Ranked Choice Voting Case Study

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Social Media + Ranked Choice Voting = Election Reform

There was something else record-breaking about the 2016 Presidential election besides being trumped and being rocky mountain high. The heavily Republican state of Maine made a landmark progressive move. They became the first state to approve a referendum instituting ranked choice voting for state and federal elections; choosing to reject the antiquated single vote/first across the post/winner take all status quo system of election. To paraphrase Henry Grabar’s excellent description of ranked choice voting from his Slate.com blog posting titled Maine Just Passed Ranked Choice Voting; instead of voting for a single candidate, each voter ranks the candidates from first choice through fifth choice, eliminating any need for expensive runoff elections or in the event of a third party race, if no candidate gets a majority. To tally the votes, if there is no majority winner, drop the candidate with the least votes and apply those voters’ second choices. In the past, this idea was generally shelved due to the complexity of counting the ballots, but computerized voting …show more content…

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses ranked choice voting to choose their Oscar winners. There is bi-partisan support for RCV. US Senator John McCain(R Arizona) and Republican Presidential nominee in 2008 supports RCV. Howard Dean, Democrat Governor of Vermont from ’91 –’03 and Chair of the Democratic National Committtee from ’05-’09 supports RCV. President Obama, as the Democrat Senator from Illinois supports RCV. The time is right for election reform activists to educate themselves with the data these examples provide. The key to RCV success is activist and voter education. Social media makes it

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