[EL] Ballot Exhaustion in Maine RCV Primary

Fri Jun 22 09:11:18 PDT 2018

In Maine, there was no limit on rankings this year in the seven candidate
race for the Democratic nomination for governor nor for four-candidate race
for the Republicans. San Francisco and other CA cities have three rank
limitation due to voting equipment, but will allow up to 10 rankings
starting next year.

Rob

On Friday, June 22, 2018, Douglas Johnson <djohnson at ndcresearch.com> wrote:

> Is my understanding correct that the RCV systems in California (and in
> Maine?) are not true RCV because they limit the voter to only 3 or 4
> choices – the systems cannot handle ranking every voter?
>
>
>
> If that is correct, then ballot burnout would be a systematic issue
> (voters are not allowed to rank all candidates), not a voter choice issue
> (voters choose not to rank all candidates).
>
>
>
>    - Doug
>
>
>
> Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.
>
> Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government
>
> at Claremont McKenna College
>
> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu
>
> direct: 310-200-2058
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *Rob Richie
> *Sent:* Friday, June 22, 2018 8:40 AM
> *To:* Eric McGhee <mcghee at ppic.org>
> *Cc:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Ballot Exhaustion in Maine RCV Primary
>
>
>
> Someone could propose it ,but it's not done anywhere that I know of (both
> many international uses and the thousands of NGO uses out there.
>
>
>
> To me the idea represents a misunderstanding of what happens inmost
> runoffs and why voters may choose to abstain. OF course if you don't want
> to allow abstention, you can mandate rankings as done in most Australian
> elections. That mandate is the most unpopular feature of the RCV system
> there, btw, which is celebrating a century of use later this yea at the
> national level.
>
>
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 11:33 AM, Eric McGhee <mcghee at ppic.org> wrote:
>
> Rob and Vlad, has anyone ever proposed a runoff between the top two
> candidates if the number of exhausted ballots is large enough to matter?
> Kind of like the "runoff only if nobody >50%" rule in a more traditional
> first-past-the-post system.
>
>
> Eric McGhee
> Research Fellow
>
> PUBLIC POLICY
> INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA
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>
> Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and
> do not necessarily reflect any position of the Public Policy Institute of
> California.
> ________________________________
> From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on
> behalf of Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2018 8:18 AM
> To: Kogan, Vladimir
> Cc: Election Law Listserv
> Subject: Re: [EL] Ballot Exhaustion in Maine RCV Primary
>
> Thanks for inviting me to respond, Vlad. Just enjoyed being in a forum
> with your "ballot exhaustion" coauthor Craig Burnett, by the way, and I
> welcome folks on the list joining me at 9 am Monday morning at Third Way in
> DC <https://www.thirdway.org/events/ranked-choice-voting-
> lessons-from-the-states> for a conversation about RCV in the states with
> Third Way's Lanae Erickson Hatalsky and FairVote New Mexico's Maria Perez,
> who will talk both about Santa Fe's first use of RCV in March and the
> unanimous vote of the council in the state's 2nd largest city Las Cruces to
> use RCV next year.
>
> As you might suspect, I don't see Vlad's numbers as a problem - indeed,
> quite the opposite. A few reasons why:
>
> * Turnout: More Maine Democrats came out to vote for governor than any
> previous gubernatorial primary. That follows a string of mayoral elections
> with ranked choice voting where turnout was a good bit higher<
> http://www.fairvote.org/the_facts_of_ranked_choice_voting_voters_like_it_
> high_turnouts_are_trending> than projected: San Francisco (2nd most
> mayoral votes ever, this month and a lot more votes cast  for mayor with
> RCV than top of the ballot for governor and US Senator without RCV), Santa
> Fe, St. Paul and Minneapolis. We can safely put the "RCV will turn voters
> off" claim to rest. But that higher turnout almost certainly does mean some
> voters are coming out primarily to back candidates who doesn't reach the
> final instant runoff. (2 additional notable facts from San Francisco:
> voters were six times more likely to invalidate their vote for governor
> with an overvote than invalidate their vote for mayor with an overvote,
> while 95% of backers of the Asian American candidate Jane Kim who did
> particular well with API voters ranked at least one other candidate 2nd.)
>
> * Contrast with runoffs and plurality:  Of the Maine Democrats who had
> their ballot count in the first round (final numbers aren't in, but will be
> in 126,000 range), 93% had their ballot count for one of the two finalists
> after five candidates were defeated in the RCV tally. That "exhaustion"
> compares quite well to the average of federal primary runoffs drawing 62%
> of first round voters <http://www.fairvote.org/federal_primary_runoff_
> elections_2016> back to the polls. We did an overall analysis comparing
> "exhausted votes" with RCV vs. "exhausted voters" in runoffs <
> http://www.fairvote.org/ranked_choice_voting_outperforms_runoffs_in_
> upholding_majority_rule> last winter that will look at better for RCV
> when we update it this summer. And of course the fact that of four out of
> every five backers of defeated candidates were able to express a preference
> that counted in the final round is a lot better than a single-choice
> plurality system that would have allowed the winner to take the nomination
> with 33% of the first round vote.
>
> * Deeper significance of RCV beyond the "binary choice" analysis: It's
> misleading with RCV to determine an RCV winner's mandate only by their
> final round "instant runoff" percentage. What that percentage misses is
> that the winner has often worked hard to be ranked by backers of the
> candidate who finishes second, In San Francisco, for example, voters this
> year were still limited to ranking three candidate in the 8-candidate
> election for mayor. (That limit will be lifted next year, btw.) The winner
> London Breed was ranked 2nd or 3rd by nearly half of the backers of her
> finalist opponent Mark Leno and was ranked in the top three by 63% of all
> voters. That's not just of theoretical value. Leno easily could have
> finished third behind Jane KIm and missed the final instant runoff, so
> Breed wanted to connect with his voters. Indeed, she was ranked 2nd or
> third by more than a fifth of the backers of all other 7 candidates,
> including the most liberal and conservative candidates.
>
> * Getting the runoff candidates right: Furthermore, RCV is more reliable
> than runoffs for ensuring that the final two candidates are representative
> of voter opinions The Top 2 primary in California this year ultimately
> didn't shut out Democrats from winnable congressional districts this
> November, but Democratic forces had to literally spend millions of dollars
> to ensure that didn't happen. Without that kind of intervention, that "shut
> out" in fact did happen to Republicans in a special state senate election
> in Georgia last year in a GOP-leaning district and to Democrats in a
> statewide race for state treasurer in 2016. I know some mathematicians can
> have their concerns about RCV in this area too, but RCV certainly is more
> reliable than runoffs for ending up with the two strongest candidates in
> the final round.
>
> Thanks again for the invite, Vlad, and happy to take this offline to not
> bore the list.
> Rob Richie, FairVote
>
>
> On Thursday, June 21, 2018, Kogan, Vladimir <kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan
> .18 at osu.edu>> wrote:
> Regarding this:
>
> “Ranked-Choice Voting Fans Hope Maine’s Experiment Pays Off”<
> http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99722>
> Posted on June 21, 2018 6:25 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99722> by
> Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> AP:<https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maine/
> articles/2018-06-21/ranked-choice-fans-hope-maines-experiment-pays-off>
>
>  Maine<https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maine>‘s first crack at
> ranked-choice voting went off without a hitch, and backers of the voting
> method are hopeful the results will motivate other states to give it a try.
>
> The state finished its first ranked-choice process Wednesday when it named
> the winners of Democratic primaries for governor and the 2nd Congressional
> District.
> Does anyone know where to find the actual RCV results in Maine? From what
> has been reported, it looks like there was considerable ballot
> “exhaustion,” at least in the Democratic primary for governor, something
> that seems endemic<http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/files/2014/12/
> ElectoralStudies-2fupfhd.pdf> to RCV.
>
> It looks like the AP stopped updating the election night results, but the
> latest<https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/maine/> first-round
> totals I could find show a total of 120,406 votes cast in the Democratic
> primary when 90.2% percent of precincts were reporting. By contrast, the
> RCV results<https://www.pressherald.com/2018/06/12/
> june-2018-maine-election-results/> reported in the press show only
> 116,431 votes counted after the final round of redistribution. That means a
> minimum of 4,000 ballots were exhausted (and probably a lot more, since
> there is still the 9.8% of precincts not included in the most  recent
> first-round AP count, plus any provisional ballots that were counted
> subsequently).
>
> It probably wouldn’t have mattered in this race, but we can’t say the same
> thing about the nail-biter San Francisco mayoral race, where London Breed
> won by only 0.6% and the rate of exhausted ballots was over 8%.<
> https://sfelections.org/results/20180605/data/
> 20180621/mayor/20180621_mayor.html> As in the races we examined in our
> paper, her final count was less than a majority of valid first-round votes
> cast.
>
> (To be clear, I’m not arguing that RCV is worse than the alternatives. I
> know Rob Ritchie will jump in with a spirited defense!)
>
> Vlad
>
> [The Ohio State University]
> Vladimir Kogan, Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science
> 2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210
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> kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rob Richie
> President and CEO, FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
President and CEO, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
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