"Thoughts on Voting, Including Ranked Choice Voting"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Thoughts on Voting, Including Ranked Choice Voting”

July 7, 2021

 

“Our life is frittered away by detail.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

                                                                                                                               Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

                                                                                                                               Walden, 1854

 

Because of technology we are able to live in a complex world. Yet, we make better decisions, when, as Confucius said, we make the complicated simple. Through early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, officials have made voting more accessible but associated complexities have increased the likelihood of fraud. Debate persists as to whether those changes have proven efficacious.  Now, there is a renewed effort to improve the election process through the (re)introduction of ranked choice voting (RCV). 

 

From a personal perspective, I am not a fan of early voting for two reasons: One, it deprives the voter of weighing issues until Election Day and, two, early voters are more likely to go to the polls following a pep rally, so their decisions are likely to be emotional rather than deliberative. As for absentee voting, I believe that, to the extent possible, voters who are able should vote in person. Not only does is it simpler, it is easier to assure that the voter is legitimate. As for ranked choice voting, I lean in its favor.

 

RCV is used in elections when three or more candidates are on the ballot, as it eliminates the need for a runoff election. As the name implies, it allows voters to rank choices by preference, i.e., 1 - 5. When the votes are tallied, if one candidate has won an outright majority, then he or she wins the election. If not, the candidate with the fewest number of first choice votes is eliminated. Those who voted for that candidate have their votes transferred to their second choice. This continues until a single candidate gains a majority. If the process is prolonged, some ballots will be eliminated – “exhausted” is the term used.

 

Feedback regarding RCV suggests that problems lie not in the counting of votes, but with voters’ abilities to process the complexities of the ballot. In a New York Times article in February 2020, Jacey Fortin wrote, “…members of the N.A.A.C.P. and the City’s Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus spoke out against ranked choice voting. They were partly worried that it could hurt candidates of color, and that a more complicated ballot would reduce turnout.” In an op-ed in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Michael Saltsman and Rebekah Paxton quoted Jason McDaniel, a political scientist at San Francisco State University: “…turnout declines among African-American and white voters [were] significantly correlated with adoption of RCV.” To me, both comments reek of condescension. 

 

Proponents of RCV say it would strengthen majority victories with broadly acceptable winners, though the ultimate winner may be the second or third choice of some voters. (Perhaps it is right that a politician know whether or not he or she is a plurality victor?) Some say it would increase voter turnout, thought the jury is out on that claim. Those in favor of RCV tell us campaigns would be less divisive, though New York City’s recent Democratic Mayoral primary questions that assumption. And, by eliminating the need for runoffs, RCVs should reduce the amounts of money needed in campaigns. Andrew Yang has argued that RCV will lead to fewer ideological extremists.

 

Opponents claim its complexity would dampen voter turnout. New York City Council Member Adrienne Adams said it would allow candidates to “game the system.” Simon Waxman of Harvard University Press noted that voters who have their ballots eliminated through “exhaustion” have no say in the final outcome. Other critics have said it gives advantage to incumbents and those whose names are well known, but that is true in any election. Problems in New York City’s last month’s Democratic Mayoral primary, reflected, as John Fund pointed out in the June issue of The Spectator, corruption and incompetence at the New York City Board of Elections, not anything inherently wrong with RCV. 

 

Ranked choice voting dates to the 19^th Century. In the Times article quoted above, Ms. Fortin wrote that the idea was “promoted by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1861,” and that a version was “developed about a decade later by William Ware, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” RCV is not foreign to many voters. According to Wikipedia, it is used in at least twenty U.S. cities and in many states, in lieu of runoff elections. It is also used in non-government elections, including those in hundreds of schools and more than eighty-five colleges and universities. 

 

In the debate over ranked choice voting, we should not let a quest for the perfect detract from what is important – keeping elections simple and secure. Two rules should govern all elections: One, every eligible citizen should be permitted to vote. Two, voter IDs should be required, as no one who is not eligible should be allowed to vote. All other rules are secondary. As long as the process is simple and seen to be honest, most people, as William Buckley inferred many years ago, have confidence in the collective intelligence of the American voter and, therefore, in outcomes.