I’m not a fan of most of the popular suggestions for improving western democracy. But ranked choice voting (RCV) has potential for finding a more responsive government.
In RCV, the voter gets to rank his/her preferences on the ballot. The first preference gets a #1, the second gets a #2, etc. When the votes are counted, the candidate with the lowest #1 votes is dropped from the contenders. Then those ballots are cast towards their #2 choice. The The ballots are recounted. The lowest number is dropped in the next round of counting and the votes are recast. This process repeats until one candidate gets 50%+1 of the votes.
The main reason for RCV is to raise democratic legitimacy. By “legitimacy,” I mean the public accepts the result of the election and allows the victors to govern until their term is over. This is part of the deal living in a civil society. We accept that some decisions will not be in our favor, and we might not like our political leaders. In exchange, we get peace and order. Society works better when people are not violently protesting in the street, which is what happens when the government is seen as “illegitimate.”
In Canada, our general elections are done by the first-past-the-post (FPTP) counting, a tradition we inherited from the early UK parliament of 1688. The USA also inherited much of this tradition.
Because we Canadians have at least three viable political parties in some constituency elections, winners can sometimes gain the elected position with only 35% of the vote. To many Canadians, this margin of victory is less than legitimate. An RCV would ensure that the winning candidate did get an eventual majority vote, thereby enhancing the legitimacy of that winner’s election.
The other way to get a 50%+1 vote is run-off elections. However, this technique means a much longer election — and the public does tire of too much electioneering. Both FPTP and RCV keep the election campaigns on the shorter side. But the RCV has a higher legitimacy than FPTP.
The RCV allows voters to vote their preferred choices. In the past 100 years in Canada, we have had three main parties: the Conservatives (right), the Liberals (center), and the New Democrats(left). With our FPTP system, left-wing voters have a difficult choice. For sure they don’t want the Conservatives. But the Liberals are usually more likely to win than the New Democrats. A vote cast for the New Democrats is a vote not for the Liberals, giving the Conservatives an advantage over the Liberals. So the left-wing voter has to consider casting his vote to the Liberals. So, too often, votes are siphoned from the New Democrats to the Liberals.
This is called “strategic voting.” In my opinion, such voting hampers democracy. RCV will better show the people’s preferences. And when these preferences are known, the political aligning will adjust accordingly.
RCV in my political days
From 1986 to 1992, I was quite active in party politics. I went through several internal elections where we had several rounds of voting in an evening. In each round, we dropped the lowest candidate and voted again. This is OK with a few voters. But this process gets more cumbersome with higher numbers, especially if there is no obvious frontrunner. These elections had to continue until a 50%+1 winner was found. One internal election found the winner at 1:00 a.m., with more than half the original voting members disappearing before the last vote.
To get our election meetings done in a reasonable time, I tried to bring RCV to my political party. With RCV, party members could vote their preferences, then leave the meeting. Then the more active party members would count and recount the ballots: maybe an hour of counting would be required to find the winner. Everyone would be home by 9:30 p.m.
But political parties are about winning the general election. My discussion of replacing multiple rounds with RCV was taking energy away from the primary objective. I was risking losing my stature in the party had I continued promoting this cause. I had to drop my mission.
I am out of politics now. But from what I can gather, all the major federal and provincial parties in Canada have RCV voting. And the members can do this on the internet.
Yet our general elections in Canada are still conducted with a paper ballot with printed names and party affiliation. But people get to go home after casting their ballot. Even with this old-fashioned way, the Canadian public sees the results as legitimate. That’s what matters most.
RCV Today
The states of Maine and Alaska are experimenting with RCV. If an oligarchy does not happen first, RCV could take hold in the rest of the USA. But I have my doubts. The future oligarch would not want an election where someone else get elected. As for today’s quasi oligarchs . . .
RCV allows voters to show their preference for a third party. If that party does not win, the vote is cast to “the lesser of the two bigger evils.”
For example, today’s American supporters of the Green Party would not want a Republican rule. But they have to consider voting Democrat to avoid splitting the left-wing vote. So many Greens will cast their vote in the Democrat direction, leaving the final tally at 2% for the Greens. With that low level of reported support, the Greens do not look like a viable party. Voters are less likely to consider the Greens in the next election, leading to no increase in votes, donations, and campaign workers.
Let’s assume that 10% of Americans would have the Greens as their first choice. With RCV, a Green voter can give his/her #1 to Green and #2 to Democrat. Let’s say the first round goes 46% R, 44% D, and 10% G. The Green’s second choice goes to the D’s — and the D’s win the election, which is the same result as if strategic voting was in play.
But this election shows the Greens do have 10%. Society now knows that 10% of Americans support the Greens. Two percent is easy to ignore, but not 10%. That will have a great effect on the development of public policy, even if the Greens don’t win the presidency or a Senate or House seat.
And some day the Democrats will screw up big time. To punish their leaders, many D supporters will give their #1 to the G’s, leaving their #2 to the D’s. So the Greens just might win an election under RCV. This threat just might cause the D’s to behave more responsibly.
But to get there, the true support of the Greens needs to be shown in that first round of counting. Right now, its stated support shown in FPTP elections tells power brokers, media, and voters the Greens are not worth listening to.
Is RCV a better system? Yes! But methinks the Democrats will try to put the kibosh on this voting system. They want the left-wing vote mostly to themselves — and will not risk being usurped by the Greens. From what I can see, the D’s still believe they can manipulate the elections to give them a slight edge over the R’s. Narrow wins are better than letting a third party show its stuff, right?
RCV and the TDG
For those who don’t know me, I am an inventor of an alternative democracy, known as Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG).
I would call RCV as a minor improvement to our current electoral models in Canada and the USA. I can’t say that for most of the other popular suggestions for improving democracy.
In Canada, The New Democrat Party will be represented closer to the voters’ preference. In the USA, third parties could become viable contenders. But these improvements will fall short of the democracy we so yearn for. You see, these two models under RCV would still have political parties, and political parties are impediments to the solutions we so need.
The TDG has no political parties. My book explains how this TDG works.
In my basic TDG constitution, I have suggested plurality vote (FPTP) as the mechanism for electing the TDG representatives. The TDG will be a different social and political dynamic. Its plurality election will elect “from among the best,” which should be an acceptable result for most of us.
But I have left an option for early TDG builders to implement an RCV. My only advice is to keep the ballot and the counting of the ballot simple. Just two write-in names allowed, a #1 and a #2. This means only one round of recounting.
From those TDGs experimenting with RCV, we will learn whether the RCV is indeed a better system than plurality in TDG governance. These lessons will be applied to the rest of the TDG. The RCV issue will be settled — one way or another — before the TDG is ready to assume governance.
And changing systems takes an immense amount of political energy. If we are going to invest the energy to get an RCV ballot, should we not put that energy into a much better democracy?
Published on Medium 2024
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