Macon Telegraph

August 4, 2004

The Dismal Runoff Showing
By Bill Weaver

Warner Robins - Between now and next Tuesday many state and county officials will be predicting another awful turnout for the primary election runoff. They'll beg us to go vote again, but most of us won't.

We should, of course, and we encourage everyone to do so. But the truth is runoffs have a glorious history of dismal participation. The Georgia Secretary of State's office says that for the past eight years only about one in 10 voters has participated in the runoff (only three in 10 voted in the July 20 primary). That's ugly, but understandable.

The runoff system sometimes requires us to vote twice to get one winner. Voters figure once is enough, and maybe they're right. Maybe we should consider an election method that gets a winner every time, but with only one vote. There is such a method, and it's been around longer than Georgia's current runoff system.

University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock says that prior to 1964 the state's election method was decentralized - the political machines in each county set their own rules. Some elections were decided by a plurality; regardless of the number of candidates in a race, the person who got the most votes won. This "winner-take-all" system remains in use in many states.

But some counties insisted the winner had to receive a majority - more than half of all votes cast. If the presence of multiple candidates fragmented the vote so one candidate didn't get a majority, the top two vote-getters advanced to a runoff. That was the method Georgia started using in 1964, and it's the same method we use today.

It certainly gets the job done, but with twice the effort. And not only is having to vote twice a hassle, it's expensive. The secretary of state's office estimates the runoff next week will cost Georgia taxpayers $1 million, which doesn't include what the candidates will spend.

Some cities around the country are using a method called "instant runoff voting" that negates the need for a second election. Voters go to the polls only once, but they cast a different kind of ballot which allows for a majority vote winner every time.

Instead of voting for only one candidate, voters mark their ballot for multiple candidates, ranking them in order of the voter's preference - a first preference candidate, a second preference, etc. When the ballots are counted, if one candidate receives a majority of all first preference votes, he/she wins. But if no one has a majority, the candidate who had the fewest first preference votes is eliminated. Then ballots are counted a second time, with the votes for that last-place candidate redistributed to the candidates who those voters picked as their second preference. With each counting someone gets eliminated and that person's votes get redistributed so that, eventually, only two candidates remain and one gets the required majority.

Bullock said the system is not particularly new, as it was used in Alabama as far back as the early 1930s. The Center for Voting and Democracy says that in the last 18 months Congress and more than 20 state legislatures have considered new election voting methods, including instant runoff voting. But the National Conference of State Legislatures reports no states have authorized IRV in the last four years, though many have debated it. State Rep. Larry Walker, D-Perry, said he could not recall IRV's being discussed during his long tenure in the Georgia Legislature.

Nevertheless, given the terrible turnout that runoffs produce, maybe we should consider something new. Would IRV save money? Absolutely. Would the courts approve? Don't know. Would it change campaign tactics? Probably, but tactics are changing anyway.

This new early voting method we're employing certainly is convenient, but it's changing the game, especially since some issues aren't being exposed until the last few days - or even hours - prior to an election and well after early voters have voted. Political strategies are evolving, and IRV would affect them, too.

But we need to try something. Would IRV improve voter turnout in the primary? Probably not, but it would certainly eliminate the dismal showing we can expect in the runoff. That, plus saving at least a million dollars, might actually be worth considering.