Skyline students adopt ranked choice voting
The risk of a split vote is one concern that might limit engagement in politics or elections. In recent years, ranked choice voting has grown increasingly popular as a way to address this problem. It has been implemented in state, federal, and even presidential elections in some states. Skyline High School hoped to increase engagement and satisfaction in its student body elections by implementing ranked choice voting for the first time in the 2022-23 school year.
Ranked choice voting is an alternative voting system that requires voters to select candidates in order of preference, rather than choosing just one. If a candidate receives 50% of the vote, they automatically win. However, if no candidate receives a majority vote, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Then, the votes of the people who ranked the eliminated candidate as their first choice are transferred to the candidate they marked as their next choice.
This year, Skyline High School implemented ranked choice voting in their own Associated Student Body (ASB) elections. This change was first proposed by current ASB president Rishi Hazra, 18, in Dec. 2022. To implement the change, Hazra drafted an amendment to the ASB constitution, which the ASB approved unanimously the next day.
Hazra explained that over his four years in ASB, he observed that people running for the same position often had similar demographics and were from the same group of friends. This led to split votes between the friends, making any candidate not from the same friend group more likely to win.
He also pointed out that, similar to American politics, students are often worried about the split vote. As a result, they might feel they have no choice but to vote for one of the two more popular candidates, making it seem risky to vote for a third party candidate. Overall, the feeling was that the results were just not fair.
Hazra noted that in addition to increasing a feeling of fairness, he hoped that ranked choice voting would make elections more inclusive and encourage more students to run for ASB.
“I think it’s a very invaluable leadership experience to run a campaign,” Hazra said. He hopes that students who want to run because they have a vision they’d like to implement can now do so without worrying about who they are running against.
Archita Chopra, 16, current Skyline ASB treasurer, voted with the ASB to pass the amendment. She believes that during the school’s past elections, many students felt the vote was just a popularity contest, meaning it seemed students voted for candidates they liked socially rather than for those best fit for the requirements of the position.
Chopra explained that in addition to the student vote count, the results were based in part on an interview each candidate had with the ASB advisor. She said that some students felt the interview results were potentially biased and unfairly skewed the final outcome. Interviews are still a part of the selection process today, but at least with ranked choice voting, students can be more confident that their vote is not diluted in a split vote scenario.
“We wanted [elections] to accurately reflect what the student body wanted, so I feel like this is probably one of the best ways we could have done that,” Chopra said.
“[Last year] I felt like my vote didn’t really matter,” said Amal Masood, 16, a junior at Skyline. She is not part of ASB.
Skyline ASB utilized Microsoft Forms to automate the ranked choice ballot counting. On the Microsoft Forms ballot, students slid candidates up and down in order to rank them. Forms then automatically calculated the winner based on ranked choice voting logic. Chopra, who ran for ASB vice president against two opponents, won.
Masood prefers ranked choice voting. She said that in previous elections she’d felt the results weren’t reflective of what the students wanted, but with ranked choice voting they are.
“I feel like we should continue doing ranked choice voting,” Masood said.
Chopra feels that students are more satisfied with the results this year compared to last. She hasn’t heard anything negative about the election process so far and is anticipating that it will stay that way.
“This is the most equitable way to make sure that the voice [of] the student body is being heard,” she said.
