Nevada Wins PAC News

Some thoughts on Rank-Choice from Jim Geraghty, National Review September 1, 2022:

Who Really Wins Ranked-Choice Voting?

A Legitimate Electoral System . . . That Doesn’t Make Sense

Last night, Democrat Mary Peltola was elected to be Alaska’s lone member of the House of Representatives, beating Republican nominee and former governor Sarah Palin — even though in the first round of Alaska’s ranked-choice-voting system, Peltola finished fourth, with just 10 percent of the votes compared to Palin’s first-place finish of 27 percent.

It’s a free country, and the state of Alaska fairly and squarely changed its election rules from the familiar “first past the post” system — whichever candidate gets the most votes wins, even if you don’t win a majority of all votes — to its more complicated ranked-choice system.

But just because the system is legitimate doesn’t mean it was a good idea, and I don’t say this as a particularly big fan of Palin.

Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, in each race, voters rank their choices in order of preference, and votes are counted in rounds. The Alaska Division of Elections counts all first choices. If a candidate gets 50 percent plus one vote in round one, that candidate wins and the counting stops. If not, counting goes to round two. The candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated. If you voted for that candidate, your vote goes to your next choice, and you still have a say in who wins in the second round. Voters are allowed to rank as many or as few candidates as they like. If a voter skips a ranking, their next ranking moves up — in other words, not listing a second-place choice means your third-place choice is re-ranked as your second-place choice. But if you skip two or more rankings in a row, only the rankings before the skipped rankings will count.

If a voter’s first-choice candidate was not eliminated in the first round, their vote stays with that candidate in the second round. Votes are counted again, and the third-place finisher is eliminated. This process continues until there are only two candidates left, and the candidate with the most votes in the final round wins. And then, if Jupiter is rising in Sagittarius, the second-place finisher has to make a saving throw against potions of elimination and then the third-place finisher has to beat the Wild Card candidate in a play-in round, in order to advance to the State Eastern Division playoffs, and then reduce their magic number to three, unless both candidates finish below 40 percent; in that case, all the candidates are entered into a blind-choice round-robin and the candidates compete in a potato-sack race on consecutive Sundays until a champion is crowned, just as in the Basketball playoff system.

Okay, I made up that last paragraph. But the preceding two paragraphs are true, and if it seems a little complicated, that’s because it is. (For what it’s worth, Alaskans for Better Elections claims that 85 percent of Alaskans polled called it either “somewhat simple” or “very simple.”) This system asks voters to have a strong opinion about who their third-, fourth-, and even fifth-favorite candidates are, because how they rank people beyond the bronze-medal level could have real consequences! Now, maybe in a presidential primary, you might have a strong and clear sense of your top-five candidates . . . but in every race?

The best aspect of a ranked-choice system is that it makes it impossible for some fringe candidate to win against a crowded field just by finishing with the largest plurality. The winning candidate must demonstrate at least some appeal to a majority of voters.

The worst aspect of a ranked-choice system is that the candidate who gets the most votes in the first round doesn’t necessarily win, and that’s what happened last night. The system effectively punishes a candidate who takes stances that are clear and bold, but potentially controversial. This also means the system effectively rewards candidates who are wishy-washy and inoffensive, and who avoid taking any stances that others might disagree with — mashed-potato candidates. A candidate’s best shot at winning is to be everybody’s second choice.

The advantage of the familiar “first past the post” system — besides that it is familiar — is that it forces voters to think about what they prioritize, and express one clear decision: “I like this candidate the best.” (Or alternatively, “I hate this candidate the least.”) Under “first past the post,” no one cares who you rank second, or third, or fourth. It’s an election, not a buffet table.

If a state feels it must get rid of the “first past the post” system, something akin to the runoff systems in Georgia and Louisiana make more sense to me — if no candidate gets 50 percent plus one on Election Day, the top-two finishers advance to a runoff. This ensures that the winner did win a majority, but no one spends much time worrying about whom they rank third, fourth, fifth, etc.