Look for Greenwich Democrats to push for ranked-choice voting
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Thank you, john blankley
Fazio defeated Kasser-endorsed corporate lawyer Alexis Gevanter by about 500 votes, according to unofficial results. Fazio received 8888 votes to Gevanter’s 8416. Petitioning candidate John Blankley, a Democrat, received 391.
To the (somewhat-limited) extent to which I understand the ranked-choice voting procedure, it would only kick in if any one candidate failed to garner 50% of the vote. Here, Fazio met that threshold (8,847 of 17,695 total votes cast), but barely: 41. Assuming a Blankley voter would otherwise be a supporter of the communist on the ballot, a few more Gevanter or Blankley voters at the polls would have deprived Fazio of his majority and Gevanter supporters’ second-choice ballots would have been added to her total, for the win. Thank God for Martha’s Vineyard summer soirees.
This “loser wins” is exactly what happened in 2018 in Maine in that state’s first election conducted under ranked-choice voting rules: Incumbent Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin was unseated by a Democrat despite winning a majority of the votes: 46% — 45%, when Democrats’ second choice votes were added to their preferred candidate’s total.
With the Green Party, the Socialite Socialist Ladies, and the Suburban Moms Give Belle Haven Back to the Indians Party proliferating and drawing votes away from officially endorsed candidates, attention must be paid, and our local Democrats will see that it is.
