Alternative Vote

Interwar Fabians on ‘instant runoff’

The following is from a 1924 pamphlet on electoral reform by the Fabian Society. The context involves the Labour Party replacing the Liberals as the UK’s main opposition to the Conservatives. The pamphlet itself is about proportional representation, but this excerpt is from a section called “The Alternative Vote.” It is interesting to compare the attendant circumstances with some that now obtain in American nominating primaries.

The method is suggested as a safeguard against minority seats. It is true that the successful candidate would be able to boast of a mathematical majority as proof of his representative quality. But this mathematical majority would not be a majority in the English political sense of the word, i.e., a majority of positive supporters [emphasis in original]. The candidate would be returned partly by the votes given to him to keep other candidates, considered as less desirable, out; and this is no morally decent basis for a Representative Assembly. Moreover, as it is likely that within 15 years the Liberal Party will be electorally defunct, we shall then be troubled with fewer of such multiple-candidate contests. It would be the height of political unwisdom to introduce a new and vicious element into the constitution to counteract a temporary ill.

Does the Alternative Vote lead to STV?

I don’t think so. The logics of adoption are different. Yet the story of Cleveland (just below) suggests that it is possible… while rare.

AV finds favor where the majority can’t agree on the candidate it wants — but can agree on the one it doesn’t. AV is an agreement to passively form coalitions in elections. I say “passively” because the vote-transfer process does the work, likely with help from elite cues.

STV finds favor where the coalition is to be worked out actively, in a legislature. STV also preserves freedom to break the coalition between elections.

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Eleven Maine Democrats

They blocked RCV. It’s hard to say why.

At the same time that they use it in party primaries, Maine voters this June will vote a second time on retaining ranked-choice voting. This second referendum is the next stage of a people’s veto, a citizen-initiative process that can overturn acts of the legislature. The first stage was collecting more than 66,000 valid signatures, or 10 percent of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election.

What brought about the people’s veto was a classic, legislative roll. Last October 23, in a special session, eleven Maine Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to scuttle ranked-choice voting. This behavior was strange because the Democratic Party is poised to benefit, at least as public sentiment now stands.

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