FairVote-WA campaigning for ranked-choice voting in Seattle

FairVote-WA founding member Colin Cole says the 2017 primary election in Seattle is a perfect example for why the city should switch over to ranked-choice voting.

“We had 21 candidates running for an open seat,” he said, “picking just one candidate was not a very easy prospect for some.”

There were 21 candidates for Seattle mayor on the August ballot, meaning two candidates needed just more than 20 percent of the vote to succeed to the general election, Cole said.

Jenny Durkan took around 30 percent of the primary vote, while Cary Moon narrowly defeated Nikkita Oliver.

Voters who chose one of the 19 candidates that didn’t make the general election didn’t get to choose the person they thought would make a good second or third alternative, but they could have with ranked-choice voting in place.

FairVote-WA — a project of Fix Democracy First — feels ranked-choice voting is a more democratic process, because it allows people to transfer their vote to alternative candidates and have those votes count when their first option is eliminated.

The organization, which has a licensing agreement with the national FairVote organization but operates independently, had been pushing for a switch to ranked-choice voting by gathering signatures for Charter Amendment 23.

Cole said the group changed gears when it realized that Washington state law would still require municipalities to hold a primary election, a process that wouldn’t be necessary with ranked-choice voting. So, change first has to occur through the Legislature, he said.

FairVote-WA was successful in pushing for a bill in the Washington House of Representatives that would have allowed local governments to eliminate primaries for office positions and allow for the use of a proportional voting system. Rep. Zack Hudgins was the main sponsor of the bill, which didn’t make it out of the House Committee on State Government, Elections & Information Technology. A similar Senate Bill (6402) also didn’t progress to a vote.

“My sense is it just got lost to the short timeline we have during a short session,” said 43rd District Rep. Nicole Macri, who was one of the cosponsors of the House bill. “I’m excited about this. There’s this effort locally in Seattle around ranked voting, and I’ve just become more educated about it — about more of the local efforts.”

Macri said she’s seen the challenges with low voter turnout during primary elections, and she believes ranked-choice voting is worth trying at the local level. It could result in candidates engaging the full electorate, she said, rather than just those most likely to vote for them anyway.

“I’ve been convinced that you get a better sense of what voters really want. When I ran for office, we had a very crowded field — we had eight candidates,” Macri said. “Different things, I think, drive people’s voting strategy. When you have that many candidates, you know what voters’ first choice is, but you don’t know the second.”

Cole said doing away with the primary would make it easier for candidates new to politics to participate, and also provide them more time to campaign.

He added King County’s vendor Clear Ballot is working on a software update for character recognition, so the cost of such an election should be relatively insignificant compared to the current system.

With no approval yet at the state level, FairVote-WA will have more time to educate people about ranked-choice voting and build a coalition of supporters.

FairVote-WA is hosting a meeting to discuss ranked choice voting and gather support 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 13, at Wedgwood Presbyterian Church, 8008 35th Ave. NE.