Your Constituents Call for Your Support for RCV

Please support recently submitted bills to enact Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in New Jersey. These are Assembly bill A5039 and Senate bill S3369 along with Senate Bill S1712. For whatever reason, the latter bill has no companion bill in the Assembly at this time. RCV is an important reform to maintain a healthy democracy. The challenges that we face with increasing hyper-partisanship threaten our system of self-governance. People are losing confidence in government. We need to embrace solutions which support and encourage engagement by voters. RCV has many advantages over the current first-past-the-post system. • Demonstrated to drive increased voter turnout • More positive campaigns that must appeal beyond a base of voters • Voters can choose preferred candidates without concern about wasting their vote • Political polarization is reduced • Candidates are elected with majority (more than 50%) voter support • Eliminates the need for costly and poorly attended run-off elections RCV has been enacted in Alaska and Maine at the state level along with numerous cities around the country where it has been used successfully. Historically, New Jersey has a track record of being in the forefront of initiating effective policy. It seems reasonable that RCV should be under strong consideration for the future of democracy in New Jersey.