July 30, 2017

Memphis adopts ranked choice voting

Commercial Appeal - When Memphis voters head to the polls to pick their City Council members in 2019, they won't have to worry about participating in the costly, often inconvenient runoff election.

Ten years after voters approved instant runoffs, the Shelby County Election Commission plans to begin ranked choice voting for council elections in October 2019, Elections Administrator Linda Phillips said Thursday. The change means Memphis voters will rank their top three choices in the general election, sidestepping a runoff. How it works

Voters will pick three candidates as their first, second and third choice. Election machines will count the first choices; if no candidate receives a majority of votes, election staff will eliminate the candidate with the fewest votes. Staff will then recount, adding in the second choices of voters whose first pick was eliminated. That process will repeat until a candidate has received a majority of the votes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

National Instant Runoff Voting and the elimination of the electoral college will see the introduction of a viable third party of the people to politics and the beginning of democracy in the USA.