Top choice: Having candidates to vote for rather than against. Choice #2: Having more candidates to choose among. Choice #3: Being able to vote for more than one candidate, in order of preference. Choice #4: Doing so in a way that doesn’t waste my vote by electing a candidate I oppose. Proponents of a new-ish system of holding elections are working to convince state lawmakers to give voters in cities like New Haven all four of those above choices. The system is called “ranked-choice voting.” It allows voters to choose as many candidates as they like on a ballot for an elected office, in order of preference. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the first-choice vote, then the lowest-performing candidate gets eliminated. That candidate’s voters’ second-choice picks are then added to those candidates in a subsequent round of tabulation, until someone reaches 50 percent. A bill now before the legislature, SB 386, would allow Connecticut cities and towns to use ranked choice in municipal elections and parties to use it for primaries and conventions. The General Administration and Elections (GAE) Committee passed it earlier this month. Now advocates are working to convince the Senate to take it up. That’s where the bill got stuck in the past. “I think we’ve got more work to build support, getting more folks to sign on to the bill, to show that it’s got momentum, to try to get it called for a vote in the Senate,” acknowledged New Haven State Rep. Steve Winter, who has helped lead the drive for ranked-choice voting in Connecticut for years. More than 50 cities, counties and states currently have some form of ranked-choice elections, including Alaska, Maine and New York City. Winter and Alden Okoh-Aduako, chair of Yale Students for Ranked Choice Voting, argued during an appearance Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program that the system encourages candidates to run positive issue-oriented rather than personal-attack campaigns so they won’t alienate supporters of other candidates who might rank them second or third. That also drives more people to the polls by combatting voter apathy and cynicism, while encouraging more people to run for office, they argued, offering Zohran Mamdani’s surprise New York City Democratic mayoral victory as Exhibit A. “More choice, more voices,” Winter summed it up. “When you give voters the ability to not have to pick between [the] lesser of two evils, when you give voters the ability to express their honest preferences and when candidates are running more positive issue-based campaigns, you see more people engaged in the civic process,” Okoh-Aduako argued. Gov. Ned Lamont has signaled support for SB 386, as have the mayors of Stamford, New Britain, Norwalk, Norwich, Bridgeport and Hartford. New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker told the Independent Thursday that he, too, supports the bill. Registrars of voters from around the state testified against the bill before the GAE committee vote. They argued that the system adds new burdens to municipal election officials already needing to adapt to a new statewide database system as well as early-voting rules. They called the process too confusing, leading to errors that will further erode public confidence in elections. Advocates who point to the results of elections like New York’s argue that voters have figured out the system easily. SB 386 is an “enabling” bill, meaning it wouldn’t require cities or towns to adopt the system, similar to the state law that allowed for publicly financed elections. (New Haven is the only city that made use of that law to create a public financing process.) This year’s version of the law does not cover elections for state or federal office. A legal opinion by state Attorney General William Tong — which killed the 2024 version of the bill — found that the legislature couldn’t mandate a ranked-choice system or cover state elections because the Connecticut constitution does not explicitly allow for it. Therefore the legislature would first need to undergo a years-long process to mandate it  — passing the suggested change with a 75 percent vote, or two 50 percent votes; then holding a referendum to approve it; then passing another law spelling out the details. (That process is is currently underway for “no-excuse” absentee balloting.) This year’s SB 386, by contrast, can be passed on its own … if advocates like Winter and Okoh-Aduako can convince enough lawmakers to sign on. Click on the below video to watch the full conversation on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” with ranked-choice advocates Steve Winter and Alden Okoh-Aduako. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.” The post Push On For Ranked-Choice Voting appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less