Ranked choice voting has been adopted in cities such as Santa Fe and Las Cruces but the idea of implementing the voting system has been voted down by Albuquerque city councilors for years.
The City Council most recently voted against ranked choice voting — a system that allows voters to rank candidates by preference on a ballot — during its June 17 meeting.
Mason Graham, policy director for Common Cause New Mexico, said ranked choice ensures a true majority vote and also cuts down on negative campaigning. From Graham’s point of view, Santa Fe and Las Cruces have had no issues with their new voting system and voter turnout did not decrease.
Graham said the chances of the council approving ranked choice voting “are lower than we would like” because of the council’s conservative majority. However, he said thanks to the successes in other cities, coupled with recent discussions and proposed legislation, the city might be close to passing it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
City Desk ABQ: What is the easiest way to describe ranked choice voting?
Graham: It’s ranking your choices, that’s the easiest way to describe it. If I were to get into detail, I would say that we all make choices every day and we typically rank them subconsciously. You choose food at the grocery store or what to watch on TV, we all do a little bit of a ranking of what we’re going to choose to do, or to have, or to enjoy. It’s really just using regular human nature and applying that to the choice that we make in our elections.
The scale goes from one to whatever the highest number of candidates, so three or more, of course, and then your one choice is the top choice, and then the highest number is the lowest choice.
Some people have said ranked choice voting is not one person, one vote.
I understand how people might get confused over the concept of one person, one vote being mixed up in ranked choice because it does, on the surface, look like you are casting a vote for many people at one time. However, when those votes get tabulated, it’s only the top ranking choice that actually gets tabulated — unless there is the instant runoff effect that happens, which is the key feature of ranked choice voting. However, the person does only have one vote passed for one candidate, despite what the ranking is.
Some voters might be worried about a confusing voting process. How would you address those concerns?
We’ve been doing this two-party or winner-take-all system for a very long time, but I would say that people are taught to rank their choices from a very young age. I have a daughter and she’s turning 2 and she can tell me whether she wants graham crackers, goldfish or saltines. If she can do that, then I think people have no problem doing that as well. When you are in grade school, it’s a very common practice to have activities where you choose the best option from one to five, or when you go to the doctor’s office, you rate your pain from one to 10. We have a natural process of making choices. I think the confusion comes with more of the explanation, rather than the actual practice of voting this way.
What are some common myths about it?
[That] it can be used as a tool to rig or fix selections for particular candidates when it’s actually the opposite. In our two-party system, it is more susceptible for bad actors or organized efforts to have a particular candidate run against another, in order to be defeated later on in the election cycle. So think about the number of candidates that enter a primary: One practice that is talked about and sometimes implemented, is having the opposite party vote for a candidate in the other party in order for them to lose later on in the general election. That concept has been reapplied to ranked choice voting as well, when it simply just does not apply. In reality, it’s actually a much more efficient and representative way for us to run our elections because the candidate who is elected does receive a true majority of the votes based on that ranking choice system. It’s very unlikely that someone who’s ranked further down the line will shoot all the way up to the top to win the election. Common Cause has a website and video to educate voters on ranked choice voting.
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