[EL] Explaining Ranked-Choice Voting

Mon Apr 26 08:59:31 PDT 2021

RCV advocates generally believe that this approach to an "instant runoff"
is helpful for clarifying mandates and outcomes. One good example was an
open seats race for to be the mayor of Berkeley n 2016, where the winner
had a large "instant runoff" win, but the county stopped the tally whenever
he first went over 50% -- and over the course of the slow California tally
of votes, he sometimes went over 50% in the 2nd round (just barely) and
sometimes in the 3rd round (much more substantially), when in fact all
along he consistently had a big win.

 San Francisco now reports the "instant runoff" tally down to two even when
a candidate has surpassed 50% of votes in the first round, as in this
example from London Breed's landslide mayoral election win in 2019
<https://www.sfelections.org/results/20191105/data/20191125/mayor/20191125_mayor_short.pdf>.
My colleague Pedro Hernandez and I did a short piece
<https://www.fairvote.org/a_better_way_to_report_ranked_choice_voting_elections_in_california_cities>about
this in looking at San Francisco Bay Area elections in 2018.

In the spirit of "instant runoffs," New York City results will show
first-round wins when a candidate earns over 50% or show the final
"head-to-head" instant runoff when the field is reduced to two.

BTW, the Nation magazine has a detailed writeup of the mayoral race
<https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/ranked-choice-voting-nyc/>
today from a progressive perspective today and City Journal had a helpful
piece <https://www.city-journal.org/nyc-mayoral-race-ranked-choice-voting>
from a conservative piece last week.
Rob

On Monday, April 26, 2021, Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu> wrote:

> Varies by jurisdiction --
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Rick
>
>
>
> Richard H. Pildes
>
> Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
>
> NYU School of Law
>
> 40 Washington Square So.
> <https://www.google.com/maps/search/40+Washington+Square+So.+%0D%0A+NYC,+NY+10014?entry=gmail&source=g>
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> 347-886-6789
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>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *sean at impactpolicymanagement.com
> *Sent:* Monday, April 26, 2021 11:03 AM
> *To:* 'Rick Hasen' <rhasen at law.uci.edu>; 'Election Law Listserv' <
> law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Explaining Ranked-Choice Voting
>
>
>
> I’m curious whether this practice of continuing to conduct the RCV process
> even after a winner is known is required by statute, or whether it is an
> administrative decision? Or does it vary by jurisdiction?
>
>
>
> Sean
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>
> Explaining Ranked-Choice Voting
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fp-3D121780&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=DDaLMuOF9NHbHw3yLXrrv_NtNV-cCTczvyusiDLiQVY&e=>
>
> Posted on April 23, 2021 7:36 am
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fp-3D121780&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=DDaLMuOF9NHbHw3yLXrrv_NtNV-cCTczvyusiDLiQVY&e=>
>  by *Richard Pildes*
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fauthor-3D7&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=LTU9oFoBluYbdjK0SVC2DjIRmj80iVgPYiELSEywcog&e=>
>
> The New York Times has a good explainer
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.nytimes.com_interactive_2021_nyregion_ranked-2Dchoice-2Dvoting-2Dnyc.html-3Faction-3Dclick-26module-3DTop-2520Stories-26pgtype-3DHomepage&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=ApNfCXTpGRFJVdrxi2GDqHoSF1JJueJdQbzAJc8-_98&e=>,
> with good visualization aids, that explains how RCV will work in our June
> primaries for mayor. I wanted to clarify one point of potential confusion.
>
> The story says:
>
> *In New York’s primary, these rounds of elimination will continue until
> there are two candidates left — even if a candidate collects more than 50
> percent of votes before the very end. In each round, when a candidate gets
> eliminated, his or her votes get redistributed to whoever was ranked next
> on the ballot.*
>
> A reader might think, wait a minute, once someone has gotten more than 50
> percent of the votes, haven’t they won? Why is there still further counting
> to be done?
>
> The answer is yes, once a candidate has more than 50 percent, that
> candidate has indeed won. Nothing in later rounds of counting could change
> that outcome. The reason the counting still continues is purely for
> informational purposes, so that the public can see how the process plays
> out all the way until there are only two candidates remaining and no more
> votes to be redistributed.
>
> This is an approach a number of jurisdictions use with RCV, as Michael
> Parsons and I explain in our article
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__papers.ssrn.com_sol3_papers.cfm-3Fabstract-5Fid-3D3563257&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=bw1DIVK-Z8r_yYL6mX_LRINbcCHog6FuOyyjGBcjydU&e=> on
> RCV.
>
> [image: Share]
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.addtoany.com_share-23url-3Dhttps-253A-252F-252Felectionlawblog.org-252F-253Fp-253D121780-26title-3DExplaining-2520Ranked-2DChoice-2520Voting&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=b84QCfTJyxiCETXA1emYGkf39OsDkl-O0U4Z2d-gjK4&e=>
>
> Posted in Uncategorized
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__electionlawblog.org_-3Fcat-3D1&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=v3oz9bpMizgP1T8KwLv3YT-_iypxaOkdtbkRAclgHRk&m=jswLkXYUqi67YBou5IpKKg2Iuum_kO3Z8vFBBasZ4og&s=3kcO_7HR9niVJqhl6UeJrRWlT8rOKwCBVakdGyEp008&e=>
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