Election Reform

A key feature of a democracy is that citizens vote for their representatives. However, there are a great many different ways that this can be done. What voting system should we be using?

Over the past 250 years, there have been numerous innovations in the design of voting systems. These can be summarized with two primary observations:

  1. Every voting system has its unique strengths and limitations.

  2. Almost everyone agrees that there are more modern voting systems that are vastly preferable to the system that is still the norm in the United States.

The key idea is that we generally get more representative election outcomes when voters are allowed to provide slightly more input about their preferences. This makes it very difficult to argue, although certain people still do, that our voting systems in the United States should remain mired in the distant past.

Ranked Choice Voting

The fundamental innovation of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is that, rather than being compelled to vote only for a single candidate, voters are allowed to rank the candidates in their order of personal preference. In many cases, this is actually easier for voters than choosing only a single candidate. This is because voters in our current voting system often worry that their vote will be “wasted” if they use it to support a candidate who is unlikely to win. In RCV, when a voter’s first-choice candidate finishes in last place, that voter’s vote is immediately reallocated to their second-choice candidate. This process can continue for multiple rounds of counting until one candidate amasses a majority of the votes. As a result, the winning candidate ends up being the one that the majority of voters prefer over the remaining alternatives.

In California, the organization that is currently doing the most to promote the adoption of Ranked Choice Voting is CalRCV. In principle, California could decide to adopt RCV at the state level. SB 212 would have accomplished this in 2019. It had broad legislative support, but Governor Newsom refused to sign it. He argued that RCV “often led to voter confusion” and that it had “not necessarily fulfilled” its promise of greater democracy in places where it is currently in use. This is an incredibly weak argument.

The alternative to legislative action is a state ballot initiative. Unfortunately, a voter proposition needs to collect signatures from 5% of the total number of voters in the last election to get on the ballot. The signatures need to be collected over a 180-day period, and it typically costs $10-15 per signature to have a third-party do this. In California, this implies a cost on the order of at least $8 million.

The reality is that RCV does a better job of ensuring that our election system identifies and honors the will of the people. RCV was invented in Europe in the 1850s. It has been used in Australia for both state and federal elections since 1919. RCV is currently reaching nearly 14 million voters in 49 cities, counties, and states in the United States, including the States of Alaska and Maine, New York City, San Francisco, Oakland, San Leandro, Berkeley, Albany, and Redondo Beach in California.. Since 2004, there have been over 800 RCV elections in the U.S. with over 35 million ranked ballots cast.

  • RCV enables voters to accurately express their true preferences via their votes

  • RCV has consistently been found to increase voter participation and voter diversity (though this can be difficult to assess, and the differences are often modest)

  • The vast majority of voters have consistently reported that they found RCV easy to understand and use (typically over 85% and often over 90%)

  • RCV tends to increase the viability of independent and third-party candidates (though the data for this is somewhat mixed)

  • RCV encourages civil discourse because candidates campaign not only for first- but also second-choice support

Why isn’t RCV used everywhere in the United States today? Opponents typically make one of two arguments:

  • RCV is more complicated than our familiar voting system. This is true, but experience has consistently shown that this slight increase in complexity is not a significant barrier for voters.

  • RCV requires some fresh investment in vote tabulation solutions. This is true, but RCV is more likely to save costs over the long run because it eliminates the need for costly special elections when a district requires the winning candidate to garner over 50% of the votes.

The real reason that RCV continues to face serious opposition political opposition is that candidates and organizations that benefit disproportionately from the current system have no incentive to loosen their grip on power.

NOTE: RCV also makes it easy to establish Proportional Representation.

Popular Voting for President

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