The Merits of Ranked Choice Voting

As state and other local elections come up this November, I am again thinking about the two-party system we have in the United States. The people who lead the two parties may not be frustrated with the system, but I am. I once thought we needed to have more third party candidates, but as this video explains, our current system will always choke out third parties — because of the spoiler effect. Third parties often “rob” more votes from one of the two parties than from the other, leading to candidates winning elections with a minority of the vote.  (Remember Ross Perot.)  How many turn off their brains and simply vote “R” or “D.?” In many of the races other than President or maybe senator, we may not know a single thing about the candidates: “R” or “D” is all we need to know. 

Considering how to solve this duopoly problem, I had thought we needed to tear down the system and start over, but was often discouraged because my ideas lacked practicality and would result in so much upheaval that the change would not be worthwhile. Then, I was introduced to what can break us out of the two-party system. The beauty is that it can be done within our current system, without causing upheaval. This adjustment to our voting process is called ranked choice voting.

Ranked choice voting is not new. It goes at least as far back as the mid 1800s. Here is how it works: Let's say you have three candidates: A, B, and C. Instead of picking between the three as you would now, you rank all three of them. Let's say C is your first choice, B is your second choice, and A is your final choice. And let’s say that when the votes are counted, C gets over 50 percent of the first place votes. In this case, the election is over. C got the majority of votes, and therefore C won the election.

What happens if C gets 40 percent of the first place slots, B gets 39 percent of the first place slots, and A gets 21 percent of the first place slots? In this system the person who has the least amount of first place slots drops out of the race. This means that everyone who voted for A now has their vote changed to their second-ranked candidate. After counting again, it is found out that B has 59 percent of the vote and C has 41. The people who ranked A first were able to vote for whom they really wanted, but also did not have to worry about throwing away their vote. In a traditional vote, the prevailing current system, C would have won even if a majority did not vote for him or her.  Therefore, voting for A in the first place is discouraged.  Candidates A, those who have likely left one of the two parties over differences less severe than their differences with the other party, are discouraged from running for office because voters hate to waste their vote

Locally, we must institute this kind of voting system. The issues in our cities and state are not the same as they are in Washington, and we need our candidates working in their local area and not being overly concerned  with demonstrating party loyalty. The way it is now, if you run a race in Kansas that requires you to pick a party, your views are funneled into only two positions on most issues and the party platforms contain positions not easily changed. If you are a Republican, you will be pro-life, not believe in human-caused climate change, believe in trickle-down economics, support Donald Trump, and the list continues. If you run as a Democrat, you have to be pro-choice, want action on climate, want to bolster the social safety net, want to raise taxes on the rich, and so forth. 

I am afraid we are becoming dumber and meaner all the time in politics. We are discouraged from considering views outside of what our political party says is correct. The parties have long realized that the best way to get elected is by getting people to hate and fear the other team. I believe that ranked choice voting is our best chance to make a plausible change to the system that will force us out of this terrible duopoly that only corrals and separates us into two, highly contrasting factions. I would so love to pick up my ballot this November and see five candidates with nuanced views and actually have to think about which candidates I would like the most and which I would like the least without worrying about my vote being wasted.