A Tale of Two Bushes
2020-09-08
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), also known as instant-runoff voting, is a voting method where you rank the options on a ballot in order of preference, instead of voting for a single option. So, if there are three candidates on the ballot, you can select your first choice, your second choice, and your third choice. The ballots are then tabulated to select the candidate who will make the greatest amount of voters happy. Not only does RCV allow a more robust expression of voter preferences, but it's also a solution for major parties to the “spoiler effect” of alternative parties in a democracy.
To consider how RCV is a solution to the spoiler effect, let's take a look at two U.S. Presidential Elections: 1992 and 2000.
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush was the incumbent in the White House, and he was running against Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. However, there was a third party candidate — Texas billionaire Ross Perot — who received a whopping 19,743,821 votes, or 18.91% of the total. No one will ever know for sure how these votes would have been split by the major party candidates if not for Perot’s involvement, but let’s assume that the Republicans were right in this case by calling it a “spoiler,” and had Perot not ran, enough of his voters would have preferred Bush over Clinton to close the roughly 5% margin by which Clinton won.
If Ranked Choice Voting had been in place across the country in 1992, once Perot was found to be the 3rd overall, his voters would have had their votes reallocated to their second choice. This would have eliminated the “spoiler effect” of Perot's campaign and President George H.W. Bush would have gone on to a second term in office.
Fast-forward to 2000, when Texas Governor George W. Bush ran for President against Vice President Al Gore. Then too, there was a third party candidate — activist Ralph Nader — who received 97,421 votes in the state of Florida, a spoiling factor in an election marred by controversy. The official tally showed a George W. Bush victory over Al Gore in Florida by a margin of only 537 votes. We can safely assume that most Nader voters would have preferred Gore over Bush, so in this case, if Ranked Choice Voting were in place across the country in 2000, the advantage would have gone to Gore, making him President instead of George W. Bush.
So there you have it. In 1992 RCV would have helped a Bush stay in the Oval Office, and in 2000 RCV would have kept a Bush out of the Oval Office. RCV does not favor one major party over another. In fact, it helps both major parties, while also helping people vote their conscience for alternative parties without fear of spoiling an election or throwing their vote away.
Election laws are created at the state level, not nationally, so we need a 50-state strategy to put Ranked Choice Voting into place across the United States. It is already used for all elections in Maine and local elections in multiple cities. That's a start, but we have a lot more work to do. Tell your friends in locales where RCV ballot measures are coming up in November to advocate for RCV today!