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The Urban Jungle
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Time for Ranked Ballots

London Ontario was the first city in Ontario to use ranked ballots in the October 22, 2018 election. The unofficial results are at this link.

The results from the London Free Press from this link.

UPDATE, TUESDAY: Maureen Cassidy (Ward 5) and Anna Hopkins have been re-elected. Newcomer Steve Lehman wins vacant Ward 8 seat. Steve Hillier has won Ward 14 from Jared Zaifman. Paul Van Meerbergen takes back Ward 10 from Virginia Ridley. Arielle Kayabaga wins downtown Ward 13.
​
And from London CTV from this link.

London Mayor

Round Fourteen
Unofficial Winner: Ed Holder
Candidate Vote Change Grand Total
Ed Holder 13,236 57,609
Exhausted 17,825
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W. K. Lis said:
London Ontario was the first city in Ontario to use ranked ballots in the October 22, 2018 election. The unofficial results are at this link.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. A quick glance at Mayor and all councillor positions shows an exact match to what first-past-the-post would have resulted in, assuming the electorate voted their #1 spot the same way (no strategic voting).
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
If people refuse to vote, then they're giving their consent to be ruled by the people who actually did vote.
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That's a nice sentiment, but with FPTP voting, many votes and voters are pointless. I live in Toronto Centre, if I'm not voting NDP or Liberal, there's no point in me voting.
 
Should be remembered that in ranked ballots, one does not need to select a #2 or #3. Just by staying with a #1 selection, one is staying with the "first past the post" selection.

When Thunder Bay was amalgamated from the merging of former cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, they had a selection of three names. The results were: "Thunder Bay" with 15,870, "Lakehead" with 15,302, and "The Lakehead" with 8,377. With a ranked ballot, likely the result would be different. See link.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
Should be remembered that in ranked ballots, one does not need to select a #2 or #3. Just by staying with a #1 selection, one is staying with the "first past the post" selection.

When Thunder Bay was amalgamated from the merging of former cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, they had a selection of three names. The results were: "Thunder Bay" with 15,870, "Lakehead" with 15,302, and "The Lakehead" with 8,377. With a ranked ballot, likely the result would be different. See link.
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If there were a ranked ballot there, the city would be called Lakehead and the university Thunder Bay University.
 
New York just embraced a revolutionary voting system that if widely adopted would change American politics forever

From link.

On Tuesday, New Yorkers passed a ballot measure implementing ranked-choice voting in primary and special elections — a dramatic shift that could have big implications for future elections.

Under a ranked-choice system, voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference. If no single candidate wins a majority of the vote, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the votes for that person are redistributed to the voters' next preferred candidate. That process of elimination continues until one candidate clinches a majority. Voters can rank anywhere between one and five candidates.

New York's new voting system was approved with more than 73% of the vote and will be implemented in 2021. The adoption of ranked-choice voting in the biggest city in the country is a signal the system could catch on across America in coming years.

Proponents of ranked-choice voting cite a host of benefits the system offers. They argue the system will eliminate the risks of less popular "spoiler" candidates who benefit in crowded races when their opponents split the vote. And it will get rid of costly runoff elections, while encouraging more candidates to run and, as a result, more voters to get to the polls.

They also point to evidence that candidates will shy away from attacking their opponents, particularly those whose supporters they believe overlap with their own, because they're motivated to appeal to a broad swath of the electorate. And they cite studies that show that more women and people of color run under ranked-choice voting, in part because of the reduction in negative campaigning.

The system is already in use in nearly 20 other American cities, including San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Minneapolis. Maine is expanding ranked-choice voting to the 2020 presidential election. But New York is by far the most populous area to approve ranked-choice voting and will triple the number of people across the country who vote this way.

The plurality voting system, also called "first-past-the-post" or "winner takes all," is used by most of the US. Ranked-choice voting is used in democratic elections around the world, including in Australia's legislative elections, the UK's mayoral elections, and Ireland's parliamentary, presidential, and local elections.
Click to expand...
AOC and Yang support ranked-choice voting
Some high-profile Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and presidential candidate Andrew Yang, support ranked-choice voting. Ocasio-Cortez called it "pretty cool" in a tweet encouraging New Yorkers to vote in Tuesday's elections. Yang said he wants to make the system "the norm" across America.

However, some Democrats and many Republicans take issue with ranked-choice voting. Critics say the system can confuse voters and make ballot counting more complicated. Some are concerned about "ballot exhaustion," which occurs when voters' don't rank all of the candidates, including those that make it to the final round of ballot counting. This means they ultimately don't have a voice in choosing between the two most popular candidates.
Click to expand...
 
Toronto council opens door to switching to ranked ballots for 2022 election

Council voted 14-11 Wednesday to direct city staff to lay the groundwork for a potential change to ranked ballots for the 2022 civic election, including a report on implications of the change and holding “multiple open houses” as part of a “thorough” public consultation process.


https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...hing-to-ranked-ballots-for-2022-election.html
 
salsa said:
Toronto council opens door to switching to ranked ballots for 2022 election

Council voted 14-11 Wednesday to direct city staff to lay the groundwork for a potential change to ranked ballots for the 2022 civic election, including a report on implications of the change and holding “multiple open houses” as part of a “thorough” public consultation process.


https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...hing-to-ranked-ballots-for-2022-election.html
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Waste of time.

It'll probably just enjoy the same fate as the ward boundary changes/increase.

We need constitutional change. Even having a supposedly willing provincial government doesn't help as seen with the whole road tolls fiasco when we were shut down by the Liberal government of the time (Liberals: always most interested in clinging to power, not principles).
 
SunriseChampion said:
Waste of time.

It'll probably just enjoy the same fate as the ward boundary changes/increase.

We need constitutional change. Even having a supposedly willing provincial government doesn't help as seen with the whole road tolls fiasco when we were shut down by the Liberal government of the time (Liberals: always most interested in clinging to power, not principles).
Click to expand...

London, Ontario (you know, the one in Canada, not in the United Kingdom) used the ranked ballot for their 2018 city election.

See link.

London’s ranked ballot election went ‘smoothly’: city staff

See link.

We know who’s been voted in, and we know who’s been voted out, but what’s the consensus on Canada’s first ranked-ballot election?

“I’m pleased that the ranked ballot portion of the election went as smoothly as it did. It went as I’d hoped it would go. So that’s a relief,” said city clerk Cathy Saunders.

Her advice to any other municipalities who adopt the system is to communicate both to the community, and to the candidates.

“One of the most important things is to get out into the community and have the elector aware of the ranked choice so that they can be prepared… we did over 160 events between March and September, out in the community.”
Click to expand...

Much was decided after the first round votes were distributed: familiar faces and two new faces secured 50 per cent +1 of the vote, learning of their victory just hours after the polls closed Monday night.

But after that, election staff went home for the evening and began subsequent rounds of counting at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Though many speculated Ed Holder would become mayor because of a wide 11,000-vote margin after the first round, his win wasn’t announced until 2 p.m that day.

“Kudos to city clerk Cathy Saunders, the first clerk in Canada to use ranked ballots,” said Dave Meslin, who has been advocating for the electoral system as part of 123 Ontario and Unlock Democracy Canada.

“London is really showing how a more authentic election can unfold. Where you say ‘OK, no one has a majority, let’s drop off the candidate with the least and see what happens.'”
Click to expand...

An advantage to the ranked ballot system, says Meslin, is that it gives voters more say in whoever becomes their elected official.

“I was looking at the Toronto results, where tons of candidates won their seats with 30 per cent, 25 per cent. Which is crazy, those are literally people who now represent wards where most people didn’t want them.”

Meslin’s biggest concern was that it would take days for the results to come out. In some American cities, counting was done manually “with stacks of paper ballots,” or “with Excel spreadsheets.” But Meslin said London took a much better route, using automatic tabulating machines.

“The only reason there’s a delay is because the clerk is verifying each round to make sure the machine isn’t making a mistake.”

Cambridge and Kingston both voted in favour of adopting the ranked-ballot system for their next municipal elections after the question was put to a referendum on Monday. However, the result in Cambridge is not binding, due to low voter turnout.

Whether London will use the system again is unclear. Newly elected mayor Ed Holder told media after his win was announced that the system had its flaws, and he’s interested in talking to councillors, civic administration, and the city about what they liked, didn’t like and wanted to improve about the ranked-ballot system.
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Yes, I know, but London isn't beloved of Uncle Doug.

Toronto couldn't do its own thing under Wynne and still can't under Ford.

It's likely a waste of time.
 
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