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Christian Science
Monitor
Fuller, Fairer Elections? How? The
'instant runoff' promotes majority rule, voter
turnout
by Rob Richie
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge vetoed a bill last month that would
have made it nearly impossible for independent and third-party
candidates to get on the ballot to challenge him and most other
incumbents in his state. Governor Ridge should be praised for his
veto, but in explaining it he raised serious questions about current
election methods in the US.
Ridge wrote that he would support less drastic hurdles to ballot
access in order to have "only serious and viable candidates."
Excluding "frivolous candidates," he wrote, would help "to assure
that the winner of the general elections will receive a majority of
the votes cast, or, at least, a strong plurality of the votes."
Ridge echoes John Ullyot, a spokesman for Sen. Arlen Specter, who
told The New York Times that "democracy is not well-served by the
factionalism posed by nonviable third-party candidates...."
Yet, contrary to Ridge and Mr. Ullyot, most Americans see
elections as an opportunity for people to come together to debate
issues fully before making choices. If we restricted ballot status
to candidates with a chance to win, then perhaps Bob Dole should
have been struck from last year's presidential ballot. Certainly the
Reform Party's Ross Perot, Green Party's Ralph Nader, Libertarian
Party's Harry Browne, and other minor party candidates should have
been prohibited.
Americans' response to the decision to keep Mr. Perot from
debating was instructive. Despite Perot's low favorability rating,
polls showed that 3 of 4 Americans wanted him to participate.
Yet Ridge has a point when he says winners should have a majority
of votes in elections to executive offices such as governor and
president - in contrast to legislative elections, where proportional
representation systems could fairly represent both those in the
majority and the minority. For third-party advocates, the sad
reality is that our plurality system of elections is built for two
parties. When more parties run, votes can fracture, and plurality
winners abound.
Consider recent elections in other nations using plurality voting
with more than two national parties: The Labour Party's "landslide"
in the United Kingdom was only in seats, not votes. Like all other
British winners since World War II, the Labour Party was opposed by
a majority of voters - its 43 percent of the vote was less than
Michael Dukakis' percentage in the 1988 presidential race.
In Canada, the Liberals retained their parliamentary majority
with only 38 percent of the national vote. With four strong national
parties and a regional party in Quebec, the vote was fractured such
that only 1 of 12 provinces was won with a majority. Parties in
different provinces won more seats than warranted by their vote
totals, exacerbating regional divisions.
Could that happen here? President Clinton was opposed by most
voters in his two victories. In 1992, he won just 43 percent of the
national vote and a majority only in Arkansas. A majority of voters
in the 49 other states opposed the candidate who won all of that
state's electoral votes.
In 1912, the last election in which a third party ran strongly in
congressional elections nationwide, Democrats turned 45 percent of
the vote in House elections in Indiana into victories in all of the
state's 13 House seats - Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose party split
the Republican vote. In 1918, Democrats again won 45 percent of the
congressional vote in Indiana - but this time a united Republican
party won all 13 seats. The reversal was due largely to having a
strong third party on the ballot in 1912 rather than shifts in the
electorate.
Fortunately, there are ways to meet the twin goals of full
participation and majority rule in elections with one winner. One
solution is runoff elections. With only two candidates running in a
second round, runoffs supposedly ensure that winners have majority
support. But large drops in turnout are common.
Runoff elections also are costly. Second elections would cost
taxpayers millions of dollars in a big state like Pennsylvania, and
candidates would have to slug it out for several more weeks and
duplicate expensive efforts to get voters to the polls.
Modern technology allows a far better way to seek majority
winners in elections that maximize voter turnout. Australia elects
its parliament and Ireland its president by a system called "the
instant runoff," or "bottoms up." Voters have one vote but can rank
candidates in order of preference. The ballot count operates as a
series of runoffs. If no candidate wins a majority of first choices,
then the last-place candidate is eliminated. Ballots of that
candidate's supporters are reallocated to the next-choice candidate
on each ballot. That continues until one candidate remains.
Voters can choose to rank only one candidate, but they have every
incentive to rank more because ballots only move to a lower choice
once a higher choice is eliminated. Not surprisingly, the
democracies with the highest voter participation in the world in
1996 were Australia (with a 96 percent turnout) and Malta (97
percent), both of which use such preferential ballots.
The instant runoff is constitutional - states could adopt it
immediately even for the presidential race. Some jurisdictions might
need to modify voting equipment or shift to vote-by-mail elections,
but in return the majority would rule, and the state would get out
of the business of regulating voters' choices.
Two tests of a democracy are whether it promotes majority rule
and full participation. The instant runoff meets these tests. With
third parties and independents a growing, healthy force in our
politics, it's high time for a change.
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