Today’s question is back in sequence: While related (sort of) to Parts 1 and 2, it’s still its own topic. It's also from my pal Roger Green, who asked:
Please explain (again) how an instant runoff voting scenario would work v. first past the post. If you want to, use the GA runoff as an example of a wasteful government expenditure, IMO.
For most Georgia voters (about which, more later), the state’s runoff election is an entirely separate election, held four weeks after the November election. The better, and far less expensive option, is ranked choice voting, the collective name for many different flavours of voting systems, all of which are completely different from what Georgia and other places use for most voters. In the USA, it’s also known as "alternative vote" (AV) or "instant-runoff voting" (IRV).
What all ranked choice systems have in common is that instead of voting for the only ONE candidate for an office, like in a typical first past the post (FPP) election, voters rank their choices from one (the candidate they most want) on down to the candidate they least want. In every system I’m aware of, a voter doesn’t have to rank all the candidates on the ballot. This matters because if a voter deeply loathes parties or candidates, it’s okay to simply ignore them. It’s what happens next that starts to get complicated.
The goal with ranked choice voting is that the eventual winner has a majority of the vote, something that may not happen with FPP. Let’s assume that that we’re looking at an election for a legislative representative in a single-member district, which means only one candidate can win. Let’s also assume that there are six candidates running for the office, and no clear favourite.
Let’s now assume this was the result of the election: Candidate A got 25% of the votes cast, Candidate B got 23%, Candidate C got 20%, Candidate D got 15, Candidate E got 12%, and Candidate F got 5%. Under FPP, Candidate A would be elected with only a quarter of the votes cast because they got the more than any other candidate—BUT the vast majority of voters did NOT vote for Candidate A. This can happen in any FPP election with multiple candidates.
In the real world, votes aren’t usually as close to each other as in this example, especially in elections that historically lean toward one party. The point, however, is that FPP doesn’t always elect someone that the majority of voters are at least okay with, and frequently elects candidates that only a minority voted for. When that happens, it’s typically said the candidate declared the winner got “a plurality of the vote”, which is a nice way of saying that the majority of voters didn’t vote for the winning candidate. That masks how undemocratic the result is, in my opinion.
In Georgia, no candidate won 50% of the votes cast in the November election, though Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat running for re-election, won more votes than his Republican or Libertarian Party opponents. Under FPP, Sen. Warnock would’ve been reelected with less than half the vote, but instead there was the separate runoff election four weeks later, which he won.
In ranked choice voting elections, there are rounds (called different names in different places, but we’ll use that). In the example above, voters could rank their choices from 1 up to 6. The result only be the first round because no candidate received 50% of the vote. So, the lowest ranked candidate (Candidate F, in the example) is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed to the second choices of Candidate F’s voters. This continues with an as many rounds as it takes until one candidate passes 50% and becomes the winner.
This all happens through mathematics, which is certainly not my strongest subject, so I can’t explain the precise mechanisms. I understand what happens, but not precisely how it happens. The important thing is that it follows mathematics.
This gets at the biggest problem with ranked choice voting: It’s complicated. It’s hard to educate voters used to FPP on how the system works and how to use it. Once they understand the principle of ranking choices, though, it’s simple to use. The next question is, why use it?
The biggest reason is that it guarantees that the winning candidate(s) will have a majority of voters who, at the very least, don’t totally reject them. Under FPP, it’s very easy for someone disliked by the majority to nevertheless win. That also means that the “spoiler effect” inherent in FPP is vastly reduced: Under ranked choice voting, people don’t “throw away” their votes on minor party candidates because if they’re eliminated, their votes will be reallocated to other, possibly similar choices that might win. Under FPP, casting a vote for a minor party candidate could help a candidate one loathes to win. Partly because it reduses the spoiler effect, over time ranked choice voting encourages more minor parties, though, it must be noted, ranked choice voting results usually coalesce around dominant parties.
All that said, another (and completely different) reason to use ranked choice voting in elections is the savings: The immediate “run off” saves the costs of holding an entirely separate election day and having entirely separate vote counting. Equally as important, it spares voters from having to endure further weeks of incessant election advertising and campaigning.
In sum, ranked choice voting is fairer and more democratic than FPP, it encourages the development of smaller parties, and it saves taxpayers money, all while ensuring they don’t have to endure any more electioneering than is absolutely necessary. Infinite wins, in my opinion.
Even Georgia sees the common-sense practicality of ranked choice voting: Overseas Georgia votes (and maybe other absentee voters—I don’t know) were given a ranked choice ballot to use in the November election. This was entirely practical: It would be physically impossible to get run-off ballots to overseas voters and get them returned in time to be counted. What I don’t know is how they were counted. To me, it seems likely that they could’ve eliminated minor party candidates in the second round to get to the two in the run-off, then add those votes onto the total in the run-off. I should emphasise that I’m speculating, because I absolutely don’t know, and it’s also possible that the votes of overseas Georgians weren’t used at all in the runoff.
Finally, ranked-choice voting, in all its many flavours, isn’t merely always fairer and more democratic than FPP, it’s also a system that could be adopted everywhere in the USA without changing the country’s system of government or amending the US Constitution (or, probably, any state constitutions—I haven’t checked that). This would do more to change the USA’s poisoned politics faster than pretty much any other democratic reform. All of which is why the USA’s rightwing and their wealthy donors would oppose it with with all their might: Ranked choice voting would mean they’d lose their unearned, unelected power. To me, that’s just one more excellent reason for the USA to switch to ranked choice voting.
Thanks to Roger for today’s question!
It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. To avoid being public there, you can send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page..
All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.
Previously:
A decade-long inquisition
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 2: Indepen-dunce
3 comments:
gracias!
You DO know I love the word penultimate, don't you?
Yes, I do. The word choice was deliberate—it was your question, after all.
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