Yes, Mr. Raffensperger, and Here's How

Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is proposing that Georgia do away with its current General Election run-off system. This would be a great time for Georgia to institute ranked-choice voting, sometimes called the instant run-off. I ask our State Senator Chuck Hufstetler and State Representative Katie Dempsey to consider co-sponsoring legislation to establish this reform in Georgia. I hope many of my Georgia friends will contact their state senators and representatives and promote this common sense reform. 

I believe:

• an election in a republic should require majority approval of the winning candidate. (50% plus one)
• current run-offs are un-democratic. They generally represent a minority of registered voters and many fewer than the general election that is being settled. 
• current runoffs are wildly expensive.
• current voting machines are easily adaptable to ranked choice voting.
• ranked choice voting will encourage candidates to seek common ground with supporters of other candidates.
• rank-choice voting will likely greatly decrease divisive or hateful rhetoric that would offend supporters of other candidates.
• ranked choice voting will give voters an opportunity to always record their first choice while avoiding being a spoiler for their second choice.
• ranked choice voting would completely dispense with the expense and much of the discord of regular run-off elections.

Here is my post from March 6, 2021 on this topic

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Georgia could save a lot of money and improve voter participation in settling close elections by implementing ranked-choice voting, sometimes referred to as "automatic run-offs".

This would eliminate separate run-off elections which always are expensive and always attract many fewer voters.

I served as a Vote Review Panel member as well as a Vote Monitor in the 2020 election and the resulting run-off. I was very favorably impressed with the security, privacy, and verification methods provided by the Dominion Voting Systems machines, ballots, and processes. It was about as safe and trustworthy an election as is possible, despite the many lies promoted with virtually no pretense of corroborative evidence by the defeated former president sulking now down in Florida.  Dominion has the capability of printing ranked choice ballots that work with its system. 

Rome City Commission should consider using the ranked system in its multi-member commission districts and its Board of Education races. 

The Dominion brochure can be found at the following webpage. You will need to scroll down to the ranked choice section and click on the appropriate download.

https://www.dominionvoting.com/optional-solutions/

Hat-tip to Mike Bock whose post at daytonos prompted me to investigate whether our new Dominion voting system would allow ranked-choice voting. I am not sure whether legislation at the state level would be necessary or if the City of Rome has the power to institute this reform on our own.