By Dave Lunger
Proponents tell us Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is simple – simply fill in ovals according to your candidate rankings; opponents tell us RCV is too complex – try reading and understanding the proposed law in the ‘Information for Voters’ guide. To sort this out, rather than compare RCV to what we have now, it may help for this article to discuss how RCV compares to Runoff voting. Indeed, RCV is a specific type of Runoff – where a majority winner is determined using one ballot.
At a basic level – both RCV and Runoffs transform “one who gets the most votes wins” elections into “outright or eventual majority-winner” elections. All the various forms of RCV/Runoffs vary in how one takes a plurality candidate, and transform he/she into a “majority winner”. Various runoff methods given the same electorate and same slate of candidates can and often do generate different “majority” winners. A two-round runoff system consists of one but no more than two visits to the polls. An Exhaustive Ballot method, does not limit the number of rounds. RCV is defined as an instant one visit exhaustive ballot method.
Two Round Runoff
The two-round Runoff is a system with a first round followed by a second round typically 4 weeks but up to 9 weeks later. The elapsed time period needed to setup the second round of balloting is helpful for us as voters to re-assess our choices based on which candidates were eliminated and who remains standing. We can re-align our vote based on continued candidate campaigning and news events, up-to-date polling results, and candidates dropping out or conferring their support to another candidate. The second round is an essential part of the election and the process incorporates us as voters into the proceedings.
RCV, aka Instant Runoff Voting, invention attributed to William Ware, Cambridge native, around the year 1870.
RCV is essentially an Exhaustive Ballot method, where there is only one visit to the polls and subsequent rounds processed by computer. In the absence of an outright majority winner, the computer is given, in theory, all the data it requires to process the ballot rankings to select an apparent-majority winner. Without any elapsed time period between rounds, RCV does not allow for voter choice re-assessment and does not factor in real-time polling data, news events nor continued candidate campaigning within the narrowed candidate slate. In practice, many voters will concentrate their due diligence on their first choice – after all, the other choices are mere hypotheticals, and may find later after their first choice is eliminated, they have in retrospect wished they’d have voted with different rankings.
Some factors to consider under any future RCV ballot regime:
- If you like only one candidate in a slate of many and vote your only acceptable choice who becomes eliminated, your ballot is considered “exhausted”. You essentially have to “sit out” any remaining rounds, while other voter ballots continue the computer churn to deem a “majority” winner.
- Often, a voter may have a perfect candidate that is not favored to win, and then a preferred compromise candidate. There is an entire study to this, but consider that the final election outcome may turn on the order of your choices – the order you use for your two candidates as first or second rankings may help produce different election winners. This is more likely the lower the tabulation spread between candidates.
- Parties may find a way to game the system with a set of tactical candidates. The slate can be setup initially to include two or more similar candidates, where any one would be acceptable, with the goal towards early round elimination of their main opponent.
- Consider Worcester’s example, having local RCV starting in 1949. A City Council election sported 150 candidates for its nine seats. A School Committee election had 36 candidates for six open seats. Producing very low first round tallies for its candidates, after many rounds the “majority” winners seemed arbitrary. Voters in a 1960 referendum abolished RCV after a short 11 year lifespan.
- Changing our current election scheme will be expensive. RCV across Massachusetts will cost taxpayers millions of dollars in computers (centralized at the Secretary of State), modifications to all town and city systems and practices, voter education and additional ballot handling logistics.
Is RCV simple or complex? More to the point, might there be unintended consequences of its passage here? The issues raised above point to this proposal as something indeed more intricate than first thought, problematic in actual use, and ripe for nefarious causes. It will not perform as simply as “just fill in the ranked ovals”, as it’s most likely to have aggravating unintended consequences in the future.
Why change what we have now? How many elections are we seeing where the result would actually be improved with RCV over the current system? If the case, I would urge a Two-round Runoff system distancing the rounds to choose an actual voter-produced majority rather than a computer-chosen hypothetical majority winner.
My understanding is that if you don’t pick a second choice, it’s the equivalent of not returning to the polls for a runoff election which, of course, means you would be giving up your vote. In fact, in places where they have old-fashioned runoff elections, voter participation typically drops significantly for the subsequent rounds. The advantage of RCV is that you don’t have to return to the polls another day. You simply make your second choice selection while you’re at the polls in the first place.
In the case you cited, the second round reallocations occur, and then a “new” set of tallies made that will result in A getting over 50%. Remember, in a two-way race there ALWAYS is a majority, unless there is an exact tie. But this is just as it is now without RCV – coin tosses have then chosen the winner, among various methods.
However you are indeed onto something called the Condorcet Paradox. Consider three candidates and three voters. All rankings are filled in. In round 1, A chooses B, B chooses C, C chooses A. In round 2 and round 3, the rankings are similar, but different combos. If you tallied all the rankings in lump sums, you’d have 3-3-3. So, in this hypothetical case, indeed a theoretical “end case” used in mathematical research into voting, RCV will find no majority.
Dave, I don’t think you understand the ballot question. RCV is a simple and effective way for voters to express their support for a candidate that they feel shares their views but has a smaller chance of winning. By voting a second option, your vote would still count. And I don’t see the the second or multiple visits to the polls as part of this process. There is a first count. If there is not a majority, then there is another count…until a majority winner is established.
The state of Maine established RCV because a “spoiler” independent candidate divided the vote. TWO times, Paul LePage was elected governor with something under 40% of the vote. He was a nightmare. The”reasonable” vote was split and a lunatic was elected by a minority.
With RCV, you could select as number one a libertarian or a green candidate to show your support for that philosophy, Select as number two the candidate you would prefer to win if your “third party” choice does not succeed (as is usually the case).
RCV gives us the chance to voice our true political leanings while still participating in the ultimately practical contest. RCV is a good thing feared by some in the shrinking major party. JMO.
Hi Dave,
I have a question: is it possible in RCV that a “majority” doesn’t end up occurring (say if people don’t pick a second choice)?
What I’m trying to say is if voters don’t pick a second choice, and their top choice is eliminated, does their lack of preference “count” in the final tally, or is their vote just voided?
Let’s say you have a three-way race with Candidates A, B, and C. A gets 48%, B gets 48%, and C gets 4%. And for those who selected the loser, only 25% of them picked a second choice, and they all chose Candidate A. So in the second round, A now has 49% and B has 48%. Does the second round then discard all the voters for Candidate C who failed to choose a second choice, and they recalculate the number of votes to give a “majority” to Candidate A, even though the candidate did not get a majority of the voters for first or second place?
It would seem that “the computer” could determine if this happens and in this instance, require a run-off, because the “majority” of voters did not vote for any of the three candidates in all the voting rounds.
Allen