Ranked Choice Voting
In the background of the Republican vs Democrat clash that draws all the headlines, is a quiet battle over changing how we vote.
Ranked Choice Voting has been getting more attention, especially after it was used in the 2022 elections in Maine and Alaska to elect members of Congress. And the big question has to be what problem does it solve? And the answer is a lot.
First - how does it work? Instead of a ballot with a single vote, the voter get’s to rank the candidates as their 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, and so on. Then the votes get counted and the first round of results gets announced.
After the first round is where Ranked Choice Voting differs from what we are used to. If no candidate won more than 50% of the vote, then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and his voters move to their second choice. Ranked Choice is also called instant run-off, as you are having the run-off right here and now as opposed to a run-off election weeks later. So in the second round, the voters who had the eliminated candidate as their first-choice get recounted with their 2nd choice being their vote. And again, did any candidate get more than 50% of the votes cast in the 2nd round? If one candidate did, then that candidate is the winner, if no one got over 50%, then the candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated and their voters move to their next choice and another round of counting occurs.
So, what problems does this fix?
The first problem is money. People are going to make the argument that Ranked Choice Voting needs fancy equipment and costs more money, but that overlooks a big savings. By using ranked choice you eliminate run-off elections. In the 2022 primaries, Texas spent over seven million dollars on run-offs. That isn’t what the candidates spent, that is what the government spent to hold the run off elections. Other states are also reporting multi-million dollar expenditures on run-offs.
The second problem is low voter turnout in the run-offs. Run-offs never draw the same number of voters that vote in the original election. Example - 2022 Texas Attorney General Republican Primary - 1,927,457 people voted in the primary, only 755,836 voted in the run-off that selected the Republican candidate. That is fewer than 40% of the voters in the primary, participated in the run-off.
The third problem is plurality winners. Using Texas as an example, the general election doesn’t have run-offs, so the candidate with the largest vote total wins on election day. In 2006, a four way field for Governor was won by the Republican candidate with 39% of the vote, when 61% of the voters had voted against him. That isn’t to say that Rick Perry would not have won the Governorship in 2006. That is to say that for over half the voters, he wasn’t their first choice, and we will never know who their second choice was.
The fourth problem is third party spoilers. There is a major fear that third-party candidates could tip the election one way or another. Ranked Choice Voting eliminates that because the third party candidate if they have the lowest vote count is eliminated and their votes shift to the voters second choice. It allows more candidates in a general election without fear that they will disrupt the final outcome.
The fifth problem is partisanship. Political scientist are claiming that Ranked Choice Voting promotes less hostile elections. You don’t want to annoy another candidates voters when you might need some of them to pick you for their 2nd choice. This is still being evaluated, but results from local elections where Ranked Choice is being used seem to prove this.
So if this is so good, why aren’t we using it? We are in Alaska and Maine. Ranked Choice has also been approved in a number of municipal locations and in 2024 Oregon and Nevada will vote to determine if they use it for future elections. Republican officials used it to select their candidate for Virginia governor - Glen Youngkin. The problem is that with the defeat of Trump endorsed candidates in Alaska, Republicans groups are now campaigning against the idea of Ranked Choice Voting.
Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota have banned Ranked Choice Voting. A State Senator just introduced a bill to outlaw Ranked Choice Voting in Ohio. A number of Republican backed groups are attacking Ranked Choice and trying to get other states to ban it. And why do they want to ban it?
The Foundation for Government Accountability has been leading the fight against Ranked Choice with the claims that it violates one person, one vote and that some ballots become exhausted and don’t count.
The exhausted ballot statement makes no sense when you dig down into what that means with real world examples. An exhausted ballot is where someone’s choices are knocked out and they haven’t selected anyone left in the race. Let’s look at the 2022 Senate Election in Alaska.
Four candidates were on the ballot, Lisa Murkowski the Republican incumbent, Kelly Tshibaka the Republican endorsed by Donald Trump, Patricia Chesbro the Democrat, and Buzz Kelley an independent. Of the 263,027 votes cast, 36,808 ballots were not for the top two candidates. But 22,212 of those ballots had picked Lisa Murkowski as their alternative between the 5,433 that picked Kelly Tshibaka, putting Murkowski up to 53.7% and winning the election. Only 9,163 ballots didn’t pick Murkowski or Tshibaka, 3.5% of all ballots cast were “exhausted ballots”. That’s actually a better result than kicking this over to a runoff, where only a fraction of the voters show up. And if it had been a plurality contest, Murkowski would have won outright. So right there you have less cost than a run-off and higher participation and the candidate that over 50% of the voters had chosen was the winner. Seems good to me.
So what is Foundation for Government Accountability mad about? Lisa Murkowski had voted to impeach Donald Trump and Trump had endorsed her opponent and was determined for Murkowski to lose. Republicans blame ranked choice voting for Lisa Murkowski still being in the US Senate. The same thing happened in the 2022 Alaska race for the US House of Representatives. Where Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin and two other candidates, costing the Republicans a US House seat.
Republican groups argue that Ranked Choice is confusing and reduces voter turnout, but actual results have proven that to be a false claim. Alaska’s elections in 2022 were the first time they used RCV, and they saw a 25% decline in voting compared with 2020. But 2020 was the Trump versus Biden mega-battle, and that 25% drop is actually a lot better than the average 32% drop in voting that all thirteen small states (one or two House representatives) averaged. In fact, Maine, which used RCV voting in 2020 and 2022, only saw an 18% drop in voting compared with 2020. The facts are that looking at Maine and Alaska and comparing them with the other eleven small states, there is no proof of voter drop-off, and in fact, it looks like an improvement.
As for the reports of confusion, there really hasn’t been any.
The reality is that Ranked Choice Voting saves money by avoiding expensive run-offs and by giving us elected officials that represent more of the voters. Now how can that be a bad idea.
I was exposed to the concept of Ranked Choice voting last year and really liked it. I subsequently have affiliated myself with the Forward Party, which was started by Andrew Wang to push Ranked Choice voting and similar concepts. Have you heard of it? Do you like it?