What if we had election runoffs and no one (or very few voters) showed up? This reality faces voters, candidates, and election workers annually.
Statistics show a small percentage of voters participate in local elections and even fewer voters participate in runoffs. San Antonio city elections in 2021 drew just 17% of registered voters (and that was an above-average turnout) and less than 11% in the runoffs. Only 13% of registered voters cast a ballot in the most recent city elections.
The two San Antonio City Council races headed to runoffs not only face lower turnout, but the four candidates and many volunteers must fundraise to keep voter interest up, the city has to rent polling space again, deploy voting equipment and hire poll workers to repeat the voting effort in those two districts.
Ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, would avoid all this. In ranked-choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate wins a majority, your vote — without another visit to the polls — still counts in the runoff because you’ve already designated your other candidate preferences.
A candidate is declared the winner if they receive a majority of first-preference votes. If no candidate receives a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, along with the first-preference votes cast for that candidate, lifting the next-preference choices on those ballots. A new vote count is conducted to determine if a candidate has won the majority of first-preference votes after the adjustment. The process is repeated until a candidate gets a majority.
Ranked-choice voting has been recently adopted statewide in Maine and Alaska, and about 60 municipalities in the U.S. currently use the system. In Minneapolis, voter turnout for municipal elections has gone up since the adoption of ranked-choice voting in 2009, with voter turnout reaching 54% in the 2021 municipal election. New York City used ranked-choice voting in its 2021 municipal primaries and had its highest turnout in over 30 years.
Ranked-choice voting could be just as successful in San Antonio. Groups like Veterans for Political Innovation and Ranked Choice Voting for Texas are advocating for the adoption of the electoral system, and Texas state Rep. Vikki Goodwin introduced legislation that would implement ranked-choice voting in municipal elections in Texas. If you’re tired of returning to the polls for runoff elections, tell your elected officials to save time and money with ranked-choice voting.
