The biggest city in the US is joining a voting reform movement.

"New York City has become the latest -- and most populous  -- city to adopt ranked-choice voting, a major milestone for voting reform efforts.

"Voters in the city overwhelmingly approved Ballot Question 1 on Tuesday, enabling voters to begin using ranked-choice voting in local primary and special elections beginning in 2021.

"New York City joins 20 other cities around the country, as well as multiple states, that have already started using this method in various elections. Maine, notably, implemented ranked-choice voting for the first time in a federal election in 2018.

"Ranked-choice voting works much like its name suggests. Instead of picking just one candidate on the ballot, voters rank their top five in order of preference.

"Once those votes are cast, they are counted in the following way, Lee Drutman explains:

"Ranked-choice voting lets voters mark their first-choice candidate first, their second-choice candidate second, their third-choice candidate third, and so on. Each voter has only one vote but can indicate their backup choices: If one candidate has an outright majority of first-place rankings, that candidate wins, just like a traditional election.

"But if no candidate has a majority in the first round, the candidate in last place is eliminated. Voters who had ranked that candidate first have their votes transferred to the candidate they ranked second. This process continues until a single candidate gathers a majority.

"Advocates of ranked-choice voting argue that it has many benefits. Because candidates need broad-based support to win, they are forced to engage with a wide range of voters, including groups that do not always see outreach from political campaigns. Additionally, studies have found that ranked-choice voting increases the number of minority and women candidates who vie for elected office, partly because ranked-choice campaigning is less negative.

"In addition to shifting the nature of campaigns, ranked-choice voting also gives voters more freedom to consider the full slate of candidates. Because of the way that votes are tallied, an individual could feel free to pick their favorite option without worrying that in doing so they are acting as a 'spoiler' who contributes to the victory of an unfavorable or unpopular candidate.

"Opponents of ranked-choice voting argue that it complicates the process too much, both when it comes to voting and tabulating results.

"Overall, New York City’s decision to adopt the ballot measure — though it will only affect a specific set of races — will serve as a good test case for ranked-choice voting, and it signals growing momentum for this voting reform."

The rest of the story:
✓ New York City adopts ranked-choice voting, a major milestone for the reform by Li Zhou (Vox)
✓ How does ranked choice voting work? (The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting)
✓Voter Choice for Massachusetts is a campaign to place a question on the 2020 ballot that would bring Ranked Choice Voting to Massachusetts elections starting in 2022.

What's to be done?

One idea: How about agreeing to a list of immediately achievable demands -- say, unfettered voter registration, weekend balloting, instant runoffs, election of the President and Vice President by majority vote not the electoral college, public financing of campaigns, free media for candidates, perhaps proportional representation -- driving a national march beginning in, say, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, Houston, Miami and Portland ME -- merging in various centers along the way -- say, Denver, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, St Louis, New Orleans, Atlanta, New York City and lesser venues in between -- and culminating on Pennsylvania Avenue with the firm commitment not to leave until all demands are met? The logistical problems would be formidable but not insurmountable, and the Occupy Movement already has organizers and infrastructure in place all over the country.

Obviously, there are many problems -- the crumbling infrastructure, the slashing of budgets for public services, the unjust tax structure, the misallocation of public resources to military spending and corporate giveaways, the destruction of free public education, the absence of affordable universal health care -- that impact much more directly on people's lives. But the adoption of measures to make the country more democratic and thus more responsive to the demands of its citizens would be a solid beginning down the path to solving deeper and more intractable problems.

There is an army of outraged people in this nation, many of them unemployed and facing bleak futures. Are they ready to enlist?

Democracy: More instant runoffs this November

On November 2, three cities in Alameda County -- Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro -- will join San Francisco in choosing candidates by a method known as ranked-choice voting or, more widely, instant runoff.

San Francisco has used instant runoffs since 2004 (see, Election Reform: Instant Runoffs, Impractical Proposals 2004-12-29). Under the system, voters may, if they wish, rank their top three choices from among the candidates. If no one achieves a majority in the first tally, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, that candidate's voters' next-ranked choices are distributed among the remaining contestants, and the ballots are counted again. Eliminations and recounting continue until a candidate reaches 50 percent, plus one.

Proponents of the instant runoff say that it saves money and resources by eliminating the need for conventional runoffs on another day. With an instant runoff, the eventual winner is guaranteed to have the support of a majority of people casting ballots. It also helps to advance democracy because, as a special election, a traditional runoff ordinarily will have a lower turnout than a general election.

Last December, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen approved a computer system developed by Sequoia Voting Systems for ranked-choice voting. In April, a challenge to San Francisco's instant runoffs was rejected by a Federal judge.

Alameda County has set up a website, Ranked-Choice Voting, to explain the new system to voters in English, Spanish and Chinese, with faqs, a newsletter and soon, inevitably, an iPhone app. Other county efforts to familiarize voters with the new system will go on throughout the summer and fall.

If instant runoffs work as well as predicted this November, other cities, possibly including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, San Jose and Sacramento, can be expected to follow suit. And a successful reform of one kind makes it easier to contemplate others, such as proportional representation, weekend voting, consolidating elections to lower costs and increase turnout, and publicly-funded campaigns, that would also tend to make the system fairer and, in many cases, cheaper both for taxpayers and candidates.