Commentary
Ranked choice voting offers hope and healing for a divided politics
By Buzz Cummins and Cyndi Lesher
Buzz Cummins is CEO of the Workers Compensation Reinsurance Corporation. Cyndi Lesher is retired CEO of Northern States Power, an Xcel Energy Company. They serve on the board of FairVote Minnesota.
The cliche that "politics is a blood sport" has never rung more true. Even in Minnesota, politics has gotten downright uncivil — and citizens are the real victims.
We've both worked in Minnesota politics, having served under two different Republican governors (Al Quie and Tim Pawlenty). It's been our perception — and we know many people across the political spectrum who share it — that demagoguery and divisiveness have been escalating for years. That might be good for purveyors of negative political advertising, but it's bad for the rest of the state: not just individual voters, but business and civic institutions as well.
In a thoughtful commentary in the Star Tribune, "A platform for the partyless," David Banks articulated beautifully the frustration felt by many voters who long for the return of reason to politics, the lost art of "weighing the full range of arguments and evidence, and making a decision."
We too yearn for public policy debates that aren't either/or propositions, but rather nuanced discussions aimed at finding workable solutions.
As business executives, we've been trained to observe trend lines in order to understand problems, recommend solutions and initiate action. Examining Minnesota's body politic, we see one alarming trend: a political system impaired by divisiveness and gridlock. Often, as we experienced during last summer's government shutdown, the end result is paralysis.
Once praised as a model of good government, our state is now suffering instability, confusion and stalemate. Our economic and social well-being is at risk. While some simply blame the two major parties for this dysfunction, we would go a step further and ask whether it is our electoral system itself that fosters these negative outcomes.
Our prescription for curing these electoral ills is the adoption of ranked choice voting (RCV), first at the local level and ultimately at the state and federal levels.
RCV aligns the candidates' interests in getting elected with the electorate's goal to have a functioning, competent government. Under RCV, voters rank their electoral preferences — first, second, third, etc. — and those choices are then used to ensure that each election is won by a candidate with a majority (more than 50 percent) of the vote. In practice, RCV works like a runoff but happens in a single election, thus saving money and maximizing voter participation.
RCV promotes political competition and allows people to vote for their favorite candidates, eliminating the "spoiler" and "wasted vote" syndromes and making it easier for independent candidates and third parties to bring fresh, innovative solutions to the table. It also requires candidates to reach beyond their narrow base to a broad majority of voters. Enacting it at the state level would go a long way in curtailing the hyper partisanship that afflicts our state government and has engendered frustration among voters.
We're not alone in recommending this solution. RCV enjoys broad cross-partisan support in Minnesota and is gaining national attention as an important cure for our political dysfunction. In a Jan. 13 report, William Galston of the Brookings Institute recognized that critical economic reform isn't possible given "the current level of political polarization" and recommends RCV as an antidote to "excessive partisanship."
In the Harvard Political Review's Jan. 25 piece, "The Making of the President 1789-2012," authors Jay Alver and Humza Bokhari point to RCV as the cure for the nation's divisive, insufficiently representative presidential election process. RCV "would allow supporters of all parties to play a role in the president's selection."
RCV isn't some fanciful experiment: We know it's doable and we know it works. St. Paul's debut of ranked choice voting for City Council elections last November was, by most accounts, a resounding success. Minnesota's capital was one of six cities using this increasingly popular method of voting this past November: San Francisco used it to elect a mayor, as did Portland, Maine, and Telluride, Colo. Two other cities — Takoma Park, Md., and Cambridge, Mass. — elected council members. Those cities join others, from Minneapolis to Oakland to Hendersonville, N.C., in taking an important, workable and cost-effective step to heal our country's enfeebled political system.
Adopting RCV does require voter education (not a bad thing in any event, as it increases familiarity with the process and heightens citizen engagement) and other start-up costs, but this short-term investment is offset by long-term cost savings and the replacement of aging voting equipment with RCV-capable machines. More importantly, the initial costs are outweighed by the creation of a vastly more fit and robust democracy.
It's past time for ranked choice voting to be a part of our state and national discussions. We hope that the Minnesota Legislature moves to make RCV available for all local elections — and that it then considers ending our string of plurality governors by adopting RCV for all statewide offices. Then, perhaps, Minnesota can again become a model of good government by demonstrating the positive impact RCV could have on federal elections.
Comments (16)
>"and those choices are then used to ensure that each election is won by a candidate with a majority (more than 50 percent) of the vote." This is actually a common misperception about RCV. If you think about it, there is nothing magical about RCV that would create a majority vote. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area only 46% of the voters listed eventual Mayor as any one of their RCVs. In Oakland the figure was 45%. We had a District Supervisor race where only 24% of the people voted for the RCV winner anywhere on their RCV ballots. I think the confusion arises from the fact that so many votes need to be discarded during the RCV process. In the SF Mayors race 27% of the otherwise valid votes were thrown out. After they were ignored then yes, the winnder had a majority of the remaining votes, but that is algebra, not democracy.
Usually RCV is eventually repealed as the "coolness" factor wears off. Burlington VT (once the poster child for RCV), Pierce County WA, Aspen CO, Ann Arbor MI all repealed RCV after it didn't live up to the salesmen's claims. Other cities stopped using it, and many more won the election to stop it from being used. Several SF Supervisors want to take the repeal of RCV to the voters, only to be blocked by a few Supervisors who benefited from RCV. Oakland has a citizen led initiative to repeal RCV after electing a Mayor with 45%. They want to return to a guaranteed majority winner. Though she won under the plurality rules of RCV, many view her as illegitimate.
It's not uncommon for RCV supporters to leave out important facts, and select information (sometimes false) that put RCV is a good light. As Board Members of Fairvote (an organization that was fined by the state for misleading the public in capping literature to get RCV passed) they are salesmen which need to profit, and should be viewed with a jaundice eye.
Some have bought their product, but many more have returned it.
It's the new Pet Rock.
I agree with Galston that RCV would help with our "nation's divisive, insufficiently representative presidential election process." During many of Minnesota's recent elections we have seen polling in which the question "Who would make the best such-and-such" produce a different poll result than "Who are you voting for that same office." Increasingly campaigns are constructed around the narrative of scaring the voters about what the other guy or gal would do if elected, leading too many to cast a vote against a candidate rather than for one. I've seen this up close working in campaigns throughout the state. RCV is no cure all for what ails us in the political arena, but it is a step in the right direction.
I suppose I would pose this question to those on the fence: How's the current political system treating you?
>How's the current political system treating you?
Good question. Here in the San Francisco Bay area we have RCV and many of us wish to go back to the 'old' system.
We just had a Mayoral race with 14 candidates. There were plenty of attempts to scare the voters once a clear favorite emerged. The head of the Democratic Party here charged that the eventual Mayor, Chinese American Edwin Lee, was backed by the Chinese communist government. Meanwhile, the rest of the candidates, instead of offering a lively debate, were falling all over themselves to look like good 2nd and 3rd choices to other candidates. The turnout for the race was the lowest for any contested Mayoral race of the past 36 years.
And you're lucky that I don't live in Oakland, where there are multiple recalls against the RCV winning Mayor as her legitimacy is questioned during a very difficult time for the system.
Jump on in, Minnesota! The water's fine!
RCV does nothing to alleviate partisanship. The evidence is half a world away: Australia has used it for a century, and their politics are as divisive (and two-party dominated) as America's.
It doesn't even guarantee a majority winner; several local elections across the country have used RCV, and one in California was won with less than 24% of the vote, while one in North Carolina was won with 28%.
There are voting reforms that could actually help. Proportional representation has, in some countries, actually decreased partisanship and allowed for third-party success, and there are single-winner election systems that can achieve some of these same results.
Approval voting is the simplest of these. All you do is remove the restriction of "vote for one". When voters can vote for as many candidates as they want, they can indicate their support for a true compromise, without fearing they will give away the election to their least-favorite candidate.
RCV proponents make this same claim, but it is easily disproven. A previous commentor mentioned Burlington, VT, where Republican voters could have elected a Democrat instead of a Progressive, if they had not believe the RCV-supporters lies about being able to vote their conscience. There, the compromise candidate was eliminated first due to having a slightly-smaller number of first-place votes, leaving the final round of the election as a choice between extremists... just like plurality elections are now.
None of this will make a difference until there is some SERIOUS campaign finance reform across the board. "Citizens United" will continue to allow major parties to funnel billions to buy elections based on propaganda over a person's actual qualification or ability to govern. Until special interests are completely taken out of the equation, RCV is still just a hopeful cookie tossed to third-parties.
Jon, Brandon, if politicians are getting elected with less than 50% of the vote, I can understand the cynicism. The only way that could happen though is if voters only register a preference for one candidate. If they don't show a preference for a second or third choice, they are showing a preference for whomever their fellow voters support. In other words, they are abdicating their right to choose. That is not a failure of RCV. It is a failure to educate voters on the benefits and power of the new voting method. Any tool sucks when misused. My chainsaw can't cut a single log until it is used properly. In MN, we have had very strong voter education and voter participation in the RCV method. As long as voters are informed on how RCV works and how they can use it to exercise their preference, the system works. If, on the other hand, no one gives the voter the updated user manual, then you get the results you shared.
It sounds like some voters need a refresher course on how RCV works for their best interest when they exercise more than one preference.
Mark-
The winner almost always has less than a majority in our RCV elections and it is a chronic problem with RCV that voter education can't fix. It has to do with exhausted ballots.
Lets say that we had an RCV election and the instant runoff results were Washington 55% vs Lincoln 45%. Well what about the voters who indicated 3 choices but they were Madison, Jefferson and Truman? Their votes have to be excluded from the final total. In just about every race we've had the numbers work out so that, when you include these exhausted ballots, the RCV winner had lass than a majority of the total votes cast. And remember, the 'exhausted' voters did nothing wrong other than that they voted for the 'wrong' candidates.
You can see the figures for yourself on one of the San Francisco District races where only 24% of the voters selected the winner on their RCV ballot:
http://sfelections.org/results/20101102/data/d10.html
Ah, so you feel that my rights as a voter are "exhausted" after my primary preference is expressed. My preference of Lincoln over Truman doesn't seem to count if I read your comments correctly. I wholeheartedly disagree. Try to apply that logic in an "anybody but Obama" or "anybody but Romney" voting environment. My second choice is still preferred over candidate X.
Mark-
The term 'exhausted' isn't mine -- it is the official terminology of the San Francisco Election Department; just look at that link that I posted earlier.
This past November we had a RCV Mayoral election and the official RCV result was 60% for Ed Lee and 40% for John Avalos. A tidy 100% But 27% of the voters didn't vote for either one and were not included in that final, official tally that made Ed Lee Mayor. (How could they be?)
So it is sad but true, their votes were absolutely not counted in the final tally.
This is the way just about every RCV election has worked out here, with the winner failing to get a majority of the total votes cast. You can look at the results on our SFGov.org website or just try it in Minnesota and see for yourself.
Just another boost for Jon's point:
A vote is "exhausted" when ALL the candidates the voter chose to list are eliminated, not just the first. Mark, you're misconstruing how the word is used.
And all of Jon's points are true: often, because of exhausted ballots, the RCV winner has less than 50% of the votes, because many voters chose not to rank either of the two candidates who survived to the final round.
Since the whole point of RCV was enacted to replace runoffs when candidates got
Dale, Jon, this returns me to my original point. If voters don't register a preference after their first choice or two, then their preference is to allow the rest of the voters to choose for them. If you have a highly contested election with a large number of candidates and voters who only register one or two preferences, you will get the results you refer to. In those cases, RCV did not fall short, the voters preferences were registered. Unfortunately, many preferred to let everyone else choose after their initial preferences were eliminated. The tool works. The voters just need to know that this tool, RCV, can do so much more for them if they register all of their preferences.
thoughts:
1. Both sides are true. The only way to guarantee a majority winner is to make voters rank all of the many candidates, but if more ranked more (up to 3) candidates then we'd get majority winners most of the time.
2. But even with the current system and practices there are stronger winners and the number of candidates who get attention during the election is higher. The issue is when there is a competitive three-way election. RCV, like FPTP, tends to keep a 2 party dominated system, but both need to do a better job to stay on top.
3. I view the args of RCV advocates as stating tendencies as absolutes for marketing reasons. There is no guarantee that no one will ever be pressured to vote strategically. But with RCV, they'll be from a major party that is captured by its tail to vote for a centrist party. With FPTP, it'd be the third party dissenters to vote for a major party. The former strengthens the center, the latter destroys it.
For me, the real deal is the need to mix more multi-winner elections into our political system. To do this at the local level, rankings are not crucial. But electoral reform can be unnerving so marketing requires simplification.
Sadly, opponents either don't appreciate the marketing problem or may want to muddy the waters.
But we wrangle too much over which single-winner election rule is the best when what we really need are American forms of PR! http://anewkindofparty.blogspot.com/2011/06/american-forms-of-proportional.html
If you can only vote for one, and you don't vote for one of the top two, your vote is wasted. This chains candidates to the money treadmill, as they must build up enough funds to stay in the top two for next time; even if the candidates aren't corrupted, the system is. But as long as they can stay ahead in fundraising, they only have one opponent to worry about; like any monopoly, they become complacent, and quality suffers.
Reforming the system is, indeed, the only way out. Instant Runoff Voting, the form of Ranked Choice Voting being promoted here, is a small step up. But as others have pointed out, a beats-all winner can still be eliminated too early if they're squeezed on the left and right by others; and in a crowded field, where exhausted ballots are common, there is no majority guarantee. So, while it handles small third parties, it breaks just as badly as our current system as soon as we need it most, when there are three good choices.
As Dale Sheldon-Hass points out, there are several options which are even better. Approval voting - just count all the votes - is simpler and better than IRV. And simple adjustments to approval can make it even better. Fallback approval - you can add backup approvals which are only counted if no candidate gets a majority of top-ratings. Delegated approval (aka SODA) - if you vote for just one candidate, you can optionally let them add approvals to your ballot after the votes are counted, so a majority winner is nearly guaranteed.
The need to vote for one of the top 2 is not so big of a deal given that there are usually up to 4 serious candidates in a single-winner election.
Since everyone gets to vote for up to 3 candidates, presuming that folks include only one of the top 4, and act without any information about who the top-candidates among the serious candidates are, there'd be 6 ways to choose 2 of 4 candidates and the one they picked would be among 3 of them. Thus, they'd have at least a 50% chance to be among the finalists.
If they happen to choose to rank 2 of the four then there'd be at least an 83.3% chance of them picking a finalist. If they chose to rank 3 serious candidates then it would be guaranteed.
So, as a matter of fact, it doesn't matter that much that folks only can rank up to 3 candidates. If folks do their homework then their vote would count. If folks can only support one candidate, a dark horse, then the system is no worse than FPTP.
Feel free to come and join me at "A New Kind of Third Party" if you'd like to debate this further...
dlw
Buzz and Cyndi,
My name is Clay Shentrup, and I co-founded The Center for Election Science. Your commentary contains several common severe errors.
> allows people to vote for their favorite candidates, eliminating the "spoiler" and "wasted vote" syndromes
Utterly false. See http://www.electology.org/spoiler
> In practice, RCV works like a runoff
Utterly false. See http://www.electology.org/irv-is-not-ttr
> but happens in a single election, thus saving money and maximizing voter participation.
This ignores extra costs that come with its adoption (e.g. voter education and new voting machines + ongoing replacement/maintenance). And the turnout claim has been false here in San Francisco.
http://www.electology.org/irv-turnout-sf
> those choices are then used to ensure that each election is won by a candidate with a majority (more than 50 percent) of the vote.
Absolutely false. Here is an example IRV election with over a million voters in which the winner is the first choice of only two voters, and who would lose by a (generally huge) majority to 19 of the other 20 candidates.
http://www.electology.org/irv-worst-case-scenario
As for helping independents or third party candidates, Australia has used IRV in its 150-seat House of Representatives since 1919, and it is two-party dominated.
http://scorevoting.net/AustralianPol.html
Regards,
Clay Shentrup
San Francisco, CA
@brokenladder (Twitter)
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