In March, the Park City Council approved switching from a primary election system to ranked choice voting. Ranked choice eliminates the primary, and voters get to rank the candidates as a first choice, second, third, etc. If nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, the first choices are set aside and votes reallocated to the second choices.
The math involved in the counting sounds difficult, and I suspect it would be if the votes were counted by hand. But they are counted by a computer. Assuming the software hasn’t been compromised by Italian space lasers, the multiple rounds of counting would happen quickly.
The claimed benefits are that it eliminates the cost of a primary election for both the city paying for the election and the candidates. In a non-partisan race like City Council, I’m not sure it makes a lot of difference. In a race that is partisan, the primary system is designed to limit participation to registered party members. That pushes the most extreme candidates to the general election. If your first choice is running as a Democrat, and your second choice is a Republican, you don’t get to vote that way.
Proponents of ranked choice claim that it results in more civil elections because no candidate wants to drive away voters who might choose them as a second choice by really attacking other candidates. I don’t think there is enough experience with that to really know, but anything that dilutes the toxic influence of the two organized crime syndicates that are our controlling political parties would be fine with me.
The council approved it with a 3-to-1 vote with one absence. It was not particularly controversial, though the meetings discussing it were well attended. The election deadlines fell into place. People considering running for office didn’t need to plan summer vacations around the Aug. 12 primary.
It was an interesting decision, mostly because getting any decision about anything out of this City Council is extremely rare. And apparently the systemic shock of actually doing something was too much for the council. They came down with a case of the vapors. So on Monday, in an emergency special meeting, the council abruptly reversed direction.
I don’t live in the city limits and can’t vote in the election. I really don’t have strong feelings about the issue one way or the other. But the whiplash of the reversal just days before a state-imposed deadline is weird. The meeting was messy and unpleasant. It seems tinfoil hat season has come early this year.
In the county, we are dealing with the Legislature’s latest effort to mess with Summit County. They passed a bill that requires dividing the county into five districts of roughly equal population, and electing one council member from each district. That one bothers me.
Right now, I get to vote in a County Council election every two years, and over the four-year cycle, I get to vote on all five spots. All five council members are answerable to me.
With districts, I will only be able to vote for one council member every four years. The other four council members can completely ignore me. That sounds like less accountability rather than more.
There aren’t preliminary maps of the districts. The theory is that the East Side, stretching from my house in Woodland all the way to Henefer on the other end, plus two sheep herders on the North Slope of the Uintas, will have enough combined population that there will be a council member elected from the East Side. Or the districts could be drawn like the Utah congressional districts, and combine my neighborhood with Old Town Park City.
I can’t remember a time when the council or previous commission didn’t include a member who lived on the East Side. They have included some really strong council members. You couldn’t do better than Dave Ure, Sheldon Richins, Ken Woolstenhulme, and current council member Tonja Hanson. Doug Clyde (no relation) and Pat Cone also served from the East Side, and while they were sometimes out of sync with the more conservative residents, nobody was ignored.
I’ve lived on the East Side for 40 years. When I’ve had an issue with the delivery of County services, there have always been 5 responsive council members to call. Anybody running for office who didn’t campaign on the East Side took a risk. There may not be enough votes here to turn somebody out of office, but there are more than enough to tip a moderately close race. I may not see a council member at church (partly because I don’t go), but they are always phone call away.
The idea that there is some insurmountable divide along Highway 40 is silly. The entire county has been economically tied since the beginning. Sawmills in Woodland provided mine timbers and finished lumber for Park City. Coal from Coalville powered the mines. Milk and cheese from dairies all over the East Side fed Park City. Today, there are darn few households on the East Side that don’t have somebody making a living on the West.
The complaint seems to be that it’s hard to get a Republican elected in Summit County. That’s true. It’s hard to get a Democrat elected to a state office in Utah. That’s how it works.
Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.
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