Ranked choice voting is a boost for elections

I appreciate Jim Camden’s feature of the Ranked Choice Voting Local Options Bill that is currently going through the Washington state Legislature. However there are a few key questions he asked about Ranked Choice Voting that I would like to answer. He left them open to interpretation when they need not be.

Camden describes a scenario where the leading candidate in a five way race has 40% of the vote at the end of the first round of voting, the second-place candidate has merely 35%. In this scenario, as the fifth-, fourth- and third-place candidates are eliminated, most of their voters’ next choice is the second place candidate who pulls ahead and eventually wins. Camden then asks, “Are voters any more likely to be happy?”

The answer is yes, by definition, voters are more likely to be happy with this outcome, because more voters preferred the winning candidate!

Camden also raises the question of whether a candidate who loses a ranked-choice voting election is likely to “go quiet into that good night.”

Whether a losing candidate accepts defeat or not is a reflection on the candidate — not on the election method. We should hardly design an election system based on accommodating candidates the voters rejected.

If we make an honest attempt to answer the questions the author asks, we come to realize the improvements ranked-choice voting offers to our electoral system. It’s a simple, proven upgrade that makes democracy work better.

Trenton Miller

Spokane