Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas will co-host two virtual forums with the League of Women Voters of Vermont (LWVVT) to discuss Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).
Ranked choice voting (RCV) is an election method in which voters rank candidates for an office in order of their preference (first choice, second choice, third choice, and so on), the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center explains. RCV is favored among third-party candidates in Vermont, especially the Progressive Party, who have pushed hard for its passage in Burlington.
Ranking candidates is different from simply selecting one candidate or what is known as plurality voting. If a candidate receives more than half of the first choices, that candidate wins, just like in any other election. However, if there is no majority winner after counting the first choices, the race is decided by an instant runoff. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who ranked that candidate as their first choice will have their votes count for their next choice. This process continues until a majority winner, a candidate with more than half of the vote, wins.
“Ranked Choice Voting is a new and powerful way of choosing our leaders, and we know that Vermont legislators will be considering RCV legislation next session,” said Secretary Copeland Hanzas. “I wanted to work with the League of Women Voters to bring the public, stakeholders, and experts together to discuss, learn, and explore it as the legislative work continues.”
The first forum is scheduled for Wednesday, May 1, from 7:00-8:30 pm on Zoom. This session will offer an overview of Ranked Choice Voting, covering key concepts and presenting a simulation for participants to engage in to better understand what RCV is and how it works. Experts from the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center will guide the session.
The RCVRC supports ranked-choice voting. In a page entitled “Why Adopt RCV?”, the center explains that “jurisdictions adopting RCV do so for several reasons, from saving money to increasing civility in campaigns…..With RCV, a jurisdiction can get the benefit of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher-turnout election.”
The second forum will take place on Wednesday, May 8th, from 7:00-8:30pm on Zoom. This session will dive into the details of administering RCV elections in Vermont, featuring Burlington Assistant City Clerk Sarah Montgomery and Brattleboro Town Clerk Hilary Francis.
The RCV initiative is at least the second SOS voting initiative with left-of-center leanings announced this year.
The Vermont Campus Voting Challenge, a college voter registration initiative announced Jan. 25 by Copeland Hanzas, a Democrat, is run by the ALL IN arm of Civic Nation, a non-partisan non-profit whose founder has strong ties with the national Democratic Party.
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Categories: Elections
This is simply a way for Progressives to get more votes, and the irony is that if conservatives actually ran it could work well for them too… However they know this isn’t going to happen so they are happy to have it
https://thefulcrum.us/electoral-reforms/ranked-choice-voting-in-new-york
I love how uninformed Hanzas is here though, this isn’t a new form of voting, and it has been tried and repealed in Burlington (I believe because it led to a progressive mayor) and New York due to it’s leading to Progressive candidates winning races that they should not.
You got it right. This just more corruption.
Just say no……to ballot games
TREASON! TREASON! TREASON!
This violates Vermont voting laws. A rank voting system, you can actually vote for someone who shouldn’t win. Make no mistake, this is a deception. Everyone needs to speak up NOW, and say NO ! For the fairest way to vote is Paper Ballots with ID identification to validate you are who you say you are. You need to ask why don’t they want to use the fairest system to vote? Everything else in our society requires ID validation from driving, air travel, buying alcoholic beverages, new patient at your Doctor’s, etc. The racist card doesn’t work, even though they will try. DECEPTION !
A Gallup poll in December 2020 found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republicans, and 41% as Independent. The system is rigged by two minority factions who think that independents “shouldn’t win” — and that is precisely the problem which RCV hopes to address:
The two controlling parties actively sabotage their competition
https://www.cracked.com/article_20705_5-ways-u.s.-democracy-more-rigged-than-you-think.html
Warrantless spying on Americans will continue thanks to 86 Republicans who voted with the deep state
https://thelibertydaily.com/government-can-continue-spy-americans-without-warrant-thanks/
You are changing the subject and going off-topic here, but if you really want to prevent ballot fraud, that identification will have to be recorded on the ballot and votes will have to be public.
Yes, it is just another push by liberals to get their candidates up in the running as not one can get a majority so they flood the ballots with more inept fools and then send these non-contenders votes up the ladder ………and that’s how they’ll stay in power !!
Wake up people, your vote isn’t the one they want, say “NO” to ranked voting, they have it in Burlington, and look at that cesspool……………………………………
So, in Vermont – Non-citizens who are also under-aged minors, aka children, should soon be able to participate in ranked choice voting. Got it!!!
And VT is still part of the USA you say?
RCV…a Marxist wet dream.
Still don’t understand if bullet voting can come into play with this ballot gimmick.
I would say this is ok for multi-member districts, but not for a single winner like mayor or governor.
Maybe they are beginning to feel the angst of the voters. Time to change the game in their favor. After all is said and done, isn’t the secretary of state a constitutional officer who took an oath to support the VT constitution? And not change it!
No worries, the long practice of tampering with elections and votes is now being made legal – tying up loose ends if you will. The selection process is being made
legit via lawfare warfare so citizens can remain under the illusion their vote matters or they even have a choice.
My brother is a resident of Massachusetts, and his town has gone to ranked choice voting. His town hasn’t had a Republican candidate for mayor on the ballot since RCV started. The top two vote-getters are always Demonrats, at which point the main election becomes a choice between liberal, radical liberal, and “Screw this, I’m not going to bother voting”.
Granted, a Demonrat would probably be the winner in the end anyway… it’s still Massachusetts after all, but RCV effectively means that the voting public never hears a serious debate or gets a different, conservative point of view.
And that’s JUST the way the Demonrats want it. So forewarned is forearmed. We absolutely MUST keep RCV out of our state. As bad as Vermont politics is now, there’s still another step down. The RCVRC says “jurisdictions adopting RCV do so for several reasons, from saving money to increasing civility in campaigns…..With RCV, a jurisdiction can get the benefit of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher-turnout election.” Saving money? Increasing civility? Please. No, The “benefit” is “legally” rigging elections for even more control and power. Nothing more, nothing less.
“The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.” “On April 22, 2011, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed the signed the National Popular Vote bill into law, making Vermont the 8th state to enact the bill.”
It appears a number of States set up agreements among themselves. I wonder what else they have agreed upon? No wonder there is so much chatter about civil war…they teed it up perfectly without many even aware of what they have done or about to do.
…How is that related to RCV ?
The compact clause of the United States Constitution provides that “No State shall, without the consent of congress, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign Power.”
Let them eat cake.
What statistics did you rely on to inform this policy? —I can find no evidence that there is an inverse relationship between the number of reference links and comment quality… in fact, it appears that the opposite is true: the posts with more references are typically composed by those who are better informed.
It’s a shame that our Secretary of State has the power to control how we vote now that she got voted in. How about putting the issue to a ballot vote in each town in the next town meeting and let all the people decide what they want instead of what she wants? And why now in an important election year? No need to ask I already know the answer!