On October 2nd, Tiani Coleman, president of the NH Independent Voters and NH Ranked Choice Voting organizations, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua regarding ranked choice voting. Tiani has been an insider in each of the two major parties, but has been a registered independent for more than two decades. Tiani is an attorney living in Amherst.
Tiani introduced the topic of ranked choice voting as a small tweak to our system that can make a big difference. She described it as a win-win for voters, up-start candidates, established candidates, independent and 3rd party candidates by letting voters vote their conscience, curbing negative campaigning, leveling the playing field for candidates, and reducing polarization, among other things.
The difference between our current system and ranked-choice is current system is “first-past-the-post,” regardless of the total percentage of the vote the winner receives, which can be less than 50 percent. In ranked choice, there are multiple rounds that most always result in someone winning with more than 50% of the votes.
Tiani stated our current system works well with only 2 candidates per position, but any more than 2 candidates can result in spoiler effect, vote splitting, strategic voting, polarization, and candidates may win with a low overall percentage of the vote. She shared examples of NH primaries in which candidates won with fewer than 50 percent of the vote.
How it works: Voter marks the ballot with their 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice (and so-on) to rank their preferred candidates. When votes are counted, voters’ highest preferences are tabulated. If any candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, it’s over and they’re the winner. If not, it operates like an instant run-off: whoever got the fewest 1st choice votes is eliminated and those votes are redistributed to the voters’ second-choice candidates. If no one hits 50 percent that round, it continues until a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote and is named winner.
If voting is for multiple openings, the process looks the same but the percent-of-vote threshold to determine the winner changes, Tiani explained.
There are a couple of bills before the NH legislature that enable communities to use ranked choice voting, either by opt-in only (HB345), or HB350, which adopts ranked-choice in a staggered way that would eventually become mandatory (starting with opt-in and moving to mandatory for state, municipal and federal elections). Tiani said even if either of these are passed by the NH legislature, it’s unlikely ranked-choice would be in place before the upcoming presidential primaries.
Ranked choice is currently used in 52 American jurisdictions for about 13 million voters, including Maine and Alaska, and has upheld constitutional challenges.