An example ranked choice ballot from FairVote

Last month, CHS reported that, indeed, Seattle voters will vote on voting in November. After Thursday’s Seattle City Council special session, they will now have even more voting choices to choose from.

The council voted 8-1 7-2 for “ranked-choice voting” to join “approval voting” on a question to be put to voters on the November ballot. Seattle voters can also, of course, choose to keep things as they are. CORRECTION: The 8-1 tally was for a procedural vote related to the election.

• Approval voting: CHS reported here in June on the qualification for the fall ballot by Initiative 134 which would transform elections for mayor and the city council to a new approval voting format. The change move away from Seattle’s current “top two” primary election format to a new system in which voters would mark their ballots for as many of the candidates they want, a system the group Seattle Approves says results in a stronger, more widely supported set of candidates but opponents say will make voting in the city needlessly more complicated and could possibly monkeywrench better reforms.
• Ranked-choice voting: Addressing some of those concerns, the city council decision Thursday will add another option for Seattle voters to choose a “ranked-choice” system, instead. Under ranked-choice, voters rank candidates in order of preference and the results are tallied. The top two candidates that emerge from the combined voter pool ranking go through to the General Election.

Thursday, Councilmember Sara Nelson cast the one of the no votes against adding the ranked-choice option to join the approval voting on the fall ballot saying she was not taking a position for or against the change but objecting to the path the decision will take. Unlike backers of approval voting, advocates for ranked choice and Councilmember Lewis opted to piggyback on the signature gathering and initiative effort from Seattle Approves, a move Nelson said the council shouldn’t be making.

Debora Juarez joined her in opposition.

Both systems have support from groups claiming they provide more equitable results that better represent the electorate but the push for ranked-choice has a longer track record here.

CHS reported on stalled county efforts to implement the system in 2021. That summer, we ran a mock Seattle mayoral primary election in ranked-choice format. You can see the results here. Among the CHS participants, M. Lorena González and Andrew Grant Houston came out on top. Real-world winner Bruce Harrell didn’t fare as well in the mock but what it lacked in predictive power, the exercise hopefully made up for by showing how a ranked-choice election plays out with multiple rounds eliminating the lowest ranked candidates and distributing the rest of each ballot’s rankings until only two candidates remain.

If all of that sounds more complicated than simply tallying votes and declaring the top two vote getters the winners, you’re right. But the cost could be worth it. Advocates for ranked and approval voting say the systems more accurately capture voter preference and can eliminate the need for expensive runoff elections.

This fall, Seattle voters can decide if they are ready to make that trade.

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