Instant runoff voting reduces mudslinging in campaigns

Thursday, May 21, 1998

Instant runoff voting reduces mudslinging in campaigns

POLITICS: Ranking voter preferences can open up positive
platform of issues

By Rob Richie and Steven Hill

Watching the governor’s race in California has become
quasi-farcical, like watching TV wrestling with its bombast of
sneers, dirty tricks and "no-holds-barred" tag teams. It reduces
the dignity of the office and alienates voters, which is
unfortunate because it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a
simple way to clean up the worst of the mud-slinging – adopt
instant runoff voting.

Currently, the candidate from each political party with the most
votes on June 2 advances to the general election in November. For
the Democratic contested primary, a candidate like Al Checchi knows
that he can win as much by driving voters away from his Democratic
opponents Jane Harman and Gray Davis as by increasing his own vote
totals. Candidates Harman and Davis arm themselves to respond in
kind, and not surprisingly we are witnessing full-scale assault via
the airwaves. The dynamic fuels negative campaigning and depresses
voter turnout.

But Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) changes the calculation. Rather
than providing incentive to drive away voters from your opponents,
IRV provides incentive to reach out to supporters of your
opponents, and even encouraging candidates to build coalitions with
each other. Here’s how it works.

Instead of voting for one candidate on June 2, voters would be
asked to rank several candidates in their order of preference. So
voters would rank their favorite candidate as their No. 1 choice,
their second favorite as their No. 2 choice, up to three
choices.

Election administrators would count first-choices and – for
those party primaries that are contested – eliminate the candidate
with the least first-choice support. The ballots of the eliminated
candidate would transferr to the candidate ranked next on each
voter’s ballot. This process would repeat until there is only one
candidate left for each party, and those candidates would be
declared the nominees for the general election. It’s like
conducting a runoff (hence, the name "instant runoff") but it’s
done with only one trip to the polls.

For example, after first-choice ballots of all voters are
counted, suppose:

The order of finish was: 1. Checchi, 2. Davis, 3. Harman. The
way it works now, Checchi would be declared the winner. But Checchi
may not have a majority of the vote. In fact, he may not even be
preferred by the most voters, but may simply have stronger core
support than his opponents.

But with IRV, third-place finisher Harman would be eliminated,
and instead of Harman’s supporters having wasted their vote on a
losing candidate, they can give their vote to their second choice.
Suppose a Harman voter ranked her or his ballot like so: 1. Harman,
2. Davis, 3. Checchi. That Harman voter would be giving his vote to
Davis. Which remaining candidate will receive the most support from
Harman voters – Checchi or Davis?

Herein lies the beauty of IRV: Candidates Checchi and Davis will
have to woo the supporters of Harman during the campaign if they
expect any transfer votes from Harman supporters. Instead of
attacking Harman, which the current "highest vote-getter" method
actually rewards, IRV will encourage candidates to find common
ground and build bridges to entice more voters their way. In a race
as close as the Democrats’, it would be smart for all the
candidates to woo the voters of their opponents. That would promote
positive, issue-oriented campaigning, instead of the current
bombardment of mudslinging.

Also, with IRV the nominee will be the candidate who has the
support of the most voters, with a combination of core support and
general appeal. Right now, the nominee is more likely to be the
candidate who has the strongest and narrowest cadre of supporters,
regardless of whether he or she has broad support. In a three-way
race, the current method allows someone to win with as little as
34-percent support, which allows a candidate to win despite
opposition from most voters. This is particularly important in a
party primary, because the nominee would need the votes from losing
candidates’ supporters to win in the general election.

Some may object that Instant Runoff Voting sounds too
complicated. But the role for the voter is simple: they rank as
many as three of their favorite candidates. It’s as easy as 1, 2,
3. People are already used to ranking their favorite sports teams
and movies, so they should be able to handle this task. In fact,
the Republic of Ireland and the Australian Senate have elected
their winners by this method for years. School children in these
countries use IRV, so how complicated can it be? The Academy Awards
also have selected the final candidates by using a similar ranking
system for many years.

IRV is a modest change, but it could well result in more
positive, issue-oriented campaigns, and less disgusted voters.
That’s a win-win situation. Campaigns shouldn’t be driven by
expensive and negative TV ads. Using IRV, we might restore some
dignity to our electoral contests.