Change voting system

As someone who wants more civil, issues focused elections, I agree with the editor that we need to reconsider the way we vote.

When our officials need to spend their time raising money instead of governing, they are beholden to big money. When our districts are created in a bi-partisan gerrymander, healthy competition is lost. When vote-splitting means we elect candidates with a minority of the vote, the majority does not get what they want.

Washington leads in many election procedures: easy voter registration, open primaries, no arbitrary voter-access requirements and long experience in vote-by-mail.

We can do even better.

1) Implement laws to limit campaign contributions.

2) Increase the size of our redistricting commission to include citizens not affiliated with the two major political parties, creating a more independent redistricting commission, instead of a bi-partisan commission.

3) Pass legislation so that local jurisdictions have the option to use ranked-choice voting (instant runoff) for single seat offices: such as mayor, and multi-seat councils: such as county councils, school boards and port districts. This way, we are assured that our officials are elected by the broadest consensus possible.

Sincerely,

Kit Muehlman

Bellingham