Take a deeper dive into ranked choice voting

Hello, Coloradoan subscribers.

Reporter Jacy Marmaduke here.

Fort Collins tends to be on the “early adopter” side of municipal government trends, and ranked choice voting may be no exception. A ballot measure asking voters if they want to switch to ranked choice elections appears likely for the city’s special election in November.

Ranked choice voting lets voters rank candidates by order of preference. Any candidate who gets more than 50% of people’s first-choice votes wins the race. If no one gets a majority, voters’ additional preferences are accounted for until a candidate has a majority of active ballots.

A local group, Ranked Choice Voting for Fort Collins, has been pushing council to put this on the ballot for over a year. As it’s gained traction, community members have expressed a mixture of support and opposition. Right-leaning political advocacy group Citizens for a Sustainable Economy has come out in opposition.

I’ve written a few stories about ranked choice voting, but this week I wanted to take a closer look at the nooks and crannies of the issue — arguments for and against it, data on how voters behave in ranked choice elections, analysis of how RCV could’ve influenced past local elections and more. I hope my story will have something to offer both for people new to the issue and for those who’ve already read up on it.

Voter turnout and voter education came up a lot during the reporting process. Nobody predicts ranked choice voting would be a panacea for Fort Collins’ historically low voter turnout, but some advocates hope it could be part of a broader effort to help prospective candidates and voters understand our local processes better.

I’ve always looked at election reporting as a way to speak to some of those same issues, especially when we journalists are able to edge away from the horse-race coverage and toward detailed, locally driven analysis of the issues. Thanks to our subscribers for consistently showing me that you appreciate that kind of coverage.

— Jacy Marmaduke, jmarmaduke@coloradoan.com

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Take a deeper dive into ranked choice voting