Ranked voting puts second-choice Soldotna woman on city council
The successful candidate needed three votes to win a fill-in seat on the Soldotna City Council.
Linda Hutchings didn’t have those three votes until the council decided to move to a “ranked-choice” voting method.
Now, Hutchings has been placed on the Soldotna City Council to fill a vacancy until October of 2021.
At the council’s meeting on Wednesday, three candidates were interviewed before several votes were taken, with no clear majority vote.
During the first several rounds of voting, Erick Hugarte had received the most votes — Hurgarte had two votes, while Hutchings, Micah Shields both received 1 vote. Keagan Koski, an LGBT activist who was a late-coming applicant, also got a vote. Nobody had the three votes needed.
Council Member Jordan Chilson then motioned that the group move to ranked choice voting, but that idea was initially voted down 3-2. Council Member Pamela Parker offered a simpler method of ranked choice voting, which passed 4-1.
With that method, the council was voting for the ninth time and Hutchings, who got the most second-choice votes, was able to get the seat, which had become vacant when council member Paul Whitney successfully ran for mayor of Soldotna during the Oct. 6 municipal election.
The entire meeting was conducted via Zoom and at one point in the voting the public started voting via email, which confused the city clerk who was trying to tally the council members’ votes.
“I think tonight we saw a preview of our 2022 elections,” commented one observer.
https://mustreadalaska.com/ranked-voting-puts-second-choice-soldotna-woman-on-city-council
