Seattle City Council’s move to put RCV on ballot reflects widespread voter enthusiasm

This autumn, Seat­tle will be at the cen­ter of a live­ly debate con­cern­ing alter­na­tive vot­ing meth­ods after the City Coun­cil vot­ed to sub­mit a pro­posed ordi­nance to deploy ranked choice vot­ing (RCV) to the city­wide bal­lot along­side a cit­i­zen-spon­sored ini­tia­tive (I‑134) that would imple­ment approval voting.

The city’s nine-mem­ber leg­isla­tive body had the option of send­ing I‑134 to the bal­lot by itself or with an alter­na­tive that would give Seat­tle vot­ers a choice of vot­ing meth­ods. In a series of votes, the Coun­cil decid­ed that vot­ers ought to be able to con­sid­er both RCV and approval vot­ing at the same time.

NPI’s research sug­gests that vot­ers will wel­come this move by the Council.

In our first-ever poll of the Seat­tle elec­torate, con­duct­ed a year ago for NPI by Change Research, we found that two-thirds (66%) of like­ly 2021 vot­ers in Seat­tle were sup­port­ive of ranked choice vot­ing, while only 23% were opposed and 16% were not sure. That’s a mar­gin of near­ly three-to-one. 

Here’s the ques­tion we asked and the respons­es we received:

QUESTION: Seattle’s cur­rent plu­ral­i­ty vot­ing sys­tem requires peo­ple to vote for a sin­gle can­di­date in each con­test. Do you sup­port or oppose switch­ing to a ranked choice instant runoff sys­tem instead, allow­ing vot­ers to rank their favorite can­di­dates in order until a sin­gle can­di­date has a major­i­ty? Under this sys­tem, bal­lots would be count­ed in rounds where the last place can­di­dates for office would lose and the can­di­date with the most votes in the final round would win.

ANSWERS:

• Sup­port: 66% 
  • Strong­ly sup­port: 42%
  • Some­what sup­port: 24%
• Oppose: 23%
  • Some­what oppose: 7%
  • Strong­ly oppose: 16%
• Not sure: 11%

The sur­vey these answers are from, which was con­duct­ed by Change Research for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute dur­ing last year’s local elec­tion cycle, has a mod­eled mar­gin of error of 4.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence inter­val. All 617 respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ed online. The poll was in the field from Mon­day, July 12th, 2021 through Thurs­day, July 15th, 2021 — which was one year ago this week!

Ranked choice vot­ing and approval vot­ing are both types of what’s known as alter­na­tive vot­ing meth­ods. As their name sug­gests, they are ways of choos­ing elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives that dif­fer from the “first past the post” sys­tem cur­rent­ly in use in Seat­tle and across Wash­ing­ton State. Under the cur­rent sys­tem, vot­ers are lim­it­ed to vot­ing for just one can­di­date. The two can­di­dates with the most votes in the first round of Wash­ing­ton’s two-part gen­er­al elec­tion advance to a runoff, and then the can­di­date with the most votes is elected.

Alter­na­tive vot­ing meth­ods like RCV and approval vot­ing lib­er­ate from vot­ers from being lim­it­ed to vot­ing for a sin­gle can­di­date per office in each round of voting.

Here’s an expla­na­tion of RCV from Fair­Vote:

Ranked choice vot­ing (RCV) makes democ­ra­cy more fair and func­tion­al. It works in a vari­ety of con­texts. It is a sim­ple change that can have a big impact. RCV is a way to ensure elec­tions are fair for all vot­ers. It allows vot­ers the option to rank can­di­dates in order of pref­er­ence: one, two, three, and so forth. If your vote can­not help your top choice win, your vote counts for your next choice.

Here’s an expla­na­tion of approval vot­ing from the Cen­ter For Elec­tion Sci­ence:

Approval vot­ing is a sin­gle-win­ner vot­ing method that allows vot­ers to choose any num­ber of can­di­dates. The can­di­date cho­sen the most wins. Approval Vot­ing is most often dis­cussed in the con­text of sin­gle-win­ner elec­tions, but vari­a­tions using an approval-style bal­lot can also be applied to mul­ti-win­ner (at-large) elections.

RCV is the bet­ter known of the two alter­na­tives and is enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sup­port­ed by a lot of pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions that work on bal­lot access and vot­ing jus­tice. A pre­sen­ta­tion devel­oped for staff to the Seat­tle City Coun­cil notes it is used in New York for pri­maries there, which would be sim­i­lar to its intend­ed usage in Seat­tle if vot­ers were to adopt the Coun­cil’s alter­na­tive to Ini­tia­tive 134.

Dur­ing pub­lic com­ment ahead of today’s vote, NPI urged the Coun­cil to pass the ordi­nance and allow vot­ers to con­sid­er RCV in addi­tion to approval voting.

We believe that vot­ers will appre­ci­ate being giv­en a choice of alter­na­tive vot­ing meth­ods rather than being lim­it­ed to vot­ing up or down on just one.

The Emer­ald City is an ide­al can­di­date to pilot RCV in the Pacif­ic North­west. It’s a large juris­dic­tion with a more vibrant media land­scape and a his­to­ry of civic engage­ment. Because Seat­tleites are enthu­si­as­tic about try­ing alter­na­tive vot­ing meth­ods, there is a greater like­li­hood that the vot­ing pub­lic in the state’s largest city will be sup­port­ive and recep­tive when their bal­lots change.

Seat­tle’s embrace of an alter­na­tive vot­ing method this autumn could help dis­cour­age neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing, since future can­di­dates will hope that some­one who sup­ports anoth­er can­di­date will also con­sid­er vot­ing for them. Chang­ing how we choose our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives won’t solve the prob­lem of lack of civil­i­ty in our polit­i­cal dis­course, but dur­ing a time of tremen­dous polar­iza­tion, any reforms that make cam­paigns clean­er and elec­tions more pos­i­tive is of huge value.