The Park City Council voted 3-2 during a special meeting Monday to rescind its move to use ranked choice voting in the 2025 election.
Councilmembers Bill Ciraco, Ed Parigian and Jeremy Rubell voted to return to conventional plurality voting. Councilmembers Ryan Dickey and Tana Toly were in support of ranked choice voting.
The council heard from more than 20 people during public comment, a majority of whom expressed support for keeping ranked choice voting, an alternative voting method that lets voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots.
During the council meeting last week, Ciraco said he made a mistake by previously supporting ranked choice voting and called for the council to reconsider its March decision to try the method this election.
Park City officials had to quickly schedule the special meeting, as they only had until Wednesday to finalize their election process under state law.
Park City Mayor Nann Worel denounced the move at the start of Monday’s special meeting.
“Transparency and process have been key for me, and never in my 15 years on this dais have I been as ambushed as I felt last Thursday by Councilmember Ciraco,” Worel said. “I apologize to the people of Park City. This is not what you have every right to expect of us.”
Toly and Rubell’s seats are on the ballot in November. Toly has already said she plans to seek reelection. Rubell has not yet shared whether he’ll run again.
Ciraco’s call to back out of ranked choice voting came two days after Dickey announced a run for mayor, as Worel intends to step down after her term ends this year.
Outside of Toly and Dickey, no one else had publicly announced a campaign for city council or mayor as of April 28.
Dickey said Monday he was disappointed in the council’s sudden decision to back out of ranked choice voting.
“I think this process is disrespectful to our residents, disrespectful to our voters, drives distrust in our election,” he said.
Toly advocated for ranked choice voting because it eliminates the primary election, which she says reduces costs for candidates due to the shorter campaign window.
Toly said the number one reason she supports ranked choice voting "is because it doesn't make everything a campaign issue this summer." She said she wants to focus on major projects like the new senior center and the Bonanza Park five-acre parcel.
Ciraco previously cited research that showed Utah’s ranked choice voting tabulation software, RCTab, produced discrepancies when analyzing election results in Alaska.
Officials with the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, which owns the software, said the error was due to altered settings and they remain confident that RCTab produces correct results.
Summit County Clerk Eve Furse also expressed confidence in the software and said it underwent a rigorous approval process at the state and federal levels.
But Ciraco said after spending "countless hours" studying ranked choice voting, he doesn’t see overwhelming benefits to using the alternative system.
“I’m comfortable with saying this isn’t an issue with the tabulating software, although it does introduce the question - does this additional complexity create the opportunity for there to be issues in an election?” Ciraco said. “To me, on some levels, it feels like Bitcoin. I feel like I kind of understand it but there’s no way for me to help you understand it, and that’s a problem.”
In 2018 Utah legislators passed a bill allowing cities to try ranked choice voting through a pilot program. It’s set to expire after the 2025 election, which Rubell and Ciraco cited as a reason to stick with conventional voting.
Park City’s election filing deadline will now open June 2 and run through June 6. There will be a primary election for mayor if there are more than three candidates. A primary will be necessary in the city council race if there are five or more candidates.
Park City Municipal is a financial supporter of KPCW.
