There are some weird things being said about ranked-choice voting, the proposed system that’ll allow you to elect your second or third choice for governor.
Here’s one I just made up: It’ll cure foot fungus.
Some of its supporters also claim it’ll prevent the election of candidates like Donald Trump, which is pretty much the same thing.
If ranked-choice becomes law in a referendum this November, certain passionate advocates even insist it will produce a government so responsive that we’ll eradicate poverty, drug abuse, lousy schools, excessive taxes and having to watch the same political ad twice in a single TV commercial break.
In reality, RCV will have little impact on the quality of our governors and legislators, or the quantity of fungal cells between our toes. Everything will remain just about the way it is now, except it’ll be more complicated, more expensive and more legally questionable. Sort of like those disputes between Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills. Except without the entertaining temper tantrums.
That’s because the advantages of ranked-choice voting are mostly mythical. For instance:
Myth number 1: Ranked-choice elections produce a fairer result. This is a tricky one, because most people’s definition of fair is victory for the candidate they support.
Obviously, this ballot change won’t guarantee that. But if your idea of fair is that the winner collects more than 50 percent of the vote, RCV can’t guarantee that, either. If there are more than two candidates in the race, and you don’t vote for one of the top two finishers somewhere on your ballot, your vote doesn’t figure in the final tally. That means the winner can finish with more than half the votes still in play, but less than half of all votes cast. This actually happened in Portland’s mayoral race in 2011, when Michael Brennan was elected with about 48 percent of the total vote.
Myth number 2: Ranked-choice voting is easy to understand. Research from California, where instant-runoff ballots have been in use in municipal races, shows a sharp increase in the number of invalid ballots, particularly in areas with a high percentage of low-income and minority residents. Also, there’s no way to determine how many people screwed up their ballots without realizing it, casting votes for candidates they didn’t intend to support. According to Pacific Standard magazine, upon his first encounter with an RCV ballot, California Gov. Jerry Brown called it “very complexifying.”
Myth number 3: Ranked-choice voting won’t cost much. Voting machines are a rarity in Maine outside of the major cities and towns. But if RCV passes, those municipalities that have them will have to shell out to buy or rent new ones capable of counting the more complex ballots. In the rest of the state, where hand counting is the norm, coming up with a final tally will likely require staff and volunteers to labor for several days to figure out the results. In Minneapolis, last year’s switch to instant runoff was supposed to save money because it replaced two elections – the primary and general – with one. According to The Uptake website, “[T]he cost of voter education and a lack of ballot counting technology for ranked choice voting generally offset the savings.”
Myth number 4: Choosing governors and legislators using ranked-choice is constitutional. The Maine Secretary of State’s Office has its doubts. The state Constitution contains language saying the gubernatorial winner needs only a plurality of the vote. There’s no requirement for a majority. Supporters of RCV say that’s no big deal because, as one of them told the MaineToday Media newspapers, “A majority is always a plurality.” But if the winner of the first round of ranked-choice voting ends up losing in the final round, he or she could go to court claiming the election had been stolen using unconstitutional means, since that initial victory was a plurality, too. Just to be on the safe side, the League of Women Voters is drafting a constitutional amendment clarifying the issue, but there’s no guarantee that alteration will win support in the Legislature or approval by the voters.
Myth number 5: Did I mention that thing about foot fungus? I really wish that were true.
Instantly run off an email to me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
I guess it all boils down to the definition of ” is “.
Vote yes for no and no for yes….simple no?
I think what people mostly mean by claiming ranked-choice voting is “more fair” is that it eliminates the need for strategic voting: that is, voting in a way that doesn’t reflect your real preferences in order to give a better chance to somebody acceptable (or almost acceptable) who might actually win.
Unfortunately this claim is dead wrong. I don’t hear anybody mentioning it in this political debate, but there was a mathematical proof called Arrow’s Theorem, discovered about 1950, showing that no possible voting system can eliminate the need for strategic voting when there are more than two choices. That includes ranked-choice systems. And no, when a mathematician proves something is impossible, that doesn’t just mean “we haven’t found a way to do it yet.” It means the desired object has been shown to be self-contradictory.
People seem to misunderstand politics. Politics isn’t about right or wrong, Constitutional or Not, Legal or not, Honest or not, Moral or not, intelligent or not, it’s about people trying to get their way regardless.
The worm in the bud is actually this: The bureaucrats will not change and in their venues most of the mischief is caused. We’ll not, for one example, get rid of the radical environmentalists from the ranks of those who fill the CODE OF MAINE RULES.
An alternative, which is easier to understand and requires no change to existing voting equipment, would be to have a two-round election. All the candidates could run in an October first round with the top two finishers facing off in the November second round. Voters could support their “real preference” in the first round, then go with the candidate who is acceptable to them in the November final vote. It may not be as elegant as RCV, but it bypasses RCV’s complexities, while guaranteeing a majority winner. France uses the two-round method to elect its president and other officers with no drop-off in turnout from the first to the second round of voting. The same “primary and election” method is used in many non-partisan local elections in the U.S., including where I live in Durham, NC.
I believe I failed to make my conclusion clear. It doesn’t matter how we elect the politicians because they are surface agents. They rarely actually take a deep look and take action to remedy the consistent, relentless, relatively unaccountable mischief the bureaucrats cause. The rules bureaucrats promulgate have the force of law! Al writes, above,”If ranked-choice becomes law in a referendum this November, certain passionate advocates even insist it will produce a government so responsive that we’ll eradicate poverty, drug abuse, lousy schools, excessive taxes…” I don’t believe that for a minute. Politicians are boats floating on a deep sea of bureaucrats that cannot be effectively and consistently influenced.
I’d prefer that we’d leave the system for electing the politicians alone. Plurality voting will serve us all right. The alternative is ever more complication and expense.