Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo) Announces Support For More Choice San Diego

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: [email protected]

Attn: Ed Chaplin

Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance (MoGo) Announces Support For More Choice San Diego

San Diego, Calif. - More choice, more diverse ideas, more civil elections, and now... more support!

The broad and ideologically diverse coalition, More Choice San Diego, has added a powerful new voice to its growing list of supporter 

MoGo San Diego is now a proud supporter of More Choice San Diego’s efforts to bring Ranked Choice Voting to San Diego. MoGo joins the League of Women Voters San Diego, San Diego’s Independent Voter Project (author of 2016’s successful Measure K), Fairvote, Represent.us, Represent Women, the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, and independent Councilman Mark Kersey.

MoGo Exectuive Director Geneviéve L. Jones-Wright, Esq., LL.M wrote, “MoGo’s mission is to engage in litigation and various forms of advocacy in order to create systemic change and make Government more just and fully accountable to all people. The More Choice SD proposal will give voters more choices, empower more candidates, and make representatives more accountable to more people in a way that ensures that important community voices and issues are not marginalized by the larger political narrative and forces.”

Ranked Choice Voting is not new. It’s been enacted for some elections in 18 U.S. cities and the State of Maine.

How RCV Works

As a voter you can still vote for only one candidate in the November General election, or you can rank the four candidates in order of preference (first choice, second choice, and so on). If no candidate receives a majority of first place votes, the candidate with the least number of votes is defeated. If that candidate was your first choice your vote is automatically transferred to your second choice. This process is repeated until a candidate has a majority of the vote.

Under the proposal, elections for San Diego mayor, city attorney and City Council would be decided by Ranked Choice Voting starting in 2022.

The group has submitted the proposal to City Clerk Liz Maland which reads in part:

“to amend Article II Section 10 of the City Charter to advance the top four candidates, instead of two, to the general election and adding a Section 10.5 to provide Ranked Choice Voting in the general election.”

Elected Officials Praise Ranked Choice Voting

In a time when our politics are so polarized and partisan, elected officials agree, Ranked Choice Voting will help remove some of that campaign vitriol and mudslinging.

Mark Kersey, who became an independent last year after leaving the Republican Party said, “It’s harder to run a really negative campaign when you also have to focus on getting people’s second-choice votes. This reform is something that is catching on around the nation as voters get increasingly sick of partisan bickering,” said Kersey.

Congressman Scott Peters, who sees the national vitriol working in Washington D.C., agreed with Kersey that the switch would lead to “nicer,” more respectful campaigns.

“I think it’s time to end the ‘light-switch,’ binary system we have; this reform would force candidates to say something like ‘I know you like Jim; I just hope you’ll rank me second,’” said Peters.

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