Jacob Gardner, our guest speaker, October 2, 2018, is a Radiologist at KGH and is involved in the Ranked Ballot initiative and is here to tell us about it.
I went to Ottawa when I was 17 as part of Adventures in Citizenship.
We are currently use a first-past-the-post system for civic elections in Kingston. This splits the vote across those running on the popular issue.
A ranked-ballot system is being proposed in which voters rank all the candidates, first to last, and the race is run over and over, each time eliminating the last person, until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote.
This sets up for a more civil election.
You shouldn’t have to vote "the least of the evils." There is no strategic voting with ranked ballot– you don’t have to vote for someone you don’t want.
The ranked ballot system allows newer candidates to thrive.
The referendum question will be on the ballot of the upcoming mayoral and district rep election.
For more information, see: Ranked Ballots--City of Kingston.