Democratic state Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck introduced legislation on Tuesday that would bring Ranked Choice Voting to elections in Utah.
With Ranked Choice Voting, voters select their candidates on the ballot in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of first preference votes, than the last place candidate is eliminated and the second preference votes are considered. This process goes on until the winning candidate has majority support from the electorate.
Michelle Whittaker, Director of Communications with FairVote, said that Ranked Choice Voting can help make elections more representative.
“In our current plurality system, when they’re campaigning, they’re looking at only their base and getting their base out to vote in that election. So, [Ranked Choice Voting] changes the dynamic in terms of the civility in the race,” Whittaker said. “More voters have a voice and they’re able to raise their concerns. It just opens up the opportunity for more people to be part of that conversation about what are the best policies that we want to put forward in our community and who best represents the community at large.”
Other states have experimented with voting in order to increase the number of elections where the winner also has majority support. Louisiana uses a two-round voting system in which the top two candidates face a separate runoff election.
Last November, Maine became the first state in the nation to approve Ranked Choice Voting for both state and federal elections. Whittaker said that Maine voters wanted elected officials to enter office with a solid mandate.
“In Maine, they wanted to have elected leaders who won with the majority of the vote. You could look at the governor’s races where Republican, Democratic, and independent governors were elected with less that a majority,” she said. “This has been something that’s been occurring for a number of years. Nine out of the last 10 governors have not been elected with a majority and so they said, ‘There’s a need for us to look at our elections and come up with a way that we have that majority winner.’”
The Utah Republican Party has used Ranked Choice Voting several times in nomination contests in the past.