ELECTIONS: Ranked choice is the right choice

In the Jan. 23 issue of The Press, T. Hoffman raises an interesting and valid point about elections in which no candidate wins the popular vote. He suggests a runoff election between the two highest vote getters, and there is nothing wrong with that in principle. However, such a process does require a subsequent election to be held.

There is another way: Ranked Choice Voting, which is used in Alaska. The basic idea is that instead of voting for a single candidate, you vote for a ranked list. If no candidate wins the popular vote, then the candidate with the fewest votes is discarded and removed from *all* voter preferences, and each list “shuffled up.” This process is repeated until some candidate receives a majority of the popular vote. Although Ranked Choice can’t be described as perfect, it does eliminate the possible need for runoff elections.

The more drastic voting rule in need of change is the Electoral College for presidential elections. The Electoral College is in fact a legacy of slavery — a bizarre voting scheme which was concocted to persuade the relatively low-population slave states to join the Union under the Constitution. This leads to strange situations. For example, Donald Trump has run for president three times, has won two of the elections, but has never won a majority of the popular vote.

We elect 50 governors and 100 senators with the popular vote; why not the president as well? Among other things, a popular vote would eliminate the possibility of mischief that we witnessed in the 2020 election with the “alternate slates of electors” and of course the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January 2021.

J.D. SAHR

Otis Orchards