Ranked choice will only make Albuquerque elections worse

As we have previously noted, so-called “progressives” in the City of Albuquerque are licking their chops in expectation that a win by Mayor Keller and two additional left leaning candidates for city council would give them a working majority in city government. One of their many planned schemes is to dump the current runoff election model and bring in “ranked choice” voting as has been done in Santa Fe and Las Cruces.

They even have the temerity to use the $1.6 million cost of the runoff election as a justification.

Of course, ranked choice voting has its own problems which include complexity and possible delays in results. Recently, in the wake of their municipal elections in Santa Fe the article below highlighted how common confusion remains even after eight years.

But, if the $1.6 million runoff costs is a real concern for voters/city council (and it should be) we have plenty of ideas for reforming Albuquerque’s elections:

1. Eliminate the unfair public financing scheme. Keller was the only mayoral candidate to receive public financing meaning he had access to more than $1 million in taxpayer money for his campaign. This money was not available to other candidates.
2. The City has numerous community and senior centers around town. Rather than renting storefront space throughout the year for elections that occur only occasionally the City and State should save the $15 million spent annually on rented storefronts and use other existing facilities like existing government buildings for voting.
3. The runoff election which is at least as important as the original city election has only one week instead of two for in-person early voting. One week is plenty of time for voters to get out to the polls and vote early.
4. The City should end runoffs and revert back to “winner-takes-all” voting.