Ranked Choice Voting: Oregon Measure 117

What is more important: simplicity or majority rule?

Advocates for ranked choice voting

For most voting in America, the winner is the person with the most votes. That is true even if that person gets far fewer than a majority of votes. In multi-candidate races, for example the Iowa presidential caucuses or the New Hampshire primary, the "winner" gets only 23 percent of the vote. In multi-candidate races -- like this year's four-candidate race for Medford, Oregon, mayor -- a consensus candidate acceptable to a majority may not be the winner, not if a cohesive niche of Trump-supporting voters concentrate their votes on well-known Republican cheerleader and provocateur Curt Ankerberg, one of the four candidates. 

There is also a "spoiler" problem. In a race featuring a Democrat, a Republican, and a Libertarian, the Libertarian candidate may get some otherwise-Republican votes, allowing a Democrat to win with only 40 to 45 percent of the vote. A  left-leaning PAC might find it strategic to encourage a Libertarian candidate for that very purpose. 

That is happening right now in the opposite direction. Jill Stein is on the ballot as a Green Party nominee in battleground states. She is lavishly funded, but not by Green Party supporters. Instead, Republican PACs, in total opposition to her views, are funding Stein, hoping to split the progressive climate activist vote. Cynical, but smart.

A politically engaged Medford neighbor wrote me, saying this blog should attempt to explain ranked choice voting. I said she should do it. Sal Edwards is accustomed to doing difficult things. She is an author of 25 books, a pioneer in women's sports, and a leader in teaching endurance training using a wearable heart monitor. She won the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run. She maintains a newsletter on fitness training: https://www.heartzones.com 

Guest Post by Sal Edwards 

The following is the initial text for the measure on the ballot: 

Measure 117: "Gives voters option to rank candidates in order of preference: candidate reaching majority of votes in final round wins." 

Currently, the candidate who wins the election is the one with the most votes. In a multi-candidate race, the winner might be favored by a minority faction, but not a majority. That seems wrong to me. There is a way to get fairer elections without holding expensive runoff elections.

Let's use this example: 

Candidate A gets 40% of the total votes
Candidate B gets 30% of the total votes
Candidate C gets 20% of the total votes
Candidate D gets 10% of the total votes

There is no majority winner. Sixty percent of the voters wanted someone else. It entirely possible that those 60% share common policies and supporters and are simply dividing up the majority preference of voters. The candidate with 40% of the vote may be the candidate least acceptable to the majority of voters.
 
If Measure 117 passes, the law “Establishes process for tallying votes in rounds, with the candidate receiving the fewest votes in each round being defeated and votes for the defeated candidate going to the voter’s next-highest ranked active candidate. Requires the candidate must receive majority of votes in final round of voting to win election.”

In voting, we sometimes have a favorite candidate, but then one or two others who we think would be okay-enough, if our first choice doesn't win, and certainly better than someone we do NOT want. We vote for our favorite, of course, but mark number two or three in declining order. If there is someone we don't like, we don't mark that one at all. That is how it would work if Measure 117 passes. Ranked choice voting lets a voter express their preference of candidates. If someone wins a majority of the vote, they win, same as now. But if they don't, the second choices of voters would get allocated to people still in contention. A majority means a combination of first place votes, plus second place votes of losing candidates if no one wins on the first round. And third place, if no one wins on the second round. This continues until someone has a majority. The winner is either the first choice of the majority or at least the most acceptable candidate to a majority, measured by winning second or later choice votes.

In my example, Candidate D with 10% of the vote is eliminated but their votes are not. Rather, Candidate D's voters who had selected other candidates in declining preference have their second choice of candidate added to the vote count of the candidate that they marked as second place. This is called a “round.” These rounds continue until one of the candidates reaches a majority of 50%-plus-one vote. As a practical matter, it means that the winner in a multi-candidate race is the candidate who wins a lot of first place votes, plus some second place votes, and in rare cases third place votes. That person has a better claim on majority support than someone who is loved by a non-majority faction but then found so objectionable to a majority that they get few second or third place votes.
 
It is going to cost the counties more money to implement, but it is worth doing. Other places are doing it, and the software and procedures have been tried and found successful. It will give us winners who better reflect the will of the people, which is the whole point of a democracy. I'm voting “Yes” on Measure 117. 

[End note by Peter: Ranked choice voting is fairer. But RCV requires explanation, and some people don't understand it even after having it explained several times. We are in a strange moment. A former president openly attacks the validity of our elections. They are all rigged, he says. He created tens of millions of election deniers and skeptics. They show up at county clerk offices demanding election officials discard tabulating machines and count by hand tens of thousands of ballots in dozens of races. Utterly impossible. Ranked choice voting would provide new arenas for doubt. This proposal comes at an inopportune time. Oregon may need to emphasize clarity and simplicity in elections, not fairness, if fairness comes at the cost of continued election denialism.]

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