Ranked Choice Voting Explained
BOTH parties hate it – takes their power, gives it to the voter!
Mathematically, voting systems are both complex and interesting. In the United States the voting system used depends on the state or city/locality and there is pretty substantial variation. In my last post I posited my belief in and support for Ranked Choice Voting and got a request for a fuller explanation.
History first: The English (and thus typically their colonies) have traditionally based their elections on the ‘first-past-the-pole’ system, with each voter allowed only one choice and whoever gets the most votes wins. In a two-person election this is the best; but if you increase the number of candidates the problems begin. The result has been quite a few variations that attempt to deal with more candidates. The system most used in the US is referred to as a two round system, where primary elections are held to determine the single candidate for each of two parties, and the general election will then – barring minor party candidates or independents – be a two person first-past-the-pole.
Elections in our nation have become multi-year events where the planning for the next round has started almost before the polls have closed: And the expense of running a campaign has seemingly put the role of politician into the reach of only the uber-rich. In many ways this is due to the outsized influence of negative advertising in two person races. In addition the partisan divides that have been encouraged and used, often arising from blatant gerrymandering by both parties, have removed any semblance of accountability of politicians to their electorate. Effectively they can’t lose their election regardless of their actions. Thus in many states the true election is in the primary, and this inevitably disenfranchises the voters of the ‘wrong’ party, as well as making for some strange moves in the primaries.
The entry of additional candidates in the general election throws another monkey wrench into our elections. The third person can ‘steal’ votes from one of the major candidates causing them to lose a race they would have won. This makes voters for the third candidate worry about ‘wasting’ their vote on a candidate who probably can’t win. Even worse is when the third candidate necessitates a run-off – which becomes a new election where it is almost certain a fraction of the district’s voters will elect the winner and relatively minor manipulations can decide who that is.
The beauty of RCV is that it reduces the process to ONE election, as opposed to the two or three of our current system. This is because the system works for any number of candidates, and the voter is allowed to vote for ALL of them in that one election, just order their preference. The advantage this provides is both financial – the time and personnel required to elect is GREATLY reduced; As well as practical – voter participation will improve; a long recognized fault of run-offs is the winner is decided by a substantially smaller percentage of the electorate.
The process for RCV involves each voter ranking the candidates in order of preference. It is probably easiest to use an example: Consider a Congressional election that has six candidates: The ballots are counted and the percentage of first place rankings is given in percent. The goal is to get to the magic 51% winning margin, and as soon as it is, that candidate wins:
Democrat-centrist 30%, Independent 27%, Republican-extreme 18%, Republican-centrist 18%, Democrat-extreme 5%, Libertarian 2%
On my ballot I rank as follows: 1. Lib; 2. Ind; 3. Rep-cen; 4. Dem-cen; and I don’t rank the extremists at all – don’t like ‘em!
The Libertarian candidate has the least first place rankings and is eliminated. Like me, everyone who ranked him first ranked the Independent candidate second and therefore their vote is now counted for the Independent, producing this new count:
Dem-cen 30%, Ind 29%, Rep-ext 18%, Rep-cen 18%, Dem-ext 5%
The extreme Democrat is now eliminated and the voters who had that candidate ranked first are counted with their next choice: 3% to Dem-cen, 1% to Ind and 1% to Rep-cen; resulting:
Dem-cen 33%, Ind 30%, Rep-ext 18%, Rep-cen 19%
At any point the leading candidate has over 50% it’s over. In our example we are not done, but interestingly the extreme Republican is now the lowest and thus eliminated with their votes now shifted to the next choice: 13% to Rep-cen, 3% to Ind and 2% ranked nobody below their first choice, who lost, resulting:
Dem-cen 33%, Ind 33%, Rep-cen 32%
Now the centrist Republican is eliminated. Quite possibly there are Rep-cen ballots for which neither Dem-cen nor Ind was ranked, just as I chose not to rank extremists, we can expect many to express loyalty to a party, let’s call it 8%. Of the remaining 24%, 18% ranked Ind next while 6% ranked Dem-cen next, resulting:
Independent 51% - the magic number, Dem-cen 39%
While I mentioned ‘party loyalty’ the concept loses any meaning in RCV. My choice to not even rank extremists did nothing except deprive me of a preference choice should the race come down to the two extremists. It makes less sense to deprive yourself of any say should the race come down to the other party and an independent.
For the sake of simplicity I have not done any math corrections for the voters whose failure to rank additional candidates put them in the ‘their candidate loses’ position. Please trust this old mathematician when I say this has been dealt with in the calculations
Noteworthy is that extremist candidates of any ilk tend to do poorly in general elections despite often winning primaries which typically have dramatically lower turnouts than the general. In addition negative advertising has been shown effective in two-person races where mud-slinging against a single person can sway opinions, whereas mud-slinging against multiple candidates is far less effective, and mud slinging against one candidate in a multi candidate race may certainly hurt them while helping a different opponent rather than yourself. Negative advertising is the go-to strategy when big money attempts to influence an election, and unfortunately negative advertising begets more negative advertising and the voter loses any opportunity to actually hear candidates’ positions on the issues!
The primary fault claimed by opponents of RCV (which includes BOTH major parties!) is that it is ‘confusing’ and ‘difficult’. Of course shifting gears was ‘confusing’ and ‘difficult’ at first – horses didn’t have gears! The reality is RCV stymies the stranglehold both parties wish to develop on the political narrative. Gerrymandering – practiced enthusiastically by both and only opposed when the other party does it better – loses the vast majority of its effectiveness when there is no primary to manipulate.
Neutering the power of gerrymandering; reducing the effectiveness – and therefore the amount – of negative advertising; thereby reducing the power of big money in our election system; these are bonuses that RCV brings to the table. Elimination of primaries and run-offs makes financial sense while enhancing the voting experience since no voter is required to cast their ballot more than once.
Where RCV is currently being used is statewide in Maine and Alaska (where Republicans have already attempted to ditch it!) and the voters support it enthusiastically (click on link at end). Likewise it has been popular in the many city and local elections where it has been adopted, often for purely cost-saving reasons.
As I attempted to explain in my last post, Statistics has provided a powerful tool for the manipulation of the electorate; and the proliferation of dark money in our politics IS having profound effects. Our founding fathers could not possibly have foreseen the power of computers; nor the difficulties of conducting an election with a quarter billion voters. Ranked Choice Voting is a common sense change that brings us far closer to the democratic ideal – the power lies with the VOTER!