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SANTA FE – Ranked-choice voting still won’t be in place for next year’s Santa Fe municipal elections – despite the fact it’s been nine years since city voters overwhelmingly approved a change to the city charter calling for such “instant runoff” balloting.

Wednesday night, a divided City Council voted against moving forward with ranked-choice voting for 2018 amid concerns that getting the proper balloting software certified would be pushing deadlines and there’s not time to educate voters about the change.

Councilor Mike Harris noted that Dominion Inc. has missed previous dates for getting its software qualified for the 2018 vote and that the firm’s product still isn’t ready. “I don’t see how we can move forward with this,” he said.

With two councilors absent, the vote was 4-3 in favor of Harris’ motion against ranked-choice voting for next year. Also for the motion were Councilors Signe Lindell, Ron Trujillo and Chris Rivera. Mayor Javier Gonzales and Councilors Joseph Maestas and Renee Villarreal voted no.

City Clerk Yolanda Vigil said based on the latest estimate that Dominion will have its software properly tested by Aug. 25, the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office has said it could certify the system by Oct. 1. That’s a month after city code calls for issuing candidacy filing packets for mayor and City Council and when candidates can start collecting a required number of $5 donations to qualify for public financing.

Gonzales argued that planning and ordinance changes for ranked-choice voting in 2018 could start and the city could still “pull the plug” if certification of the software doesn’t happen.

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In ranked-choice rules, which come into play when there are more than two candidates in a race, voters rank their candidate choices in order of preference. If after an initial vote tally, no one gets more than 50 percent, the person with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second choices of those who voted for the last-place candidate are counted as votes for the remaining candidates. If the top vote-getter still doesn’t have a majority, the process is repeated until someone tops 50 percent.

Under the language of a 2008 voter-approved charter amendment, ranked-choice voting would go into effect in 2010 or as soon as appropriate software for vote tabulation “and the ability to correct incorrectly marked, in-person ballots” became available “at a reasonable price.” Vigil says Dominion has dropped its price from $250,000 to $39,000.