Category: Politics

How often did ‘proportional RCV’ have ‘a bad year’?

An emerging narrative holds that ranked-choice voting is in trouble as a cause due to its performance at this year’s general election. It therefore might be useful to look at historical data on the incidence and potential consequences of ‘bad years.’ I don’t see much evidence for the effect of a ‘bad year’ — at least from the perspective of failed adoption.

The data cover efforts to adopt the single transferable vote (STV), in almost all cases alongside the council-manager form of government.1 Close readers will note that this is not the same as what lost earlier this month: instant runoff voting with jungle primaries. I do not have the kind of data you see above for “single-winner” adoptions (i.e., instant runoff), at either the state or local levels. What I can say is:

  1. I am not aware of any effort in this period to impose nonpartisan instant runoff for statewide elections.2
  2. Statewide-election use of instant runoff was restricted to party primaries. I do not know if this was in state law or a decision internal to parties themselves.
  3. I think these data provide a decent if imperfect comparison because we are dealing with the same basic phenomenon: an effort to break up parties so that more independents might win.

The data show a string of bad years in the late 1930s. They clearly did not end adoptions; more than half of winning referendums came after. Also, these ‘bad’ years followed a few in which STV did very well.3

Millard (1924) in the National Municipal Review.

Why Alaskan RCV might survive

It has been fascinating to watch the evolving count of votes in Alaska Measure 2. This would replace jungle primaries followed by an RCV round with a ‘conventional’ system of closed primaries followed by a plurality vote. As of Election Night and the days immediately after it, Measure 2 looked to be going the same way as several other statewide measures: no RCV.4

Here is why retention in Alaska would not be very surprising despite what might seem like a ‘wave’ against this reform.

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