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Defending the power of our states since 2009
Save Our States Executive Director Trent England and the Rio Grande Foundation President Paul Gessing wrote about why ranked-choice voting is the wrong approach for New Mexico in the Albuquerque Journal.
Albuquerque’s “progressives” are at it again. Ever since Republican Richard “RJ” Berry won a three-way election for mayor in 2009 (against two Democrats), Albuquerque has had runoff elections requiring candidates to achieve more than 50% of the vote. These runoffs can be costly. The city spent $1.6 million to administer last year’s runoff election, which included the mayoral showdown between incumbent Tim Keller and challenger Darren White, along with two council races.
But progressives still aren’t happy. Now they are pushing so-called ranked choice voting. Final passage of this plan could come as soon as the April 6 council meeting.
The idea behind ranked choice voting is to get voters to express preferences about multiple candidates, rather than just voting for one. Ranked choice voting raises questions about one-person, one-vote, but that’s only the beginning of the problems. The system makes elections more difficult from start to finish, slowing the process and introducing new possibilities for errors and irregularities.
Read the full op-ed at the Albuquerque Journal's website.