Salt Lake City voters get to rank up to three candidates in this year’s mayoral race, but incumbent Mayor Erin Mendenhall is spending money to make sure residents know they don’t have to do so.
Mailers the Mendenhall campaign sent to voters ahead of Election Day have encouraged residents to rank her as the first candidate on ranked choice voting ballots. She is trying to fend off former Mayor Rocky Anderson and advocate Michael Valentine.
“You are not required,” the mailers state, “to rank a #2 or #3 choice.”
Ranked choice voting is being used for the first time in a Salt Lake City mayoral race this year. The format allows voters to rank their preferences in races that have more than two candidates.
Mendenhall campaign manager Ian Koski said the decision to include information about voters not being required to rank multiple candidates was made to clear up a new process.
“It appears that there are a healthy number of voters who are intimidated by ranked choice voting,” Koski said, “and hadn’t returned their ballots because of that, because of some confusion and uncertainty as to what’s involved.”
The campaign, he said, is just trying to reduce confusion and encourage voters to return those ballots. There’s no strategy behind telling voters they don’t have to rank more than one candidate, he added.
“Certainly, we have not encouraged anyone to not choose a second or third (candidate),” he said. “It’s people’s choice. If you’re comfortable with voting for all three, vote for all three. That’s great. It’s your choice.”
Ranked choice voting allows voters to select candidates in preferential order, with their first-choice candidate claiming the No. 1 ranked spot. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated and the remaining selections on those ballots are redistributed to the remaining candidates.
Because there are three candidates in this year’s mayoral race, there will be one redistribution of votes. Second- and third-choice candidates on ballots that feature Mendenhall as the first choice will be redistributed only if the incumbent mayor receives the fewest first-preference votes.
Matthew Burbank, a political science professor at the University of Utah, said the Mendenhall campaign’s mailers may be educational, but could also be strategic.
“For Mendenhall’s campaign, what they’re concerned with is just that there could be this kind of anti-incumbency vote, and it’s going to get split between these two candidates [Anderson and Valentine],” he said. “In an ordinary election, where you only need to vote once, you don’t worry about that. But with ranked choice voting, you may well have to worry about that.”
In short, Burbank explained, if Valentine’s bid fails in the first round, his voters’ second choice — if it’s a vote against the incumbent — may give Anderson the boost he needs to defeat Mendenhall.
At one point, Valentine backed Anderson as a second-choice candidate. He has since withdrawn that support.
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