The Pierce County Auditor’s Office just released the first unofficial ranked choice voting results for the three-way auditor’s race. The results show Julie Anderson would win the race if the RCV calculations were based on the votes currently counted.

Anderson has 49 percent of the first-place votes in early returns. If she doesn’t finish with a majority of votes when all votes are counted, the RCV “algorithm” kicks on.

Under this unofficial scenario, third-place Will Baker would be eliminated, and his supporters’ second-choice votes would be considered. The calculation released by the auditor’s office shows Anderson getting enough votes from Baker supporters to finish with 55 percent of the vote, with incumbent Jan Shabro getting about 45 percent.

Keep in mind, the ranked choice voting results don’t mean anything until every vote is counted. That likely will be at least several days.

See the initial tally on the jump of this post.

Read more »

As I reported today, Pierce County voters are considering whether to repeal ranked choice voting just three years after adopting it. But they’re not the only ones considering the voting system.

Voters in St. Paul, Minn., will decide whether to adopt the system next month. Minneapolis voters already have approved the system and will use it for the first time.

Here’s an article on ranked choice voting from Saturday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press. It quotes Pierce County Auditor Jan Shabro:

“It took a year of preparation and $750,000 in software,” said County Auditor Jon Shabro, who supplied facts

…

Read more »

The right to vote is priceless. But exercising that right in Pierce County this year may cost you 61 cents.

Auditor Jan Shabro confirmed that’s the estimated cost of postage for mailing this November’s absentee ballot. The reason? The ballot includes two cards: one for the lone county ranked choice voting race (for auditor) and one for everything else.

Shabro said there was no way to design one card for all races.

“If you were to examine our regular ballot, you would see it is full (nine countywide measures and local measures as well),” she said. “There’s no room left …

Read more »