New Jersey needs Ranked Choice Voting -- by Chris Adair

Thanks, Chris. Hoboken needs to push hard to get Annette Chaparro's bill out of the deep freeze. Let's do it. - GA

New Jersey needs Ranked Choice Voting
By Chris Adair

On November 6th Hoboken decisively voted to bring back old style runoffs which will require an additional election in the December holiday season if a candidate doesn’t win 50%. The city council spent a lot of time getting this on the ballot and there was a mysterious non profit group called "New Jersey Democracy in Action" that supported the ballot measure and had money to send out fancy fliers. It's unfortunate so much energy and money was spent on this flawed runoff ballot measure, when we could have been focusing on a real progressive alternative that is sitting in the NJ assembly.

NJ assembly bill A1801 would allow municipalities to implement Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) or Instant Run-off. RCV allows voters to choose candidates in order of preference from first to last, ballots are counted, the candidate in last place is eliminated and his/her votes are reassigned to the voters’ next choices. This process continues until a candidate wins a majority.

More than a dozen US cities have adopted RCV, including San Francisco; Santa Fe NM; Minneapolis; St. Paul; and Maine used it in their federal race just this month.

There are many reasons why RCV is better for our democracy:

• It encourages a variety of candidates to run by not defining anyone as a ‘spoiler’, giving us more voices during an election.
• It saves money for both taxpayers and candidates by eliminating a separate costly runoff.
•  It creates a more positive campaign cycle as candidates want to earn the 2nd or 3rd choice of voters who may support their rivals.
•  It improves voter turnout by consolidating the runoff to election day.

Our Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro has co-sponsored A1801 which is now in committee waiting to be scheduled for consideration. A1801 would allow voters in the State of New Jersey to have a stronger voice in their local elections. What can you do? Contact the Chair and Vice Chair of the assembly committee and encourage them to move this bill forward. I also suggest you ask your city council person to support RCV by lending their voice in the same way.

State and Local Government Committee

Assemblyman Vincent Mazzeo, Chair                   609-383-1388   
AsmMazzeo@njleg.org
tweet @VinceMazzeo

Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, Vice Chair    973-925-7063   
AswSumter@njleg.org
tweet @shavondasumter

Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro, District 33   201-683-7920   
AswChaparro@njleg.org
tweet@AChaparro33

For more information on RCV go to Fairvote.org
and check out this video from the Washington Post

ASSEMBLY BILL A-1801 

PERMITTING INSTANT RUN-OFFS FOR CERTAIN LOCAL ELECTIVE OFFICES

NJ Assembly Bill A-1801 (2018-2019) : Sponsored by Annette Chaparro by GrafixAvenger on Scribd