Assembly should vote no on ranked choice for local elections

Members of the CBJ Assembly:

I urge you to reject Ordinance 2025-13(c).  Please do not inflict ranked choice voting (RCV) on the Juneau voters. 

Since the Assembly meeting last summer when this issue was raised and I testified in opposition to its adoption, no new information or substantive rationale as to why Juneau needs RCV has been forthcoming.

There are several reasons to reject this ordinance:

• There has been no broad-based CBJ public demand for RCV;

• The sponsor of this ordinance has not made any compelling case as to why RCV is needed or is even beneficial to our local elections;

• RCV confuses a lot of voters, and is likely to discourage voter participation in our local elections;

• RCV will end up further delaying election results;

• Given the CBJ’s concern about lower sales tax revenues, RCV will increase the cost of our elections; and

• With the possible exception of only one election within any recent memory, RCV would not have made any difference in any election result.

This ordinance appears to try to fix a “problem” that does not exist.  Accordingly, please do not approve RCV for our local elections, rejecting this wasteful and unnecessary Ordinance 2025-13(c).

Thank you.

Tom Williams

Juneau