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LETTER: It's time to try ranked ballots in municipal elections!

Ramara reader advocates for fairer system, says it worked this week in London
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OrilliaMatters received the following letter from Konrad Brenner in response to results from this week's municipal election.

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Now that the elections are over and the local municipal clerks had a few nights sleep, they should turn their minds to the next election. Specifically to ranked voting!

I suggest they submit a report to their respective councils on the cost and advantages of the ranked voting system. The above suggestion is made for two reasons.

London ran its municipal election on the ranked balloting system and the sky did not fall in and nobody is running to the courts about it being unfair.

The other reason is the results of the recent election in the writer’s community.

We had six positions in which there were more than two candidates. In two, the winner had clear majorities, but in the other four, the winning percentage ranged from 36% to 44% based on the valid votes cast.

In other words, one person won with about 1/3 of the voters’ support. Ranked voting would guarantee that the winner had some support at the 50% level.

Konrad Brenner
Ramara Township

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