Community Program… Final Five Voting [Save the Date]

This October, we’re partnering with the Woman’s Club of Wisconsin to host Katherine Gehl for a conversation about Final Five Voting: how it works, where it’s gaining traction, and what it could mean for elections here in Wisconsin.

Final Five Voting pairs two changes to how elections work. First, a single nonpartisan primary open to all candidates and all voters, with the top five finishers advancing to the general election. Second, that general election is decided by ranked choice voting: voters rank the five finalists in order of preference, and if no one wins a majority outright, the candidate in last place is eliminated and those ballots shift to voters’ next choice. That process continues until one candidate has the support of more than half of voters.

Civic engagement is one of our long-standing focus areas, and this session is part of our ongoing work helping our community understand the systems that shape who gets elected.

This is a nonpartisan discussion, open to anyone curious about how Final Five Voting works. More details are coming soon.

ABOUT KATHERINE GEHL

Katherine Gehl is a business leader and author based in Wisconsin. She spent years as CEO of her family’s food manufacturing company before turning her focus to how election rules shape political outcomes.

In 2020 she co-authored The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy with Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, introducing the Final Five Voting concept.

Gehl is the founder of the nonpartisan Institute for Political Innovation and co-founded Democracy Found, a Wisconsin-based effort focused on bringing Final Five Voting to the state’s congressional elections.