ITHACA, N.Y. — A group of local residents are trying to change how elections are decided in the city of Ithaca.
Tom Clavel and Patrick Sewell, two leaders of the group, are part of the push to see open primaries and ranked-choice voting put to a referendum in Ithaca.
Unlike the current system, ranked-choice voting allows voters to choose multiple candidates at the ballot box. Under the reform, voters choose one candidate as a primary choice, but are able to rank other candidates as their second or third choice, and so on.
As votes are counted, the candidate that earned the least number of votes is eliminated in successive rounds. If a voter’s primary candidate choice is eliminated from the race then that voter’s secondary choice gets their vote. The process repeats until a single candidate earns a majority, or over 50%, of voters’ support.
Open primaries, the other election reform Clavell and Sewell are advocating for, do not require voters to have a specific party affiliation in order to vote in a primary election. The reform would pool all primary candidates running for elected office in a single race.
Up to five candidates could advance from a primary race to the general election, according to a petition Clavel and Sewell are collecting signatures for. The reforms require an amendment to Ithaca’s City Charter, and would trigger a mandatory referendum.
In a joint interview, Clavel and Sewell said they see ranked choice and open primary reforms as a package of reforms that can improve competition in the election process while guaranteeing that a candidate with a majority of voters’ support wins elected office.
Clavel said that ranked-choice voting removes the “spoiler effect,” a term used to refer to a third-party candidate who’s likely to lose, but could tip the results of an election by drawing votes away from the two other candidates.
“These two [reforms] are what we need so that we can have competitive elections in November. And the reason for competitive elections in November, again, is to maintain accountability to the voters,” Clavel said.
Both Clavel and Sewell have previously run and lost races for elected office in the city — an experience they say bolstered their support for ranked choice voting and open primaries. Sewell ran for Common Council in 2023 as an independent against Alderperson Pierre Saint-Perez, who secured the Democratic nomination in an uncontested primary.
The City of Ithaca’s politics are dominated by the Democratic party. In many races, the Democratic primary can serve as the de facto election. All but one of the city’s current 11-member Common Council ultimately won the general election after winning the Democratic primary.
It’s a dynamic of local politics that Sewell believes excludes too many voters from participating in elections. About one in five registered voters in the city are independent and cannot vote in primary elections.
“If you can’t participate in those primaries, you don’t get a chance to vote on the realistic candidate who’s going to represent you,” said Sewell.
FairVote, a nonprofit that advocates for the adoption of ranked-choice voting, has supported its adoption from Alaska to New York City and across the U.S.
Will Mantell, communications director for FairVote, called ranked choice voting “the fastest growing election reform in the nation.”
According to the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, the voting method is in use in major cities like New York City, San Francisco and Minneapolis, as well as statewide use in Alaska and Maine.
But to get a referendum on the ballot this year in the City of Ithaca, Clavel and Sewell have their work cut out for them. In order to guarantee that the referendum for the reform will appear on the November ballot, they must finish collecting the signatures of at least 646 city residents by July 3, according to Clavel.
Clavel said signature collection — which must be done with ink and paper — is still in an early stage. He has launched a website to boost the effort.
If adopted through a referendum, the reforms would take effect in 2026, and apply to all primary, general, and special elections for Mayor, Council, and City Judges in Ithaca.
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