HF983 Bill Summary

• Authorizes home rule charter cities, statutory cities, counties, townships, and school districts to adopt ranked-choice voting for local elections through ordinance, resolution, or ballot question, with adoption or repeal required at least 30 days before candidacy filing deadlines.

• Establishes detailed ranked-choice voting tabulation procedures including threshold calculation, sequential rounds of counting, surplus vote transfers, batch elimination of mathematically impossible candidates, and tie resolution by lot.

• Requires ballots to allow ranking of at least three candidates in order of preference when three or more candidates are qualified, with clear instructions and notation of seats to be filled.

• Allows municipalities to use electronic voting systems with automatic tabulating equipment reallocation features not yet approved by the secretary of state if certified as meeting system specifications within 30 days of adoption.

• Mandates new voting equipment purchases include capability to capture and report ballot data, support ranked or cumulative voting under various tabulation rules, provide minimum three rankings for ranked-choice elections, and notify voters of overvotes, skipped rankings, and duplicate rankings.