AK Supreme Court Approves Initiative for a Top-Four System, RCV, and Campaign Finance Disclosure

On June 12th, the Alaska Supreme Court, Unanimously Approved a Proposed 2020 Initiative and does Not Violate the State Constitutional Requirement that Initiatives contain Only a Single Subject.

The Initiative:

- Sets up a Top-Four Primary. Parties would No Longer have Nominees. Instead, Candidates would File as Individuals for the August Primary, for All Partisan Office except President. The Primary's Top-Four Candidates would then be on the November General Election Ballot.

- Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) will be used in the November General Election to pick the Winners.

- Mandates New Disclosure Requirements to Existing Campaign Finance Law.

The State Elections Office had Determined that the Three Elements of the Initiative are Not a “single subject”, but the Court said they are All on the Subject of “Election Reform.”

If the Initiative passes, it will be More difficult for Parties to Remain Ballot-Qualified.

Parties will No Longer have Nominees, so under current laws, Parties will No Longer be able to Remain on the Ballot by Polling 3%+ for Governor, U.S. Senator, or U.S. House.

Instead the Only way they will be able to Remain on the Ballot is by having a Large Number of Registered Voters, 3%+ of the Last Vote.

As of 6/2020, the Only Parties on the Ballot are:

Alaskan Independence - 16,990 2.90%

Democratic - 76,388 13.05%

Republican - 139,510 23.83%

Total All Major and Minor Parties = 585,377 Registered Voters










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Ranked Choice Voting in 2016 Update

With a new year comes a new legislative session in state houses around the U.S. 2016 has seen state legislators nationwide use this opportunity to empower voters by introducing bills that create new uses of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) at the state and local levels. Just one month into this year’s session, at least 27 Pro-RCV bills have been introduced in 13 states and the District of Columbia.

This an update from a prior post.

California SB-1288: Enables local governments to use RCV and other fair representation methods in their elections.

Hawaii HB2019: Requires use of RCV in all partisan Primary elections, Special elections, and nonpartisan General elections. Passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously.

Massachusetts H.576/H.610: Requires the use of RCV for all state offices in Primary elections.

Minnesota S.F. 1855: Enables local governments to use RCV and establishes procedures for administering elections.

New York S4586A/AB A5571: Requires the use of RCV in Primary elections for Mayor, Public Advocate, and Comptroller in the City of New York.

Vermont H.115: Requires the use of RCV for military or overseas voters in Presidential Primaries.

Washington HB 1745: Allows localities to resolve voting rights challenges with multi-winner RCV (PDF).











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Why I like Ranked Choice Voting

I just read an article in The Bangor Daily News of Maine, by Dick Woodbury, who served 10 years in the Maine Legislature, advocating for a less partisan approach to politics and policy-making.  He is leading a citizen initiative to establish Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) in Maine.

He writes:

The best and most cost-effective of these reforms is ranked choice voting, which uses a vote counting process that is identical to holding run-off elections, while avoiding the delay, expense and drop in participation of requiring voters to go back to the polls.

The key point is this: With ranked choice voting, your ballot already indicates who you would choose in a run-off election, if a run-off count is needed to establish a majority winner.

These are his 6 reasons for supporting RCV:

1. The finally elected candidate is chosen by a majority of voters.

2. There is no such thing as a spoiler candidate.  If a candidate turns out not to be electable, then he or she is eliminated in the counting process.  The candidate doesn’t “spoil” the result by taking away votes from somebody else.

3. Voters can cast their vote for a preferred candidate without the strategic dilemma of potentially helping a candidate they oppose.

4. By avoiding spoiler candidates and strategic voting, the entire messaging of campaigns, media coverage and public evaluation of candidates will focus on issues, vision, experience and capabilities; not on polling and electability.

5. Elected candidates can serve with a credibility and mandate that can only be delivered by a majority of votes cast.

6. Most importantly, campaigns will be more civil and respectful, as candidates avoid alienating their opponents’ supporters.  Rather than only appealing to loyal supporters, a winning candidate needs to appeal to a genuine majority of all voters, including those whose first choice may be somebody else.

This initiative will be on the Maine ballot in November 2016.

I strongly support this method of voting.  But I would go farther and remove primary elections and just have a General Election with Ranked-Choice Voting.

This would be like voting in Louisiana with RCV.

What do you think about this type of voting?











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Maine Ranked-Choose Voting Effort in 2014

Sen. Dick Woodbury and Rep. Diane Russell have been meeting with a working group convened by the League of Women Voters to develop a proposal for ranked-choice voting (RCV).

CLICK HERE to read the CITIZEN REFERENDUM ON RANKED CHOICE VOTING Language Approved by the Secretary of State.

These two civic leaders have now launched an ambitious campaign to collect up to 75,000 petition signatures to bring RCV reform to a public referendum.

On Election Day, they collected about 36,000 signatures in support of ranked-choice voting.  They are now recruiting volunteers to collect the remainder by the middle of December.

The group, the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, must collect 10 percent of the total number of votes cast during the most recent gubernatorial election, or about 60,000, to force a statewide referendum.  If the group wants to put it on the ballot for 2015, the deadline for signatures is Jan. 22, but 2016 is an option as well.

The Maine Secretary of State’s Office estimated that implementing ranked-choice voting would cost the state $837,270 in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, and $714,388 in the following fiscal year.

Those costs would cover printing an additional ballot page, updating and leasing new ballot tabulation machines and related equipment, and hiring two contract workers to oversee the vote-counting process.

If the citizens initiative is successful, Maine would be the first state in the nation to adopt an alternative vote-counting system for state, gubernatorial and federal elections.

Examples of U.S. state and local governments using RCV

• Arkansas (only overseas voters in runoffs): Adopted in 2005, used since 2006.

• Alabama (only overseas voters in primary runoff): By agreement with a federal court, used in special election for U.S. House, 2013.

• California: Adopted in Berkeley in 2004 and first used in 2010 in elections for mayor, city council and other city offices.  Adopted in Oakland in 2006 and first used in 2010 for 18 offices, including mayor and city council.  Adopted in San Francisco in 2012, first used in 2004 and used every November election since then for Board of Supervisors, mayor and four six other citywide offices. Adopted in San Leandro in 2000 charter amendment and first used in 2010 and every two years since for mayor and city council.

• Colorado: Adopted in Telluride in 2008 and first used in 2011 for mayoral elections.  Adopted in Basalt in 2002 and to be used in any mayoral election with more than three candidates.

• Louisiana (only overseas and out-of-state military voters in federal and state general election elections): Adopted and used since the 1990s.

• Maine: Adopted in Portland in 2010 and used in 2011 for mayoral election.

• Maryland: Adopted in Takoma Park in 2006 and first used in 2007, with elections every two years for mayor and city council.

• Minnesota: Adopted in Minneapolis in 2006 and first used in 2009 in elections for 22 offices, including mayor and city council.  St. Paul in 2009, first used in 2011 and to be used every two years mayor and city council.

• South Carolina (only for overseas voters in federal and state primary runoffs): Adopted and first used in 2006 in federal and state primary elections.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Maine Referendum Petition Drive for Ranked-Choice Voting Elections

Two Portland-area lawmakers will roll out a referendum petition drive this week to enact ranked-choice voting (RCV) in Maine Gubernatorial elections.

Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, who is running for re-election, and Sen. Richard Woodbury, an independent from Yarmouth who is not running again, said Monday that ranked-choice voting offers a fairer way for Mainers to choose their governor.  They pointed to the contentious race that will end Nov. 4 between Republican Gov. Paul LePage, Democrat Mike Michaud and independent Eliot Cutler.

“I think the voters are hungry for a system that allows them to vote their hopes,” said Russell, who has proposed a similar measure in the Legislature at least twice before.  “Under the current ‘winner-take-all-system,’ the entire system is about polling and spoilers.  Thats not what’s great about democracy.”

If enacted, the ranked-choice system would be used to elect the Governor, U.S. Senators and Congressional Representatives, along with State Legislators.

Woodbury and Russell said they expect to receive petition sheets from the Secretary of State’s Office on Tuesday and will begin collecting signatures immediately, including at the polls on Election Day.

Election officials in the Secretary of State’s Office said their staffers have already finalized the legal language, and are now working to determine the estimated budgetary impact of the change, which will be printed on the petition sheets.

To qualify as a ballot question, the petition must be signed by at least 10 percent of the number of voters who turn out Nov. 4.  Although that number won’t be known until after the election.  Woodbury estimated that, to be successful, 60,000 verified voter signatures will be needed, meaning the petitioners will have to collect roughly 75,000 signatures to allow for errors.

Woodbury and Russell said they are targeting a 2018 implementation date.  The timing is driven partly by technology: The vote-counting machines leased by the state cannot perform ranked-choice calculations, however, the lease on those machines ends in 2017, giving election officials a chance to upgrade to more sophisticated machines for future elections.

In a ranked-choice system, voters assign a number corresponding with their interest in a candidate, with first choice candidates receiving a “1,” second choice candidates a “2,” and so on for all the candidates in a particular race.

To determine a winner, election officials tabulate all the first-ranked choices and eliminate the candidate who is last on the list, and then repeat the process, tabulating the totals for candidates ranked second.  In each tabulation, the last-ranked candidate is eliminated until one remains.

Portland adopted a ranked-choice system to elect its mayor in 2011, when 15 candidates qualified for the ballot.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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The Growth of Ranked Choice Voting and Instant Runoff Voting

Ranked Choice Voting and Instant Runoff Voting Bills advancing in Minnesota, Washington, DC and New York City.

This post from Rob Richie, FairVote update.

Ranked choice voting (RCV) has a simple goal: accommodate voter choice.  More choice means more power, and RCV provides a bottom-up solution to problems with our electoral system.  It is another way to vote, besides Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).

CLICK HERE to read FairVote's Monopoly Politics 2014 and the Fair Representation Solution.

Collecting highlights from RCV News in 2014, from its ever-growing use for campus elections to new expressions of support from top political leaders.  Just this week former U.S. Senator David Durenberger (R-MN) had a strong commentary about how RCV has reduced the impact of campaign spending, while Rob was among several presenters of papers on RCV at an important electoral reform conference last week at Stanford.

Ranked choice voting bills have been introduced in numerous state legislatures in 2013-2014, with particularly promising progress reported on by FairVote Minnesota.

FairVote Washington says Washington, DC, may become the next major city to adopt the instant runoff voting (IRV) form of RCV to elect its local officials.  Councilmember David Grosso introduced his IRV legislation to reform all primary and general elections.  With early support from co-sponsors David Catania, Mary Cheh, and Tommy Wells and a large mayoral field drawing attention to the problem of "split votes" and "spoilers," the bill needs just three votes for a council majority.

New York City has a vibrant movement for adoption of IRV in citywide primaries, led by the city council speaker and civic groups like the Citizens Union.  There is legislation to enact IRV in future city elections moving in both the city council and the state legislature.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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