About US
Rachel MacNair
I’ve been bothered by having candidates that are terrible on the issues I most care about, yet being told I have to vote for them anyway because the other candidate is even worse. But the problem goes deeper: I’ve seen the “lesser evil” gets worse because they think they already have the votes of those who regard the other candidate as the worst. So they have to move more toward that candidate’s positions in order to get more of the swing votes.
The current system tells you to voice something you’d rather not voice by insisting on the “lesser evil” vote, and then you have nothing more to say. We sometimes successfully work to persuade the public on issues only to have it all go down the drain in the "battle" style of elections. Ranking does way more to communicate to politicians what we actually want, and what we expect of them.
Larry R. Bradley
The ballot we use now has fundamental unfixable flaws. Those flaws will only be resolved by replacing that ballot with Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). The first flaw is this. A key phrase in the Declaration of Independence is "the consent of the governed" How do you have the consent of the governed when that ballot allows candidates to get nominations or win elections with less than a majority (50% plus one or better of the vote? Answer--you don't. And you're probably not going to get it when you have multiple candidates. A majority winner is not guaranteed. And yet we have poll after poll where voters say they want third parties on the ballot.
The second flaw is that you are afraid to vote for the candidate you really want to vote for because you're afraid that by doing so you will enable the candidate you're most opposed to to win. What I’ve just described is so common it has its own name—the Spoiler Scenario.
The solution to both these problems is to go to RCV. But to go to RCV, you’ve got to elect people who will vote for making RCV a reality. Either they pass a law or they put the issue on the ballot. So call your existing representatives and tell them you want to vote using RCV. Ask candidates what their position is on RCV. If they say they won’t support RCV, then don’t vote for them. Let those candidates know that is what you’ll do. You’ll be surprised how quick they change their minds.
Remember this. If you keep on doing things the way you’ve always done them, then you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got. Remember Einstein’s saying, too. Insanity is to keep on doing the same thing the same way and expecting different result.
Google me, Larry R. Bradley and RCV. I've had several articles published about RCV.
Victoria Godfrey-Zeller
I am an advocate for children and I believe we need to get elected officials who care about people, who understand that as an elected official they are responsible to and for the people living in the district they represent including the children. I want elected officials who believe that our taxpayer dollars should go to public sources for all the people and not be used as financing for out of town developers projects.
I believe that ranked choice voting is the only way we can elect officials that are responsive to the community they are supposed to represent because they have to get a MAJORITY of the voters to choose them.
Beth Jones
As a former Air Force Staff Sergeant working in electronic maintenance and a current software developer I am a person who looks at how systems work or don't work. If you look at our current voting system, the first thing that stands out is that it is a two party system. We need more choices and more voices for who represents us. The plurality voting system (our current system) will always go back to a two party system no matter what parties are available. If the system doesn't change, we will be forever going back to two parties even when new ones are made. This is because of our current "first past the post" type of system.
But we can change that. Ranked choice voting is a system that rewards having multiple parties with varying ideas and lets more voices be heard. Media will start sharing information on all candidates and not just the top two. Debates will cover more topics since there will be more stances than the option of two party platforms. But best of all, to get elected, the candidate needs over 50% of the vote ... A TRUE MAJORITY. Since candidates will have to work harder to get their policies and platforms out, there will be more focus on getting things done.