Like any good host, Donna Ward, president of Montclair’s League of Women Voters, offered a smorgasbord of treats to those who attended her event last month.
But these cookies weren’t just there to satisfy an after-dinner sugar craving. As the guests arrived at the Montclair Public Library, they sampled five different flavors — including snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, and balls of cookie dough, all homemade by league members — then ranked their favorites on a ballot.
In an effort to promote rank-choice voting, Ward teamed up with nonprofit Voters Choice NJ to host an information session to demonstrate how it works.
“It’s a pleasant way to learn about what could be a dry subject,” Ward said.
The event was timely as both Montclair and South Orange have passed resolutions in support of rank-choice voting. But no changes to local elections can be made until the state legislature passes a bill allowing it. In the meantime, local advocacy groups are banding together to build support for the change.
“That’s part of the reason we put together these types of events,” said April Nicklaus, Education and Outreach Team Leader for Voters Choice NJ. “Because change isn’t just going to happen.”
There was no shortage of questions from the 52 participants, suggesting that people are interested in this new form of voting but may still be wrestling with how it works and the possible implications on local elections.
The way elections currently work, presidential elections aside, the highest vote-getter wins even if that candidate represents a small percentage of votes. In Hoboken’s 2017 mayoral election, Ravi Bhalla was elected with only 34.6 percent of the vote.
Hoboken Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, who was at the League of Women Voters event, said that the race nine years ago left a bitter taste in the mouths of voters.
“What rank choice voting does is it lets more people participate in the choice and more people are happy afterwards,” Fisher added. “It can change how you feel about the people you elected.”
Rank choice not only requires that the winner gets a majority vote, it also allows voters to rank candidates in the order of their preference, instead of only getting one vote. If a candidate gets a majority of votes in the first round, then the election is over and rank choice never comes into play.
However, if no majority is reached, the lowest vote-getter gets tossed out, and those who vote for the eliminated candidate see their second choice tallied. The process is repeated until a majority is reached.
Michael Halasnik, a volunteer with Voter Choice NJ — which NJ Appleseed lawyer Renee Steinhagen formed in 2020 — believes the current winner-takes-all system “discourages a lot of people from considering running who might otherwise be good candidates” and could lead to voter apathy.
“When people don’t feel like their votes matter, they’re probably not going to show up to the polls either,” he said.
Richard Martha, a resident of Orange in attendance, believes that rank-choice voting could be a solution to dismal voter turnout where he lives. In the 2024 mayoral election, only 2,676 voters went to the polls, in a town with 9,572 registered voters that year.
“You don’t live in a democracy when the voter turnout is so low,” he said.
This new system of voting could also result in savings for local governments, as it would no longer require them to pay for runoff elections, Halasnik said.
“Rank-choice voting is the equivalent of a run-off election because you instantly have the next choice available,” he said. “You don’t have to bring out the machines again.”
Now, to the important question. Which of the five cookies won? After the first three rounds in which snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, chocolate doughball were eliminated, chocolate ganache cookies barely beat out the almond flour ones.
“I thought it was a great way to demonstrate this,” said Grace Friend, who came to the event with her husband, Bob.
Ever since the 2000 presidential election, when she voted for Ralph Nader, she has been fearful of voting for spoiler candidates. But in rank-choice voting there are no spoilers.
“This solves that problem,” Friend said.
