In the News
February 16, 2023
In this article, members of the Montgomery County Women’s Democratic Club Ad Hoc Committee on Advancing Democracy in Maryland discuss why the ranked choice voting system would benefit Montgomery County, Maryland, citing RepresentWomen's research. Read an excerpt below:
Ranked choice voting is one of Our Common Purpose’s 31 recommendations, and Montgomery County could be a test case for the rest of the state. Ranked-choice voting represents an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. If a candidate wins a majority of first preference votes, they are declared the winner. If no candidate wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, lifting next preference choices, and the process is repeated until one candidate wins a majority. In an era where many races include multiple candidates, this is a needed reform.
Why?
Ranked-choice voting incentivizes positive campaigning. Ranked-choice voting creates incentives for candidates to appeal more broadly and to aim to be at least a voter’s second choice, if not their first. Ranked-choice voting motivates candidates to reach out to voters they might have ignored under plurality rules, and to behave with civility toward competitors.
Ranked-choice voting ensures that a winning candidate has majority support. In our current voting system, candidates can win — and too often do — with less than a majority vote. This is undemocratic and corrodes responsiveness to the electorate, and responsiveness by the electorate. Under ranked-choice voting, winning candidates must achieve 50% +1 of the votes cast, making voters feel their voices are heard.
Ranked-choice voting benefits women candidates and candidates of color. Maryland gets a D grade on Represent Women’s June 2022 Gender Parity Index, which tracks all 50 states on progress towards parity in elective office. Research results to date show that women candidates fare better in jurisdictions that use ranked-choice voting and a Fair Vote study said both candidates and voters who are people of color benefit from ranked-choice voting.
The Women’s Democratic Club has continued to endorse versions of this bill since the 2019 legislative session, but it has never made it to a floor vote. In Montgomery County, ranked-choice voting is supported by the Montgomery County Council, county legislative delegation, League of Women Voters, Do the Most Good, Sierra Club, and Our Revolution.
Read the full article here.
