Hello everyone! For those who were looking for some guidance when phoning or emailing your Councillor about Monday's vote on Ranked Ballots, we've compiled a few "talking points":
How are ranked ballots better?
With ranked ballots, every vote counts! This helps fight voter apathy.
No candidate can win with less than 50% voter support. This improves community representation.
It encourages a wider field of candidates to run because it eliminates vote splitting. This increases diversity and provides more choice.
Who else uses ranked ballots?
Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK, several cities in the US.
The Academy Awards, Canada’s major political parties, NHL, NBA
OH! And Barrie City Council, when filling a council vacancy between elections
Is it a big job to switch?
Not really.
It’s the same basic system of voting, just a different tallying technique.
The company who provided the technology for our 2018 election has been running ranked ballot elections in Canada and the US for years.
The software takes seconds to run the calculations at the end of election day.
But what if I LIKE just voting for one candidate?
No problem. You can always still just pick one favourite if you prefer.
What's the rush?
Moving to ranked ballots is a way for Barrie City Council to signal its commitment to improving diversity and equality on council, to reflect the diversity seen in our community.
Ranked ballots are the leading edge of increasing civic engagement and improving democracy, because its the only tool that the province has given municipalities so far. We can switch for 2022 and lead alongside London, Cambridge, and Kingston... or we can be laggards.
