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.