[EL] Instant Run Off/Ranked Choice Voting vs Run Offs

Fri May 7 08:57:04 PDT 2021

Here's what I have on the specifics in each state:

Bucklin users were Washington, Idaho, North Dakota, Florida, Alabama,
Louisiana, and Oklahoma. In Alabama, North Dakota, and Florida, only the
top two candidates proceeded to the second-round count. In Florida,
second-choice votes were not added to first-choice votes for ballots
already counted toward the top vote-getter. Wisconsin used conventional AV.
Minnesota used STV to arrive at two frontrunners, then picked the one with
more final-round votes.

On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 11:54 AM Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:

> To clarify, nearly all states cited by Jack had a defective form of ranked
> choice voting often called "Bucklin voting" after its inventor. Like
> approval voting, a voter could not indicate support for a compromise choice
> (e.g. a second choice) without that vote counting against the chances of
> their first choices. As a result , most voters stopped ranking a second
> choice. It's rife for the ability to game the system as well.
> Rob
>
> On Fri, May 7, 2021 at 11:42 AM Jack Santucci <jack.santucci at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Graeme's point about RCV *within* versus *among* (or even *without*)
>> distinct parties is a good one.
>>
>> It got me thinking about this 1937 retrospective on the use of
>> majority-preferential systems in 11 states' party primaries (p. 67):
>> https://www.jstor.org/stable/42879396
>>
>> "The reasons commonly assigned for the abandonment of the preferential
>> plan have been as follows:
>>
>> 1. All states except Alabama and Oklahoma did not require the voter to
>> register more than a first choice for any office. It seems to have been
>> quite common in all the states indicated above that a great many voters
>> failed to avail themselves of the privilege of registering second or more
>> choices, which resulted in the practical restoration of the plurality
>> system in many primary races. This failure was due to several causes:
>> ignorance of the voter; his desire not to have his vote counted for any but
>> his first choice; or his refusal to accept what was thought to be a
>> complicated system, which, it was felt, could be easily corrupted or
>> readily subject to mistakes in the count, or which seemed to provide for an
>> unfair method of evaluating choices.
>>
>> 2. Failure of party leaders and officials to educate the public in the
>> use of the preferential feature, due partly to their opposition to it as a
>> complicated device and one the results of which could not be easily
>> anticipated.
>>
>> 3. In Oklahoma, where the preferential system was declared unconsti-
>> tutional (Dove v. Ogleby, 244 Pacific 198, 1926), the law made it
>> compulsory on the voter to indicate more than one choice for each office,
>> and the court held this an unwarranted interference with the voters freedom
>> of choice. It may be added also that Alabama did not permit 'single shot'
>> votes to be counted."
>>
>> Graeme's point also looms large in New York City and Alaska, where some
>> are counting on transfer flows to generate political moderation.
>>
>> Jack
>>
>> On Mon, May 3, 2021 at 1:36 AM Graeme Orr <graeme.orr2008 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Rob Ritchie of Fair Choice made the good points below in yesterday's
>>> post.
>>>
>>> After over a century of experience of IRV ('preferential voting') in
>>> Australia - nb I've only lived through half! - it seems to me that States
>>> like Texas here are trying to kill two different birds with one stone.
>>> Having either IRV or a two round run off mixed with party primaries is
>>> asking for trouble.     Ranked choice in party democracy is simple and
>>> fair, as voters by and large can differentiate sensibly (to them) between
>>> parties.    In Australian single member electorates we have up to 7 parties
>>> running (on average) yet still maintain a 2-3 party system.
>>>
>>> But throw in half a dozen or more intra-party choices, and you skew the
>>> entire ballot choice.   Especially since the US will never mandate full
>>> ranking (what Aussies call full preferential voting, which is common in our
>>> lower houses).    With ranked choice, votes will exhaust even within the
>>> suite of candidates in their preferred party.  Conversely, with the run off
>>> system, you have what the French would call the Le Pen effect, and which
>>> Rob mentions, of perverse splitting of one of the major parties, leading to
>>> an unrepresentative second round pairing off.
>>>
>>> It's exceedingly rare for a party to win a seat Down Under with less
>>> than a third of the '1' votes.   And it was the conservative side of
>>> politics that first brought in not just instant runoff/ranked choice, but
>>> mandated full rankings.  Because that side of politics was then more prone
>>> to splits.
>>>
>>> In non-partisan races - eg smaller city local government - things
>>> occasionally go skew-iff.  There, full rankings are not required (given the
>>> lack of party cues).   The Rockhampton mayoral by-election this year had 17
>>> candidates.  The frontrunner was on 25%, number 2 on 16%. With a long tail
>>> of 15 other candidates between around 12% and negligibility. After second
>>> and later preferences, the frontrunner was elected on 59% of the
>>> non-exhausted rankings.
>>>
>>> Graeme Orr, Professor, Law, University of Queensland, Australia
>>>
>>> [Cut and pasted from Rob Ritchie:
>>> (1) The results are the latest example of the "roll-the-dice" dynamics
>>> of a
>>> single-choice voting system in a crowded field. The top two candidates
>>> going to the runoff together earned only 33% of the vot
>>> <
>>> https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/02/texas-special-election-too-close-to-call-but-gop-on-verge-of-lockout-win-485194
>>> >e,
>>> while Democrats were locked out of the runoff even though their
>>> candidates
>>> together won more than that 33% total.
>>>
>>> (2) If you run ranked  choice voting to get the contest down to two, you
>>> could choose to avoid the runoff, but at least would have more certainty
>>> in
>>> having representative candidates advancing.  Notably, our nation's 10th
>>> largest city -- Austin, Texas -- yesterday voted 58% to move to ranked
>>> choice voting for city elections as soon as legal questions involving
>>> state
>>> law are addressed. That results means that, since November 2018, RCV has
>>> won all 11 city ballots measures, by an average of 30 percentage points.
>>> Coming up in 2021, new uses of RCV include the New York City primaries in
>>> June, the Virginia GOP statewide nomination contest, and more than a
>>> dozen
>>> mayoral elections in Utah, including the capital city of Salt Lake.
>>>
>>> Rob]
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>>
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>
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rob Richie
> President and CEO, FairVote
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