Midvale’s voting method in 2025 will embrace the nontraditional. 

The City Council unanimously approved the use of ranked choice voting in February, passing a resolution signaling to the county what equipment will be necessary for this year’s election. 

Ranked choice voting works like this: instead of choosing one candidate as is currently done, you would instead rank them in first place, second place, and so on. If no candidate reaches 51%, a clear majority, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Those who voted for the eliminated candidate would then see their votes assigned to their second choice. This continues until one someone has the majority. 

“I like it because then we get to 50%,” Councilmember Bryant Brown said during a January council meeting, noting one race where he saw a Midvale mayoral election winner with 38% of the vote. 

“Which is a terrible way to come to the conclusion of a race cause at that point, third place had 33%,” he said. 

The rest of the council was unanimously in favor. Councilmember Paul Glover said he prefers the traditional election more. 

“I’m not as worried about (ranked choice voting) as much as I was, I still think a lot of older people have a hard time with it,” he said. 

Officials said the cost will be determined by how many cities participate. In 2023, it cost the city $26,000 with only district seats up for grabs, meaning lower amounts of ballots. This year will see District 4, 5 and the mayor seat on the ballot, with the mayor being voted on by the entire city, the price could increase. 

Proponents of the method point to three primary benefits of the ranked choice system. First, a more informed resident as voters would need to be familiar with all candidates. Second, more civil campaigns since candidates would want to appeal to as many voters as possible. 

Third, the city would need to run only one election, jettisoning the primary election held in June. Under the RCV format, candidate declaration dates would be Aug. 12-19. 

The three seats up for election this year feature two just recently appointed members. Dustin Gettel, who currently holds the mayoral seat after being appointed in December, said he planned to run for mayor. 

District 5’s Denece Mikolash was appointed in January to fill the position left by Gettel. She also intends to run for election and Bryant Brown, who has served in District 4 for two terms, would be up for reelection. λ