boulder will elect their mayor – and do so using ranked choice voting. Before RCV was implemented, city council members would appoint one of their colleagues as mayor.
In the four-candidate race, local organizations are quickly embracing the chance to endorse multiple candidates. For example, Boulder Progressives endorsed two candidates for mayor with a “vote blue, vote two” slogan. The group encourages voters to rank their two endorsed candidates first and second.
Boulder County is following best practices for RCV elections, like planning to run the RCV count on election night, communicating expectations with voters and the media, and running a post-election audit. Boulder’s post-election audit will be the first full risk-limiting audit of a government-run RCV election, following a successful pilot of an RCV risk-limiting audit in San Francisco and audits of three RCV presidential primaries in 2020.
Boulder County election administrators have been very communicative about the procedures and timelines for their first RCV election, and created a helpful FAQ.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City will use ranked choice voting for the first time to elect its mayor, after introducing RCV for city council elections in 2021. Utah’s elections are two weeks later than those in the rest of the country this year, because the state moved its regular election date to coincide with a special congressional election.
Current Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall is running for reelection against two challengers – former Mayor Rocky Anderson and small business owner Michael Valentine. Mayor Mendenhall has received a unanimous endorsement from the members of the city council, most of whom were elected in RCV races in 2021, and from former Mayor Ralph Becker.
Salt Lake City’s decision to use RCV a second time has gained significant attention, including a Washington Examiner piece in which City Councilor Alejandro Puy said that ranked choice voting “created different dynamics with voters where… we need to start talking to each other. We need to find common ground.”
Las Cruces, New Mexico
This is the city’s first open-seat mayoral race in 16 years, as Mayor Ken Miyagishima chose not to run for a fifth term. Seven candidates are competing for the seat.
Las Cruces could elect its first female mayor in this RCV contest, after previously electing its first all-female and majority-women-of-color city council using RCV in 2021.
The Las Cruces Sun News and the Las Cruces Bulletin have published helpful guides to ranked choice voting in New Mexico’s second-largest city, with the Bulletin specifically encouraging voters to use multiple rankings if they have multiple preferred candidates.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge has used the proportional form of RCV longer than anywhere else in the United States. The city elects nine city councilors and six school committee members with proportional RCV every two years. Notably, proportional RCV also means that nearly every Cambridge voter elects at least one candidate of their choice – a median of 95% of Cambridge voters see one of their top three choices elected to the city council.
Many politicians and interest groups offer ranked endorsements or promote slates of candidates, since voters have the option to rank up to fifteen choices. The Cambridge Citizens Coalition endorsed 11 candidates for city council, including three incumbents and nine challengers. Six of the 11 candidates have donated to the campaign of at least one other member of that slate – a collaborative type of politics almost unimaginable in most single-choice and winner-take-all elections.
Our Revolution Cambridge, a progressive organization, endorsed a slate of five candidates. A Better Cambridge, a group focused primarily on housing, endorsed nine candidates. The Cambridge Residents Alliance, another group prioritizing housing policy, endorsed eight candidates. Of course, some voters take advantage of these slates, while others pick and choose individual candidates as they prefer.
Cambridge Day also released a guide on how to vote, demonstrating how the media can play a role in continuing voter education. The guide advises voters that their first-choice preferences are most important, because candidates with the most first choices have a far better chance of winning. The guide also reminds voters that later preferences are important too, and suggests voters “should rank as many candidates as they think would make good councilors or school committee members.”
Since Cambridge adopted proportional RCV in 1941, the city council and school board have consistently reflected the diversity of the city and kept up with changing demographics. Cities around the nation could see similar reflective outcomes by adopting proportional RCV, too.
Conclusion
From Massachusetts to Utah, and Maine to New Mexico, RCV is moving us toward better elections for all. We’ll share analysis of outcomes and voting patterns in these and other RCV contests in the weeks to come.
