KALAMAZOO, Mich. — Election day is Tuesday, November 7, and people in Kalamazoo will get the chance to decide whether they want to rank certain candidates for future elections or stick to the process they know.
Rank MI Vote is an idea that would re-imagine how we vote for candidates— instead of just picking one, voters would rank candidates in order of preference.
Voters in Ann Arbor and Ferndale have already supported this method. Next Tuesday, voters in Kalamazoo, East Lansing and Royal Oak will also have their chance to approve or deny the initiative.
"We believe that ranked choice voting will enable other, different voices to be heard. Candidates can qualify to be on the ballot without the backing of a large political organization backing them up," Rank MI Vote Kalamazoo Volunteer Coordinator Christina Dorett explained.
Ranked choice voting would make future ballots look a lot different. Dorett says it will make room for candidates whose names don't always appear on the ballot.
"They could rank the smaller parties as a first choice, and rank the other party as the second choice, and then go to the more traditional choices as third or fourth," she explained.
After the first round, whichever candidate gets more than 50% of the votes, wins the race. However, if no one hits that mark, the person with the lowest number of votes gets eliminated. Then, people who voted for the eliminated candidate will have their second preference counted and the process repeats until there is a candidate with more than 50% of the vote.
"I just think that this means that you can have better choices, better solutions and hopefully, more unity and less negative campaigning," Dorett said.
Right now, this style of voting is not legal in Michigan. If state law were to change and the proposal were to pass, only then would ranked choice voting take place in Kalamazoo.
Dorett says if the proposal continues to be approved in cities across the state, it could apply pressure to state lawmakers.
