Sarasota City Commission may pause plan for advancing ranked-choice voting

The Sarasota City Commission is pausing its plan to seek a court judgment on ranked-choice voting. 

Last Monday, the city decided that it would file a legal action to find out whether it can legally hold an election using ranked-choice voting. 

However, at Tuesday's commission meeting, commissioner Erik Arroyo said that he would bring the subject back to a future meeting so the board could further discuss it.

Arroyo has become concerned about some elements of the proposal. He doesn't know how much ranked-choice voting would affect the cost of city elections, and he's worried that switching to the new voting system could possibly lower voter turnout. 

Arroyo said that the commission will consider a motion in October to halt its plan to seek a court judgment. This motion, if passed, will pause the legal efforts until the commission has the chance to have an in-depth discussion on ranked-choice voting. Arroyo expects that the discussion will occur at a November meeting. 

The discussion will appear on the agenda for that meeting as a motion to revoke the commission's decision to seek a court judgment on ranked-choice voting. However, Arroyo says the commission doesn't need to make this motion or vote on it, if it chooses not to. 

City Attorney Robert Fournier said that he won't proceed with his work on the legal action until he knows that three commissioners are on board with it.

However, Fournier isn't writing lawsuit himself. Outside legal counsel will write it, and Fournier will review it before it's filed. The outside counsel will be funded by an organization called Rank My Vote Florida. When asked on Thursday if Rank My Vote Florida would keep working on the case, the organization's legal counsel said that he still needed to talk with Fournier about the matter and that his organization hasn't had time yet to consider what its legal strategy will be. 

"I think it's premature to discuss what we're going to do with respect to any potential action at this time," said David Angel, the legal counsel. 

The commission's original decision 

After Monday's commission meeting, it appeared that the commission would seek a declaration that the Florida Election Code and the state’s Constitution allow municipal elections to be conducted using ranked-choice voting. The Sarasota City Commission voted 4-1 that day to direct Fournier to work with outside legal counsel on this effort.

Fournier said a declaratory judgment is a way to decide a dispute between two parties about their rights and obligations. The city of Sarasota is wondering what its rights are regarding ranked-choice elections. 

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Under this plan, the city would file a legal action against either Florida's Department of State, the department's Division of Elections or officials within those entities, according to Angel. 

Sarasota voters approved ranked-choice voting in a 2007 referendum, but, at the time, the county’s supervisor of elections did not have the proper voting system to handle it. However, the county switched to a new voting system in 2015, and Elections Supervisor Ron Turner said it is his understanding that the current hardware could potentially handle ranked-choice ballots.

But, Turner said, there is no software certified in the state of Florida that can tabulate a ranked-choice election.

For these elections to occur, the state would have to certify software that allows for ranked-choice voting, which it has not seemed willing to do. At an Argus Foundation event in 2019, Secretary of State Laurel Lee said that state law doesn’t allow ranked-choice voting.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting disagree with Lee’s assessment, so they have encouraged the city of Sarasota to ask a state court to determine whether the practice is legal.   

If a state court determines that ranked-choice voting in municipalities is legal, that would pave the way for other cities across Florida to implement the practice as well. Clearwater, for example, is considering holding a ranked-choice voting referendum in 2022.

Monday’s City Commission meeting

Angel, of Rank My Vote Florida, gave a presentation on the practice at Monday’s City Commission meeting. He said ranked-choice voting allows citizens to vote for their true preference. Currently, voters sometimes do not vote for their preferred candidate because they worry that the candidate has a low chance of winning. But in ranked-choice voting, a voter can make their preferred candidate their first choice and make a candidate who they think is more likely to win their second choice.

Angel said the practice ensures that the winner of an election has achieved a consensus. It also eliminates a need for runoffs.   

Angel said that Rank My Vote Florida will pay for the external legal counsel that will work with the city on the civil action.

Ahead of the commission’s vote on Monday, commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch noted that the city’s voters have already overwhelmingly approved ranked-choice voting. The system was approved by 77.6% of Sarasota voters in 2007. Ahearn-Koch also said that the voting system is in the city’s charter.

“It’s our responsibility as elected officials to exercise the voice of the community,” she said, “and this is our job.”

Mayor Hagen Brody was the only commissioner who voted against seeking a declaratory judgment. He said he is concerned the new voting process could affect voter participation among low-income communities.

“I haven’t been convinced that this is the best thing for our city, to tell you the truth,” he said at the meeting.

Many people spoke at the public comment section of the discussion, including citizens from other parts of Florida who support rank-choice voting, like the mayor of Clearwater. Residents of Sarasota also contributed to the discussion, including Larry Silvermintz, president of the Alta Vista Neighborhood Association, who supports ranked-choice voting. He said that that the voters’ decision in 2007 does not expire even though it took place a while ago.

“What I’m in favor of is heeding the will of the voters,” he said.

Anne Snabes covers city and county government for the Herald-Tribune. You can contact her at asnabes@gannett.com or (941) 228-3321 and follow her on Twitter at @a_snabes.