RANKED CHOICE VOTING
2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: 465
The City Counsel of Irvine is now considering utilizing Ranked Choice Voting for its city elections. What is that? When casting their votes each voter would rank all candidates for a particular office in order of preference. Then, once the polls close, a computer would count up and disclose all of the first place ballots, and if any candidate had 50 percent plus one of the votes the election would be over. But if no candidate reached that number, the computer would eliminate the last place candidate and count again, using the second choice candidate for those voters who voted for the candidate who was eliminated. This would be repeated until one candidate received 50 percent plus one of the votes.
What would be the benefits of such a system? The big benefit is that it would eliminate the “spoiler effect” in elections and also go a long way to ensure that the eventual winners had more support from the community. How would that be? Because all voters could vote for their favorite candidate without being concerned that that candidate would not win so they would be “wasting their votes.” So instead, under today’s system, many voters vote for the most viable candidate that they dislike the least. In addition, Ranked Choice Voting would also help to circumvent the “spoiler” effect by having a candidate run who would lure just a few percentage points of the votes away from a viable candidate, thus assisting another candidate who otherwise would not win. In my opinion Ranked Choice Voting would result in a much more pure form of Democracy and the eventual winning candidates would have more support from the communities. What do you think?
(Believe it or not, here are the actual names of ten cities in our United States: Hell, Michigan; Chicken, Alaska; Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; Rough and Ready, California; Ding Dong, Texas; Why, Arizona; Why Not, North Carolina; Accident, Maryland; Peculiar, Missouri; and No Name, Colorado. I’ll bet that there is a story behind each of them!) .
Judge Jim Gray (Ret.) Superior Court of Orange County, California 2012 Libertarian Candidate for Vice President
Please listen to our radio show entitled All Rise! The Libertarian Way with Judge Jim Gray as we discuss timely issues and show how they will be addressed more beneficially by employing Libertarian values and approaches. The series has concluded, but you can still hear any edition On Demand at https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/3883. And, by the way, these 2 Paragraphs columns are now on my website at www.JudgeJImGray.com, Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray, Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray.wordpress.com. Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word about the importance of Liberty. In addition, my new book with the same title as my radio show is now available at Amazon.com., as is my wife Grace’s and my new novel centered about School Choice entitled 2030 KIDS: We are the Rising Heroes of the Planet. Please read and discuss them with your friends, and send in a review.