Moving

Metropolis Council to think about shifting Denver elections, implementing ranked-choice voting | Authorities

Denver City Council will be considering two proposals from Clerk and Recorder Paul López in the coming weeks that would change the way the city holds local elections.

The first proposal would postpone the Denver local elections in May to April and keep the runoff election in June. The second proposal would implement a ranked voting model that would remove the city’s current runoff structure.

“The Denver Charter is out of date with the way modern elections are to be conducted,” said López, Denver’s chief electoral commissioner. “Both models are viable options and we are ready to manage each option with the standard of excellence our office is known for.”

López proposed the changes to bring the Denver local elections into line with a federal regulation recently adopted by Colorado. Under the new requirement, cities will have to cast ballot papers to foreign and military voters 45 days before the elections. The requirement became an issue as the Denver local elections were followed by runoff elections 30 days later, with only the top two candidates appearing on the runoff.

In the ranked election, known as RCV, voters rank candidates according to their preference on their ballot papers. If no candidate receives a majority of the first-vote votes, the candidate with the fewest first-vote votes is eliminated and any ballot papers that selected that candidate first go to their second preference. This is repeated until one candidate has a majority.

Denver used the RCV model in its local elections in 1916 until voters repealed it in 1935 and replaced it with the current runoff system.

Leader board voting advocates argue that this ensures that most voters are not against the victorious candidates, even if the winner is not their first choice, and allows voters to make their true choices rather than having to choose between the two best candidate to feel limited. RCV also avoids voter fatigue and saves time and money by requiring only one election, a benefit López recognizes in his proposal.

“We can join the growing number of cities using RCV, or we can spend well over $ 1.2 million on a second, three-month election,” said Linda Templin, RCV executive director for Colorado. “There is a better way and it is available.”

Opponents say ranked voting is not a guarantee of a majority of candidates, as it is in runoff elections, and it can incapacitate voters by discarding ballot papers that do not rate the most popular candidates.

For example, the winning candidate in an RCV election in San Francisco in 2010 was only listed on 4,321 out of 20,440 ballots cast, meaning only 21.1% of voters voted for the candidate and about half of them rated the candidate Second, third or lower selection.

DIA CEO candidate Phil Washington passes first city council confirmation vote

The candidate won the election after 20 elimination rounds because 21 candidates ran and the majority of voters did not put all 21 on their ballot papers, according to the San Francisco Department of Elections.

Problems were also reported when New York City held its first ranked election in June, with the results being falsely reported. It took more than two weeks for all of the winners to be announced.

Denver City Councilor Kevin Flynn, a member of the clerk’s advisory committee, argues that the intricate nature of the RCV could result in lower voter turnouts and higher rejections of incorrectly completed ballot papers.

“Denver already has a superior runoff system and the timing problem can be easily fixed by changing the date,” said Flynn. “The runoff is the only electoral system that guarantees a majority winner every time. Not only can RCV not guarantee a majority winner, it even does so as a matter of routine. “

Five of the seven members of the case handler’s advisory committee recommended postponing the local elections to April in order to implement ranked voting, Flynn said.

Postponing the local elections to April would create problems of its own.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s census data has been delayed by six months and won’t be delivered to the states until September 30th. The delay has resulted in significant delays in the Denver redistribution process, which could disrupt the 2023 city council election.

Delayed census data could push back Denver redistribution and cause problems in city council elections

To run for the Denver City Council, candidates must have lived in their borough for at least one year. But if the redistribution is not completed by May 2022 – a year before the next council election – council members and potential candidates whose district is switched will not be able to run.

And moving the elections from May to April would give the council one month less to complete the month-long reallocation process on time, which may not be possible.

López said he was considering other solutions to the voting problem, including rescheduling local elections to November, moving elections to a pluralism model, and moving to affirmative elections, where voters could choose as many candidates as they want.

His last two suggestions were the most popular options chosen during his public relations and engagement, López said.

“Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for voters to decide who will run our city,” he said.

If any of the proposals are accepted by the city council, members will be added to the November 2021 ballot for voters to consider.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button