Tom Mast – founder, Solve American Gridlock
Ranked Choice Voting – Defined
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), also known as instant runoff voting, is a proportional and nonpartisan voting method. Instead of holding a separate runoff election in the future, voters are given the option to rank candidates in the order of their preference to produce an “instant runoff” result. #politics
The graphics and descriptions below are for a single-winner RCV election, say for the U.S. House. For an election of a multi-member district in which five house members are going to be elected, there might be perhaps 14 candidates on the ballot, and the top five would be selected using this process.
How does it work?
Voters rank candidates in order of choice. The may rank as many – or as few – as they please.
Votes are counted in round 1. If no one has a majority, voting goes to round 2.
Prior to round 2, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and the second place votes from that candidate are transferred to the remaining candidates. If this doesn’t produce someone with a majority, the “runoff” continues with another round until there is a winner – who will always have a majority.
In an election in a five-seat multi-member district and using RCV, the process would produce five winners of seats using the iterative process above, but the winners would not have received a majority of the votes in the district because five winners are being elected.
Ranked Choice Voting – Advantages
RCV can replace the “runoff” system; in fact, it is often named the Instant Runoff system. It produces a result at the time of the initial election and eliminates the waiting time and the cost of a runoff election. It also avoids the traditional low turnout of a runoff election and thus the danger of selecting a winner elected by a narrow portion of the constituents.
RCV can replace, the “first past the post” system in which the candidate with the most votes wins, i.e. there is no runoff. When there are more than two candidates in the race, the winner may have many fewer votes than a majority and still win.
Because voters can rank candidates, they aren’t tempted to gamble by voting for someone whom they perceive is more likely to win than their favorite candidate. Ranking allows voters to rank their favorite and their most likely candidates number 1 and 2 or vice versa. The spoiler effect of votes being split between candidates of similar ideologies – and wasted – is greatly reduced or eliminated.
RCV is a “proportional” voting system, meaning that it does a much better job of electing candidates that represent the various voters more fairly.
Candidates have reason to be more civil and issue-focused due to the possibility of gaining second or third choice votes and thus having a chance to win in a later round.
Voter turnout is increased because voters feel their vote is more effective. They like being able to express more than one choice by ranking, and they enjoy the increased civility of the campaigning.
RCV has been tested and is well accepted. It is used in many U.S. Universities; the Academy Awards Oscars selections; internationally in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and North Ireland, Scotland, Malta, many European countries; Maine and now Alaska. It can be and is used in state and local elections ever more widely in the USA.
Ranked Choice Voting used for the House and Senate elections together with multi-member districts for the House could eliminate the need for primary elections in electing congress. #congress
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