RCV Clips is the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center's monthly podcast. We cover ranked choice voting election administration topics ranging from drafting legislation to election certification. We'll have brief interviews with team members of the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, election administrators who have run RCV elections, and more, to tell us about the resources available through the RCVRC and best practices learned from running RCV elections. The podcast is available anywhere you get podcasts.
February 2020: Statewide Voter Education in Maine
In this segment from our 2019 Symposium, Kristen Muszynski, Director of Communications for the Maine Secretary of State, walks us through how the State of Maine educated voters for their first-ever ranked-choice voting elections in 2018.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
January 2020: The Great Middle School Election
In this episode of RCV Clips, we sent 500 ranked-choice voting ballots into the lion's den: middle school classrooms. Listen in as Rosemary Blizzard and Melissa Hall talk about what the Great Middle School Election of 2019 taught us about ranked-choice voting, Christmas carols, and the mind of the American middle schooler.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- The Great Middle School Election Ballot
- The Great Middle School Election Survey
- Introducting Ranked-Choice Voting Ballots
December 2019: So, How Does RCV Work, Again?
In this episode of RCV Clips, we mash up two older episodes of the show, Back to RCV Basics and Multi-Winner RCV, to give you RCV in a nutshell.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Minneapolis Ballot
- Santa Fe Ballots
- Minneapolis Voter Educations
- Single-Winner Counting Process
- Multi-Winner Counting Process
- ABCs of RCV Webinar
- Multi-Winner RCV Webinar
- RCV in 2019 Webinar
- Cambridge's 70 year history of multi-winner RCV
- History of Multi-Winner RCV in New York City
November 2019: Voting Rights in Eastpointe, MI
Rosemary Blizzard and Chris Hughes discuss the first-ever use of ranked-choice voting to remedy a Voting Rights Act complaint in Eastpointe, Michigan this year.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
October 2019: The Universal RCV Tabulator, v1.0.1
The RCVRC introduced the Universal RCV Tabulator in a webinar earlier this month. In this episode of RCV Clips, hear a segment from that webinar to learn more about how the Tabulator works and how to use it.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Download the RCVRC Tabulator and supporting documentation
- First Look at the Universal RCV Tabulator Webinar
August 30, 2019: RCVRC Mid-Year Recap
Chris Hughes and Rosemary Blizzard talk about the RCVRC's work so far this year and everything we're looking forward to this fall.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
August 5, 2019: Hand Counting RCV in St. Paul
David Triplett, Interim Director of Elections for Ramsey County, Minnesota discusses hand counting RCV elections.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
June 2019: RCV from A to Z in Easthampton, Massachusetts
Tom Peake, District 3 City Councilor for Easthampton, Massachusetts, joins to discuss the movement for RCV in Easthampton.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
May 2019: Symposium Recap: Campaigning as a Ranked Choice Candidate
On April 29 and 30th, the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center held our second annual RCV Symposium. In this episode of RCV Clips, listen to Minneapolis City Council Member Linea Palmisano's presentation during Session 2: See How They Run: Campaigning as an RCV Candidate. After that, check out the rest of the sessions on our website (linked to below).
Resources mentioned in this episode:
April 2019: The Maine Voter Experience
Hear directly from two Maine voters as they tell Rosemary Blizzard what it was like to vote in their state's historic RCV elections last year.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
March 2019: The Story of Alameda County's RCV Implementation
Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro, all located in Alameda County, CA, began using RCV in 2010. In this episode, Dave MacDonald, former Alameda County Registrar of Voters and Chief Information Officer, walks Karen Brinson Bell through how Alameda County got RCV up and running in each of those cities.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
February 2019: Testifying on Ranked Choice Voting
Karen Brinson Bell and George Gilbert of the RCVRC, joins Chris Hughes to talk about testifying on ranked choice voting legislation.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
January 2019: Drafting Effective Ranked Choice Voting Legislation
Dave O'Brien, Staff Attorney at FairVote, joins Chris Hughes to talk about drafting effective ranked choice voting legislation.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
December 2018: The Politics of RCV Implementation
Steven John Mulroy, University of Memphis law professor and ranked choice voting activist in Memphis, takes Chris Hughes through the last 10 years of trials and tribulations for RCV in Memphis.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- Commercial Appeal story on RCV in Memphis
- Ballotpedia Report on Non-Majority Wins
- Steve's September Blog
November 2018: Serving Military and Overseas Voters with RCV
Isaac Cramer, Absentee Coordinator for the Charleston County Board of Elections, talks with Karen Brinson Bell about how Charleston County uses RCV ballots to enfranchise their military and overseas voters.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
October 2018: Securing Ranked Choice Voting Elections
Karen Brinson Bell, George Gilbert, and Chris Hughes talk about how to secure RCV elections using post-election audits.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- RCVRC Audits Webinar
- Post-Election Audits and Ranked Choice Voting White Paper by Chris Hughes
- NCSL on Post-Election Audits
- Verified Voting
September 2018: Voter-Focused RCV in Minneapolis
Casey Carl, City Clerk of Minneapolis, tells us about ranked choice voting in his city: how ballots get counted, how voters learn about their elections, and what Minneapolis is doing next with RCV. To see materials from Minneapolis's elections, check out their website at vote.minneapolismn.gov.
August 2018: Back to Ranked Choice Voting Basics
In this episode of RCV Clips, Karen Brinson Bell and Connie Schmidt get back to basics: covering why RCV is used, where it’s used, how voters mark their ballots, how voters learn about RCV, and how RCV gets counted.
Visuals always help, so here’s some example ballots, example voter education, and illustrations of how single-winner RCV gets counted.
And here’s links to webinars and podcasts referenced in this episode:
July 2018: Maine's Statewide RCV Election at the Local Level
Kathy Montejo, City Clerk of Lewiston, Maine, sits down with Karen Brinson Bell to discuss the ins and outs of how local election administrators prepared for Maine's statewide RCV election in June. Resources mentioned in this episode include:
- Lewiston's Video on How to Mark a Ballot Using RCV
- Lewiston How RCV Works Flyer
- Secretary of State Dunlap One-Hour Presentation at Lewiston Library
- Informational kiosk in both City Hall and Public Library
Other outreach efforts:
- May 8 – School Budget Election – I was at the polls all day and spoke with hundreds of voters, we had posters, flyers, sample ballots, etc. – see attached for flyers
- May 15 – presentation during City Council meeting showing how a ballot is marked under RCV – televised live on cable and youtube, rebroadcasts on cable
- June 4 – Presentation at Lewiston Senior Citizen’s Center meeting
- Local community access/cable TV station ran the SOS 5 minute RCV video as well as the one hour SOS presentation done at the Lewiston Library
June 2018: The History of Ranked Choice Voting
Chris Hughes and Morgan Chance talk about how ranked choice voting was used in the early 20th century, and what that can tell us about ranked choice voting today.
Resources discussed in the episode:
- Jack Santucci's Blog on IBM RCV Voting Machines
- RCVRC History of RCV Webinar
- Jack Santucci's paper on the History of Multi-Winner RCV
May 2018: Designing Ranked Choice Voting for Voters
Whitney Quesenbery, of the Center for Civic Design, talks to us about CCD's work on ranked choice voting usability: designing RCV election materials for the everyday voter.
April 2018: The Utah RCV Municipal Pilot Project
Karen Brinson Bell and State Representative Marc Roberts of Utah discuss the ranked choice voting pilot project bill that passed there in March.
March 2018: Voter Education in Santa Fe
Join Karen Brinson Bell in a conversation with Maria Perez, of FairVote New Mexico, about voter education efforts for Santa Fe's inaugural RCV election, held March 6th.
- City of Santa Fe's Ranked Choice Voting Website
- City of Santa Fe's March 6th Election Website
- FairVote New Mexico's Website
February 2018: Multi-Winner Ranked Choice Voting
On this episode of RCV Clips, we cover the basics of multi-winner ranked choice voting with excerpts from our February 2018 webinar:
Understanding Multi Winner Ranked Choice Voting
Additional resources on multi-winner RCV are available at these links:
- Cambridge's 70 year history of RCV
- Political Polarization in Cambridge
- Multi-Winner RCV in New York City
- Fair Representation Act Report
January 2018: Budgeting for RCV
On this episode of RCV Clips, join Morgan Chance and Gary Bartlett as they discuss building a budget for ranked choice voting elections.
Links to resources discussed in this episode:
December 2017: Universal RCV Tabulator
On this episode of RCV Clips, Chris Hughes and George Gilbert talk about the Universal RCV Tabulator. The Universal RCV Tabulator is software that can tabulate ranked choice voting elections.
The software is in its prototype stage now. As its development continues, it will be able to take voting data from any major voting system used in elections today to calculate RCV elections. It is being developed for Maine's 2018 RCV Primaries right now, and more RCV counting rules will be added once the Maine rules are fully tested.
Links to resources discussed in this episode:
November 2017: The RCV Model Implementation Plan
On the inaugural episode of RCV Clips, Morgan Chance and Karen Brinson Bell talk about the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center's "Model RCV Implementation Plan." The Model Plan is a broad map of the start-to-finish process of ranked choice voting -- from the introduction of legislation to approve this voting method to the certification of election results. The plan is a living document with hyperlinks and web resources, and will be continually updated as additional best practices and new information come to light.
Links to resources discussed in this episode:
Welcome to RCV Clips
Welcome to RCV Clips, the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center's podcast. On this monthly podcast, we'll cover ranked choice voting election administration topics ranging from drafting legislation to election certification. We'll have brief interviews with team members of the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, election administrators who have run RCV elections, and more, to tell us about the resources available through the RCVRC and best practices learned through running RCV elections.
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