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Category: Ranked-choice voting

Notes on preferential voting in America, emphasizing developments from about 1990 to present.

The “disenfranchised independent” argument

The Fulcrum has a piece on “opening” New York State primaries. It makes a familiar argument:

Primary elections are crucial to our electoral outcomes because they determine which representatives have a better standing in the general election.

There is nothing stopping independent voters from running a candidate in a general election — except maybe their inability to agree on that candidate.

And getting people to agree on one candidate (or technically a number that can win) is a major reason why “parties” emerge.

I put “parties” in quotation marks for two reasons. One is that many hear it as an anti-reform cudgel. The other is that “parties” may not track the two-party divide. I am thinking here of quasi-party organizations like Cincinnati’s Charter Committee or the Murkowski organization in Alaska.

Numerous public officials have won office as independents. Names that come to mind include Bloomberg, Lieberman, Ventura, and Weicker. Each of them did so on their own ballot line in a general election.

It’s time to retire the claim that nominating primaries equal disenfranchisement.

Discussing RCV for Philly on WHYY

I joined Studio 2 yesterday for a radio interview:

A discussion about ranked choice voting. Would it make for fairer elections? Joining us is Jack Santucci, assistant professor of politics at Drexel University.

Thanks to Cherri and Avi for having me.

Some key points from “More Parties or No Parties”

Photo by Phil Howe. Book available for purchase and in Oxford Scholarship Online.

The space of politics is multidimensional. What we call “left” and “right” are negotiated positions.

Interest groups (broadly understood) do the negotiating. They are assumed to want control of government. They form coalitions to get it.

Every democracy has some coalition structure, even if it does not track party division.

‘Shifting coalitions’ lead to electoral reform: incumbent groups seeking insulation, out-of-power groups seeking realignment, or opposing groups seeking to discipline noncommittal players (a polarizing mode).

Electoral reform is change in any of five electoral-system components: assembly size, district magnitude, ballot type, allocation rules, and rules about nominations.

Two-party politics makes it tempting to cater to factions, not parties, when proposing and designing reforms. Witness the current emphasis on ballot type and nominations (ranked-choice, approval voting, nonpartisan primaries). Witness the unpopularity (outside political science) of allocation rules that presume party grouping (such as party-list proportional representation, including mixed-member).

In the past, reformers promoted single transferable vote (STV) and ranking generally in order to cater to factions, not parties.

In other countries, multiparty politics facilitates use of ranked-choice: giving voters understandable entities to rank, instructing voters on how to rank (vote management), regulating candidate entry (vote management), and generating political will to administer a complex system.

In the United States, ranked-choice reforms tended to last as long as the coalitions that imposed them.

Vote management was imperfect and slow to emerge. It usually involved a bipartisan coalition that sold itself in “good government” terms.

Due to vote management, STV produces winners who usually would be the same under open-list proportional representation (OLPR).

An exception is when the coalition structure shifts, such that some voters do not rank candidates in the way that party (or interest-group) leaders might want. Said voters are part of a coalition structure that is different from the prevailing one.

If the alternative coalition deprives “left” and “right” of control of government, they may join in blaming the electoral system. This can lead to a polarizing repeal episode.

Reasons for abandonment of majoritarian ranked-ballot rules are not yet well-understood. One theme in the literature is ranking truncation. Another is the production of surprise results. These may have reinforced each other: many voters not ranking very many choices, determined candidates capitalizing on this.

The repeal of early ranked-choice systems left in place features that had been needed to pass ranked-choice. These include nonpartisan ballots, numbered-post elections, and single-digit assemblies.

This post also appeared at on Medium.

The darkness of anti-party reform

Compare this recent comment from Nevada…

It may take some time to educate voters, but that’s OK if it allows us to break away from this wretched two-party system, in which both parties put forth horrible candidates.

…to an older one from 1911:

The Grand Junction plan has destroyed all municipal political machines. It provides for non-partisan nominations by twenty-five individual petitioners. The headless non-partisan and short ballot was adopted. Such a ballot results practically in an educational qualification for voters, and greatly reduces the number of ignorant and corrupt votes.

What is new (and not) about the proposed Portland charter?

Not much is new — except for combining staggered elections, via the single transferable vote (STV), with a mayor-council system.

An opponent of the proposed Portland (OR) charter writes:

This combination of multi-member districts and ranked choice voting, which has never been tried in any other large U.S. city, is being sold on the idea that it would promote racial, ethnic and gender diversity. But I for one am not buying. Before you decide that Portland, of all places, needs such a convoluted process to avoid electing only white males, take a look at the makeup of our current city council.

The key features of the proposed charter are: elections via STV in multiple multi-seat districts, council expansion from 5 to 12 seats, staggered elections (two districts at a time), nonpartisan elections, and a separately elected mayor.

STV in a “large U.S. city” clearly is not new. Some large cities have been New York (1937-47), Cincinnati (1925-57), and Worcester (MA, 1949-61). Those date ranges are from first election to repeal. Cincinnati was the 18th largest city in the U.S. at the time it repealed STV. Worcester was (and remains) the second-largest city in New England. All three are key cases from my book. There were other large cities.

STV used across multiple multi-seat districts in a large U.S. city also is not new. Cleveland (1923-31), West Hartford (1921-3), and New York City each had multiple multi-seat districts. West Hartford was not that large, but the other two certainly were. (In modern times, Eastpointe [MI] and Albany [CA] have adopted STV with multiple multi-seat districts.)

What about STV for a large assembly? Most cases had councils of 7 or 9 seats. New York City’s fluctuated with voter turnout, owing to use of a fixed quota (75,000 valid first-choice votes), and ranged from 17 (1943) to 26 seats (1937). Cleveland’s assembly had 25 members.

What about STV with staggered elections? Boulder (CO, 1917-47) had these — 3 of 9 seats at a time. (In modern times, Eastpointe [MI] uses STV with staggered elections.)

What about STV with a separately elected mayor? See New York City. All other cases had the council-manager form of government.

So, New York City comes closest to having what Portland might — minus NYC’s Board of Estimate, party endorsements on ballots, and fixed quota — and minus Portland’s staggered elections.

Also interesting is Portland’s current charter, which originated (1913) in an earlier movement for ‘majority-preferential’ elections. Pro- and anti-party reformers alike decried this reform package — including when it came with runoffs instead — which was based on numbered-post elections:

“[T]he fatal defect in all these systems is that they do not provide for minority representation,” wrote one reformer. “All of them eliminate all minorities from the governing body, either council or commission. This defect the proportional representation system will remedy.”

The above critique led directly to the “representative council” plan of local government, a.k.a. council-manager with STV elections. (Note: “all these systems” above also referred to council-manager government without proportional representation.)

So, from the perspective of replacing numbered-post elections with STV, Portland is doing what some old reformers advised. (Eastpointe [MI] did the same when it adopted STV in 2019.)

If you are interested in the Portland charter fight, Jay Lee and Maja Harris (blog) are excellent to follow.