Around New England

Democratic Mayor of Haverhill Comes Out Against Ranked-Choice Voting

October 26, 2020

The mayor of Haverhill is a Democrat, but he is no supporter of ranked-choice voting.

Jim Fiorentini tweeted over the weekend how he voted on a few ballot lines:  the presidential race and a pair of ballot questions. He said that he voted for former vice president Joe Biden, yes on the Right to Repair ballot initiative (Question 1), and no on ranked-choice voting (Question 2).

Instead of ranked-choice voting, he offered a different idea of how he wants to change the voting system.

“Like fellow Democrats Jay Ashe and Gavin Newsome, I support run offs as a better choice than ranked choice. Ranked choice is confusing, runoffs are simple,” he wrote.

In a run-off system, if no candidate gets a majority in the first election, then the top two finishers face off in a second election. The winner of the second election takes the seat. Run-off elections are used in state and federal races in Georgia and Louisiana.