Early, ranked choice voting gain attention in Royal Oak, Michigan ahead of 2023 election

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(Detroit Free Press) What’s rushed, wasteful, repetitive and has limited choices? Of course, fast food.

But critics also cite something far more important: the way Americans vote.

To improve voting in ways that Canada and other nations have done — make it less rushed, less costly to taxpayers, less repetitive and more open to minor candidates — there’s a movement underway. This fall, two new approaches are getting attention in Royal Oak and elsewhere around Michigan:

* Early voting is the term for giving people more than just one day to vote. It’s nothing new in other countries. Canadians can vote as early as 10 days before the official election day. Those in Finland can start 11 days ahead. In Royal Oak, voters will get nine days to vote in advance of Election Day on Nov. 7. In nearly two dozen other communities in Oakland County, and in scattered other places such as Westland, election officials are trying early voting this fall, as a rehearsal before Michigan adopts early voting statewide in 2024 — the result of Michiganders passing Proposition 2 in the 2022 election.

* Ranked choice voting is an approach that does away with the traditional all-or-nothing system. It caught on in Ireland, Australia, Alaska, Maine, and New York City. Voters mark their first choice, as usual, but also their second choice, third choice, and so on. By a process of elimination, the ultimate winner is more likely to represent what most voters want. Ranked choice also lets minor parties challenge the two-party system because voters who give their first choice to, say, a Libertarian or Green Party candidate, still get to vote for other preferences, avoiding the guilty feeling that “I threw my vote away” on someone who couldn't win.

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The other new approach to voting in Royal Oak is just an idea, so far, but it's a question on the city's November ballots. Voters will be asked whether their city should allow ranked choice voting. Volunteers gathered 3,000 signatures to put that question on city ballots, said Ron Zimmerman, an East Lansing resident who heads the nonpartisan, nonprofit RankMiVote. Ranked choice voting, wherever communities approve it, brings more people out to vote, gives third-party candidates a boost, and reduces negative campaigning because candidates don't want to alienate anyone who might make them a second choice, Zimmerman said. It can even save taxpayer dollars by eliminating some primary elections. ............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2023/10/09/early-voting-ranked-choice-royal-oak-michigan/71074080007/

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1. I like the

reduces negative campaigning part.