The Pros and Cons of Ranked-Choice Voting
By Ethan Davenport
In the past two presidential election cycles, the major party candidates for President of the United States have been Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. No matter where you land on the political spectrum, most people would agree that these candidates are not the best this country has to offer. What people may not realize is that the winner-take-all election system in the United States greatly contributes to the selection of these candidates. What do I mean by this? Well, I can best explain through recent primary elections.
In the 2016 Republican primary, according to Real Clear Politics, Donald Trump polled in the lower half of the crowded primary field for the first month or so of his campaign for president. Furthermore, Trump never even held a majority of votes at any point in his campaign, only a plurality. This means he did not ever receive 50% of the votes, just more than any other candidate. In fact, less than 14 million Americans voted for Trump in the Republican primaries, which is only about 5.5% of all eligible voters, yet he was declared the victor.
In the 2020 Democratic primary, according to NBC News Exit Polls conducted on Super Tuesday, approximately 60% of voters in the Democratic primary cared more about voting for a candidate who could beat Donald Trump than one who agrees with them or will represent their interests. These priorities stem from a winner-take-all system that inspires American voters to elect candidates that will benefit their particular party rather than the American People. There are several factors that contribute to this voter paradigm, and plenty of those issues warrant meaningful discussion, but I am here to suggest one particular change to how voters actually vote on election day. This change is called ranked-choice voting.
If you’re unaware of what that is, RCV is essentially a system where voters do not simply select one candidate when they vote, they rank their choices. For example, in an election that includes four candidates, each voter would rank those four candidates by preference. Similar to a standard election, all first choice votes are counted, and if one of the candidates receives a majority of the vote, they win the election. If no candidate receives at least 50%, the candidate that received the fewest amount of votes is eliminated from contention. For any voter that selected that candidate as their first choice, their second choice becomes their new vote. Now among the remaining three candidates, if one of the candidates receives at least 50% of the vote, they win the election. If there is still no candidate with a majority, the process continues until one candidate receives 50% and wins the election. If you’d like to watch a video explanation, click here.
This process may seem slightly confusing at first, but it has several benefits. First and foremost, RCV promotes majority support. In the current election system, it is not uncommon for candidates to win elections with less than half the vote, but ranked choice voting prevents this from happening. The winning candidate will always receive at least 50% of the vote, even if some of those votes were on second or third-choice ballots. This forces candidates to “appeal to broader cross-section of the public” as political sociologist Larry Diamond puts it. As a result of this, negative campaigning is discouraged since making negative statements about an opponent creates a risk of alienating the opposing candidates’ supporters and losing those second and third-choice votes that may be vital for victory. The effects of RCV on negative partisanship have already been studied in the US since RCV has been implemented in local elections nationwide. Most notably, these effects have been observed in Maine, the only state that uses ranked-choice voting for state and federal elections, where it has brought about political ads like this one in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor of Maine.
And this is just the beginning of the benefits of ranked-choice voting. One might think a seemingly complicated voting system would turn voters off from participating in elections. However, when Portland, Maine used RCV for its mayoral election in 2011, turnout exceeded predictions by 15 percentage points, suggesting the system may actually boost participation.
Additionally, the spoiler effect is eliminated. If you’re unaware of the spoiler effect, it is essentially when a third-party candidate draws votes away from a major candidate with similar beliefs, giving an advantage to the opposing major candidate. For example, the mere presence of Ralph Nader very well may have determined the result of the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, who, according to Thomas Mann, “drew disproportionately from those who would otherwise have voted Democratic. [He] clearly made the difference in Florida and New Hampshire, and had he not been on the ballot in either state, Gore would have been elected President.” With an RCV system in place, no votes are lost to the spoiler effect because voters can select third-party candidates as their first choice, but still have a say between the two major candidates.
On top of all that, ranked-choice voting eliminates the need for runoff elections, such as the ones we’re seeing right now for Georgia Senate seats. There are a couple issues with runoff elections. First, these elections are EXPENSIVE, as the cost of this Georgia election alone will likely be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, voter participation is very low in runoff elections, meaning the elected official is less representative of their constituency. According to FairVote, in 171 regularly scheduled congressional runoff elections from 1994 to 2012, all but six of them resulted in a turnout decrease between the initial primary and the runoff. These runoffs are caused by the fact that no candidate received 50% of the vote, but because of the structure of RCV, all elections can be decided with just one round of ballot-casting, and runoff elections can be avoided (RCV is also referred to as instant-runoff voting for this very reason).
However, it is important to note this system is not perfect. RCV was first implemented in Australia in 1908, and has been used to elect officials (other than those in the federal Senate) ever since. However, many of the benefits mentioned above that RCV supporters tout as solutions to America’s election problems have not been realized Down Under. For example, Australia continues to see a thriving two-party system, and negative advertising is rampant, not unlike in the United States.
Another problem with this election system is ballot exhaustion, which is when voters rank too few candidates or otherwise fill out their ballot incorrectly, meaning their vote is not counted since all the candidates they ranked were eliminated. This may not seem like a very influential issue at first glance, but it has greater effects than one might expect. In a 2014 paper published in the journal Electoral Studies, political scientists Craig Burnett and Vladimir Kogan analyzed some 600,000 votes cast using RCV in four local elections in California and Washington. In these four elections, the LOWEST rate of ballot exhaustion was 9.6%. Because of these exhausted ballots, it’s possible that candidates receive fewer votes than 50% of legally cast ballots and still emerge victorious, which means pluralities could determine elections: exactly what RCV is designed to prevent. This goes to show that whatever is ensured on paper is not always materialized with ballots, and in fact, out of the four elections studied by these political scientists, NONE of them resulted in a candidate that received greater than 50% of the vote.
Additionally, this system can be seen as complex, and its operation will have to undergo widespread explanation in order to limit a potential discouragement of voting. I have confidence in the American People to understand this concept, especially if the citizens of so many other countries can as well, but it’s something to keep an eye on. Beyond that, there is doubt as to whether third party candidates could even gain enough traction to hold any significant number of offices. Third party candidates are third party for a reason: the majority of Americans don’t necessarily align with those parties’ or candidates’ beliefs. With the campaign finance laws set in place, it may be difficult for third-party candidates to make up the difference and become reasonable contenders in American elections. Although, a certain number of people will likely defect (understandably) to other parties simply to escape the two-party system. The truth is, we simply won’t know the extent to which third-party candidates will succeed in an RCV system in America until it is implemented.
Ultimately though, the potential benefits outweigh the detriments of ranked-choice voting. This is the first step in a series of necessary election changes that will aim to bring positivity and a broader acceptance of a range of ideologies back to American politics. The paradigm of voters needs to shift from voting against candidates we hate to voting for those which we like, and that begins with RCV.
There are several variations of ranked-choice and instant runoff elections, and although the one outlined in this article is the most common and my personal favorite, I highly recommend checking out other versions of this system. Beyond this issue, the US should begin working to implement a broader scope of election reforms pertaining to gerrymandering, the electoral college, campaign finance, the party system altogether, caucuses, reducing voter suppression, etc.