Ranked Choice Voting in Salem: Benefits, challenges, and what it means for you.

Monday, August 11, 2025, 6:00pm to 8:00pm

The Community Life Center, 401 Bridge Street, Salem MA 01970

The Salem League of Women Voters, Voters Choice Massachusetts and Salem RCV are hosting a multimedia event about ranked choice voting in future Salem municipal elections. With this event, we hope to:

Start broader discussions in Salem about the question of adopting ranked choice voting for local elections,
Inform Salem voters and candidates for municipal office about how RCV works and address questions they might have about it, and
Discuss the process of getting ranked choice voting approved for use in Salem.

The event will include showing the 30-minute movie, "Majority Rules 101," about ranked choice voting in Alaska. Following the movie, we will have a brief Q&A and audience discussion of the movie, and then a panel presenting information about the potential for RCV in Salem and next steps for the City Council and Salem residents on the question of adopting ranked choice voting for local elections, and more Q&A.

Our distinguished panel includes:

Ed Shoemaker, Executive Director, Ranked Choice Boston & Voter Choice Massachusetts
Greg Dennis, Founding Member, Voter Choice Massachusetts
Andy Varela, Salem City Councillor, Ward 7
Manny Cruz, State Representative, Salem

This event is open to the public and may be recorded for future viewing on SATV.

Opinion: So the State turned down other city and towns' Home Rule Petitions; does this mean there is no viable path forward for RCV in Salem?

Maybe not, but it may be in another form.

As of this date, City Councillor, Andy Varela is still moving forward with putting Ranked Choice Voting as a question on the November 2025 ballot simply asking the voters of Salem if they would want it or not. The proposed language for the ballot question might be amended then must be approved by the City Council before it can become a ballot question. Andy's proposal for Salem RCV encompasses single seat elections for Mayor and Ward Councillors as well as multi-seat elections for Councillors At Large and the School Committee. Having a consensus by the voters on RCV would be important for our local representatives to decide whether or not to submit a Home Rule Petition on RCV to the state legislature or perhaps pursue another viable path should one arise. Boston is continuing to pursue the HRP path through City Council so not everyone is giving up on this process.

Partners in Democracy is taking on the statewide effort of Democracy renovation. PID is concerned about our state legislature's ineffectiveness in serving its constituents. Danielle Allen is leading this state wide push.

Among many voter reforms on their 2024 legislative agenda they support H.711, An Act providing a local option for ranked choice voting in municipal elections. This bill would allow communities to adopt ranked choice voting, without having to seek approval from the state. By removing barriers so that our towns and cities can more easily enact election rules that work for them, we can expand the right to see and shape our communities for all Massachusetts residents.

PID's position on RCV elections for the Commonwealth seems to be different from the failed 2020 RCV initiative. On their website under 2024 Action Plan, they are seeking community feedback on updating our state primary process, likely to a Top 5 election system, so people can better make their voices heard. The Top 5 model is similar to Alaska’s new system. Instead of partisan primaries, this model uses a single nonpartisan preliminary election where candidates from all parties, including independents, run on one ballot. Then, the top 5 candidates who get the most votes move on to a general election using an instant runoff with ranked choice voting.

There are definitely bumps in the road to making Ranked Choice Voting our standard election system. In fact one might suspect that promoting it is irrelevant should our current form of Democracy vanish after November. Indeed, this writer believes that if we already had RCV in place we might not have the political turmoil we have today. I am still optimistic that others will recognize its importance and that we will continue to have a democracy that can be improved.

Claudia Lyons, Ocean Avenue

July 8, 2024

Summary of Salem RCV meeting with Greg Dennis
and Sierra Dearns Presenting April 13 5PM

Written by Liz Bradt

In attendance: Norene Gachinard LWV, Diane Fawley SDCC, Nancy Anderson SDCC ,Lydia King Solidarity Rising Vice Chair SDCC, Liz Bradt Chiar SDCC LWV member RCV, Schuyler Ward Vice Chair SDCC, Betty ?, Councilor Ward 7 Andy Varela, Lucy Corchado, President Point Neighborhood Association, Judith Reilly President LWV, Claudia Lyons RCV LWV

We had prepared for a bilingual presentation but everyone present could understand English so we did not present in Spanish. Also nobody showed up to register to vote in spite of extensive advertising of the event on Salem Patch, Facebook and leafleting of 190 super voters , and posting of fliers in Ward 1 Precinct 2

Greg Dennis gave us an overview of RCV

Sierra Dearns, who is helping with our Salem RCV campaign shared some stats about Salem, and her plan for a LTE meet up online on April 28.

Councilor Ward 7 Andy Varela said that gears are moving to get an elections commission in city hall. He also said there is an increasing understanding in CIty Council that a non- binding referendum in November 2025 asking the citizens of Salem to vote Yes/No on RCV for Salem would be useful to see where citizens of Salem stand on the issue. He needs advocates to email their City Councilors and At Large Councilors voting to get on the ballot.

In order to achieve an initiative petition in Salem to send a Home Rule petition on RCV to legislature ( which the state legislature prefers and tends to pass more often) 15% of voters would need to sign a petition about (4900 signatures) Even with the signatures our CIty Charter requires that more than ⅓ ( 33.3%) of the registered voters vote in the election. We have had voter turnouts in the 20% range. A huge GOTV push by candidates for office in 2025, SDCC and League of Women's Voters would be necessary. Far more than 33.3% would have to vote to get a majority of votes for RCV.

Councilors that we should focus on to encourage them to support RCV are Cynthia Jerzylo, Patty Morsillo Ward 3, Meg Stott Ward 6, John Harvey Ward 4, and At Large Ty Hapworth Conrad Prozniewski Here is the link to get their emails to the Salem City Council.

Previously:

A letter to the editor of the Salem News was published on January 29, 2024 informing readers that: "Salem City Council has RCV under consideration in the Government Services Committee (SGSC) headed by Councilor Andy Varela this year. The SGSC is creating a commission to study RCV in Salem. After study, our City Council can vote to put a question on the November ballot to see where Salem citizens stand on RCV. If the referendum passes, our Rep. Manny Cruz files a home rule petition at the Statehouse; only after the Statehouse approves our petition, can we use RCV in our local elections. Please visit www.salemrcv.org/FairVote or VoterChoiceMA to learn more about RCV. Salem residents email City Council at citycouncilors@salem.com to urge them to get a non-binding referendum on the ballot in November so every voter can weigh in on RCV."

Here is the link to the full letter to the Editor entitled" Letter: Ranked choice voting for Salem as published in the Salem News.

In addition the process to explore creating an election commission which would oversee its own department and election administrator in Salem took its first step at a City Council committee meeting January 29, 2024. It ended with the committee voting to meet again soon after having gathered more information on Massachusetts cities and towns that have made the switch away from the city clerk’s office to administer elections. How this affects RCV for Salem is yet to be determined. For more details about the meeting link to: Salem civic advocates support review of election commission article in the Salem News.

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On October 19, 2023, the City of Salem Board of Registrars of Voters met. Their first agenda item was, "To Discuss Rank Choice Voting relative to the legal duties, responsibilities, and functions of the Board of Registrar of Voters by obtaining information and advice". Also in the agenda was to review the Results of Request for Proposal due to criteria and cost for new voting equipment. The video link: Oct 19, 2023 Salem Board of Registrars of Voters meeting contains the entire 90 minute meeting.

To summarize, some important questions concerning issues that might arise as a result of implementing RCV , i.e. recounts, liability and/or lawsuits, costs, delays in reporting election results and the type of voting equipment/software needed etc. were discussed with Lauren F. Goldberg, Managing Attorney, KP Law.

A motion was approved to formulate a committee to investigate RCV and it was agreed by the Board that the City Council Government Services committee might initiate such a committee. The Board recommends that the committee be composed of a City Councillor, the Mayor, the City Solicitor, a member of the Board and City Clerk.

The new voting equipment that Salem will be purchasing is needed to replace the out-of-date Accuvote system regardless of implementing RCV. Two companies, ESS and LHS, submitted proposals and LHS was awarded the bid. Both systems have the capability to tabulate RCV elections. Ilene Simons, Salem City Clerk, felt that we would be using the new election equipment by September 2024.

The City of Salem Board of Registrars met with the Salem City Council Committee on Government Services co-posted with the Committee of the Whole. This meeting took place in person on Wednesday July 12, 2023, at 6:00 PM for the purpose of discussing a Home Rule Petition for a charter change relative to Rank Choice Voting. After an educational and robust discussion, the committee voted to leave the matter in Committee and hold future discussions.

Dustin Luca, a staff writer at The Salem News, posted the following article: "Salem leaders exploring rank choice voting switch". This is an excellent synopsis of the meeting detailing the view points both for and against RCV in Salem.

Further discussions and public meetings will be noted here. Please stay tuned.

Salemma.gov/calendar

Video Clip: City Council moves to explore Ranking the Vote in Salem

At the April 27, 2023 Salem City Council meeting it was unanimously agreed that the Government Services Subcommittee will meet with the Committee of the Whole City Council to discuss submitting a Home Rule Petition to the legislature to get permission to change the city charter relative to Ranked Choice Voting in Salem.

An internal meeting with the City Solicitor to review legal issues occurred on May 18th and the Committee meeting may be scheduled for July.

Opinion: So the State turned down other city and towns' Home Rule Petitions; does this mean there is no viable path forward for RCV in Salem?

Summary of Salem RCV meeting with Greg Dennis and Sierra Dearns Presenting April 13 5PM

Previously:

Salem RCV is endorsed by the following local civic organizations:

Summary of Salem RCV meeting with Greg Dennis
and Sierra Dearns Presenting April 13 5PM