Jungle primary proponent wants new manner of voting in Sioux Falls elections.

Pat Powers

So, now we need “common core” voting?

Apparently Joe Kirby has a weird thing about bringing California elections to South Dakota.

After his efforts in bringing the California jungle primary to South Dakota failed… a couple of times…. you can “say it isn’t so Joe,” but Kirby is doing it again, and wants to bring the kind of municipal election voting they use in Berkeley & San Francisco to Sioux Falls:

A pair of runoff elections this spring needed to decide races for city council and the mayor’s office have some of the people who crafted the city’s charter rethinking how elections are conducted in Sioux Falls.

And…

Kirby and fellow charter co-author Dale Froehlich have been lobbying the Sioux Falls City Council to embrace and facilitate a shift to ranked choice voting, which allows voters to vote for multiple candidates in a political race by ranking candidates based on personal preference. When it comes time to count ballots, all first-choice votes are tallied. Whoever gets the fewest votes is eliminated, and supporters of that candidate have their second-choice votes re-allocated. The “instant runoff” process, as Kirby refers to it, continues until a candidate gets a majority of the votes.

Kirby said the concept of ranked choice voting wasn’t known when the city charter was written, but it’s superior to the traditional method of holding general elections that often lead to runoff elections when no candidate earned the majority of a vote the first time around.

Read it here.

Didn’t they just change plurality voting to majority voting in Sioux Falls? And now they’re trying to change it again? If they don’t care for the majority vote, I’m sure it’s a fairly easy process to change it back.

Instead of Joe Kirby trying import Berkeley balloting into Sioux Falls.

Again.

12 thoughts on “Jungle primary proponent wants new manner of voting in Sioux Falls elections.”

  1. This is actually a good system and, in Sioux Falls, it would likely help Republicans.

    The problem with it is that it is confusing to voters because it is different and it takes longer to tally the results.

  2. I can only find merit for a “Ranked Choice” method in a strict party primary situation. The “jungle” is for the uncivilized.

  3. yeah, preventing primary runoffs and preventing non-political runoffs in city and school races would be the only use. in a partisan general race, i’d rank a four-way field 1-0-0-0.

  4. Ranked choice voting is an idea before it’s time. It’s an excellent idea, it just something people aren’t ready for. It requires the voter to vet every single candidate too thoroughly. Now they can just decide who they are leaning towards and then do further research. Ranked choice voting also discards the value of endorsements, and I can only imagine what a provisional ballot would look like (IE the mess that Shantel Krebs and Julie Pearson recently caused in Pennington County).

  5. No thanks. The system isn’t broken. It works….unless you’re a sore loser.

  6. One of RCV’s benefits, according to supporters, is that it tends to support the election of moderate, non-fringe candidates. In an RCV election, a voter’s first choice may be a partisan of a particular type, but their second choice will likely be the candidate perceived to be the most acceptable (or least unacceptable) alternative to the candidates perceived as partisan in opposition to the voter’s preferences.

    In a simplified example, suppose a 3-candidate race features a liberal, a conservative, and a moderate. Many voters favoring either the liberal or the conservative candidate may name the moderate as their second choice. This increases the chances of the moderate winning the election if either the liberal or the conservative receives the fewest “first-place” votes.

    The good news-bad news in this scenario is that partisan voters could end up with a lot of “I’ll settle for half a loaf” candidates elected rather than the alternative “Hooray!” or “Oh no!” scenarios.

  8. I love the idea of ranked choice voting because it gives the voter more power. It lets the voter say not only do I support “Adam” the most, but I also support “Bryce” over “Chuck”.

    Thus, this system leads to electing officials that more accurately represent the voters.

    Kind regards,
    David

  9. Ranked choice voting doesn’t change the threshold needed to win. A majority (more than half) of votes is still required. It’s biggest advantage is in the name it is also known by: instant runoff. If no candidate gets a majority, then there is no need to hold another election. The runoff is done immediately with the votes already cast. As David said, this gives voters more power by allowing them to express more of their preferences on a ballot. The downside is that it is more complicated. Voters have to know how to fill out the ballots correctly, which will lead to more spoiled ballots. I think it would be good for Sioux Falls to try it and see how well it works. Maine used it statewide for the first time this year.

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