The South Salt Lake City Council unanimously approved ranked choice voting for its 2025 elections. 

After initially being presented with the idea in late 2018 for the city to consider its use, ranked choice has been South Salt Lake’s voting method the last two cycles, 2021 and 2023. 

“We have been successful with those so we would like to do that again in 2025,” City Recorder Ariel Andrus explained during a February council meeting. 

The city is required to provide written notice to the lieutenant governor and the Salt Lake County clerk by May 1 of the council’s majority vote in order to participate. 

Andrus said the method has proven $10-15K cheaper with no primary election held in the summer before the general election held in November. Cost for this year’s race is determined by how many cities participate. Midvale unanimously approved its participation in February as well. 

Negative feedback was minimal in 2021 and 2023, according to Andrus, who from her assessment felt voters adapted well. In her memo to the mayor and council accompanying the resolution she added “candidates have generally expressed support for the system with a shortened campaign period, which in turn can be a cost savings to those candidates. Overall, the RCV process has been positive for the city.”

How ranked choice voting works:

1. Voter ranks candidates A, B and C for first, second and third place. Jane Doe ranks her votes in this order – C, A, B. 

2. If no candidate reaches 51 percent then whoever is in third place would be eliminated. For example: candidate A is 40 percent, B is 35 and C is 25, then candidate C would be eliminated. 

3. Since Jane Doe’s candidate C was eliminated, her vote would then go to A, her second choice. 

4. This process would occur until a candidate reaches a majority. 

The council expressed no reservations with a unanimous vote. 

“Ranked choice voting has been a pleasant surprise,” Councilmember Sharla Bynum said. 

Elected seats up for grabs this year will be for Mayor, District 2, District 3 and a council at-large seat. 

Ranked choice voting works like this: instead of choosing one candidate as is currently done, you would instead rank them in first place, second place, and so on. If no candidate reaches 51%, a clear majority, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Those who voted for the eliminated candidate would then see their votes assigned to their second choice. This continues until one someone has the majority. 

Proponents of the method point to three primary benefits of the ranked choice system. First, a more informed resident as voters would need to be familiar with all candidates. Second, more civil campaigns since candidates would want to appeal to as many voters as possible. Third, the city would need to run only one election, jettisoning the primary election held in June. λ