Broken system

Regarding “Possible new twist for election system” (Page One, July 27): The proposal to inflate ranked-choice voting from three candidate choices to up to 10 makes a bad idea even worse, especially in mayoral elections. Instead, let’s return to what was effectively an open primary and top-two runoff election system for mayor. Among other things, it’s a system where the top two candidates robustly debate the issues during the runoff campaign, and we voters get to make a clear choice.

Plus, we’d get to elect a mayor again by a majority vote that everyone understands. Additionally, let’s elect the mayor during even-year instead of odd-year elections. In particular, we should consolidate the mayor’s primary and runoff elections with the gubernatorial primary and general elections. This reform would almost certainly boost voter turnout for the city’s highest office and save money. These two election reforms would produce more democratic results in mayoral elections than under the current broken system.

Bob Ryan, San Francisco