FairVote Feed: Instant Runoff Voting

Help FairVote MN's Ranked Choice Voting Video Win Thousands of Dollars For Fairer Elections!

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:16:41 -0700

Today is the last day to show your support for ranked choice voting and FairVote Minnesota in the Looking@Democracy contest. Vote now!

In the Looking@Democracy contest, artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, and others compete to make the most compelling media presentation on how to improve American democracy. There is $100,000 in prize money to be won by the contest's eleven total winners, and where better for that money to go than to an innovator in the world of democracy?

One important contestant is FairVote ally FairVote Minnesota, which entered a fun video about the benefits of ranked choice voting (instant runoff voting) elections. In the video, stacks of coins are used to represent ranked choice votes for favorite president. The video lucidly demonstrates how ranked choice voting allows voters to have more than two choices and still be confident that the winner will have real majority support.

Check out their video at the contest page. If you like it, click the big red "VOTE" button. You'll be asked to either log in through Facebook or create an account on their page, either of which take very little time and effort. After that you can leave a supportive comment or check out the other videos entered in the contest. Finally, don't forget to learn more about ranked choice voting and what it can do for your community.

Try Ranked Choice Voting!

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:47:57 -0800

Whenever a race for a single seat has more than two candidates, more than half the voters can strongly oppose the "winner" in a traditional plurality system. To eliminate "spoilers" and embrace voter choice, a growing number of cities and colleges are moving to the instant runoff form of ranked choice voting (RCV). It's used to pick the Best Picture Oscar and is now under serious consideration for statewide elections.

Experience RCV yourself through mock Oscar elections, a great new explanatory video, and more!

RCV mock elections at Washington Post and Oscar Votes 1 2 3

FairVote Minnesota presents a new video: RCV in 86 seconds

Top scholars support RCV in San Francisco

Maine wants RCV for gubernatorial elections

New York City may use RCV to elect its mayor

Over 50 college campuses use RCV, including recent elections at Texas A&M and Duke

Background: InstantRunoff.com and IRV Factcheck

When Barack Obama Was a Leader in Seeking Fair Voting Systems

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:30:24 -0800

President Barack Obama has a lot on his mind these days - fiscal cliff negotiations, gun control, cabinet appointments and spurring job creation, to name a few. But the state of our democracy also matters, as he briefly addressed in his election night speech when saying about long lines "We need to fix that." Our problems go deeper than long lines, of course - with the core of the problem being winner-take-all voting rules that divide America, marginalize voters, distort representation and make governance more difficult.

We haven't had a president as informed about good ideas for taking on electoral reform since James Madison and the founding generation. Take, for example, the fact that on October 15, 2001, Obama - then a junior state senator in Illinois - reached across the aisle to introduce a bill with Republican Tom Walsh that would, if passed, put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to elect the Illinois House of Representatives by fair voting: three-seat districts, elected by voters given cumulative voting rights.

A year later, Obama introduced a bill that would have required that partisan primaries for congressional office be conducted by instant runoff voting (IRV, also called ranked choice voting) and allows local jurisdictions to use IRV elect their officers. As a law professor at the University of Chicago, Obama had taught Election Law using a textbook co-authored by Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes, that includes a chapter dedicated to different electoral systems. One of FairVote's former staffers, Dan Johnson, was a student of Obama and has attested to his understanding of a full range of reform ideas.

Fair voting may have been unfamiliar to most Americans in 2001, but not to those in Illinois. In fact, Illinois elected its House of Representatives by fair voting for more than a hundred years. Illinois adopted fair voting in 1870 to alleviate polarization between northern and southern Illinois grounded in those regions' divided loyalties during the Civil War. Republicans dominated northern Illinois and Democrats southern Illinois, but fair voting allowed moderate Democrats and Republicans to be elected from all parts of the state, opening the door to cross-party coalition-building, independence from party leaders and effective governance even in the face of polarization.

Over the years, fair voting achieved its goals. Consistently, voters in all regions of the state - from Democratic strongholds in Chicago to rock-solid Republicans counties - elected representatives of both parties. Sharing constituents meant more legislation in common and meant that caucuses meeting separately represented the entire state, not just their strongholds. African Americans in the 1950s were elected from numerous white-majority districts, and women did better than they had under other systems.

After being repealed in 1980 in a populist drive to reduce the size of the Illinois house by a third, the legislature became far more polarized, with few competitive districts and one-party dominance. That change contributed to a commission led by former Republican governor Jim Edgar and former Democratic Congressman and White House Counsel Abner Mikva calling for the return of cumulative voting.

Instant runoff voting was a newer idea in Illinois when Obama proposed it for Illinois congressional primaries in 2002, although that year it also earned the backing of future presidential opponent, John McCain. Since that time, IRV has been adopted in a number of jurisdictions nationwide, including California cities like San Francisco and Oakland and the largest cities in Maine, Minnesota and Tennessee.

IRV allows such jurisdictions to uphold majority rule without having to hold a second election, and the system seems to have done particularly well at promoting racial minority candidacies who benefit from holding decisive elections with greater turnout and less polarizing rhetoric. IRV allows broad choices on the ballot, as the ranking of candidates and rounds of counting ensure that vote-splitting will not result in a less popular plurality candidate winning because that candidate's votes were siphoned off by a similar candidate. This has special importance in partisan primaries, where often a number of similar candidates run against each other. In that context, IRV can ensure that the general election involves a contest between candidates who really represent a majority of voters in their parties.

The issues that led Obama to introduce fair voting and instant runoff voting in Illinois have never had greater relevance at the national scale than they do today. Congress is sharply divided and horribly unrepresentative of its constituencies. And the case for reform includes elections at all levels of government where voters have inadequate choices on the ballot as alternative voices are kept out for fear of splitting the vote.

In the Democratic convention speech in 2004 that introduced him to many Americans, President Obama said:

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states."

We at FairVote, like most Americans, embrace that vision. But that is not the politics and representation that comes from winner-take-all voting rules. It is because of winner-take-all rules that the president did not bother campaigning in over 40 states during the fall campaign and why he has taken part in 19 events as president in North Carolina, but not one in South Carolina.

It's also why the U.S. House can be so rigid in its opposition to his policies, as a majority of voters in 2012 could vote for Democrats for the House, but only elect 46% of seats in districts so distorted by where voters live that Mitt Romney carried 228 of them compared to only 207 for Obama, despite losing the popular vote by over four-million votes. It's why New England doesn't have a single Republican House Member and why Democrats couldn't win a single House seat this year in a string of states running from Arkansas to eastern Washington.

As a president who has said he will never run for political office again, President Obama has a unique opportunity to address the dangers of our winner-take-all, all-or-nothing voting rules. Grounded in his knowledge of reform options, in his state's history with fair voting and in the commitment of his 2004 speech, the president has a remarkable opportunity to trigger a real dialogue about ways of reshaping American politics in his second term.

FairVote's First Take on RCV Elections in Four Bay Area Cities

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:57:29 -0800

On November 16, this piece was updated to reflect final results.

Ballots for Tuesday’s ranked choice voting (RCV) elections in four cities in the Bay Area has now largely been counted. It is clear that RCV has again worked well. Because of RCV, voters in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and San Leandro were able to elect leaders in a high turnout presidential election instead of having to rely on either low turnout runoffs in December or low turnout primaries in June. As a result, a far larger and more representative electorate participated in city elections than when these cities used non-RCV voting systems.

oday we focus on three particularly important points emerging from the 2012 elections.

CANDIDATES OF COLOR AGAIN THRIVED IN RCV RACES, EVEN WHEN OUTSPENT

Racial minorities continue to do remarkably well as candidates in ranked choice voting elections in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, for example, there are 18 offices chosen by RCV, and 16 next year will be held by people of color -- including two new winners this year in the District 5 and District 7 races for the Board of Supervisors. Once these new members are seated, the Board of Supervisors will have five members who are Asian American, two who are African American, two who are Latino and two who are white. In 2004, when RCV was first used, the Board had only four people of color, including only one Asian American.

As evidenced by Oakland’s District 3 City Council election, voters of color are using the RCV system to clear effect. Three strong African American candidates ran in District 3, with their backers generally promoting ranking these candidates first, second and third. Although a white candidate led in first choices, Lynette McElhaney prevailed, with particularly strong support from voters who had backed Derrick Mohammed and Neisha de Witt as a first choice. McElhaney won despite being outspent by Sean Sullivan – a common pattern in RCV races in which the winning candidate has been particularly active in direct outreach to voters.

RATE OF VOTER ERROR IS LOW: VOTERS HANDLE RCV BALLOT WELL

The results demonstrate that election officials in both Alameda County and San Francisco continue to do an excellent job in ensuring voters know how to fill out an RCV ballot. Even though Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and San Leandro have all held RCV elections before, many voters came out to vote for president this year who had never voted locally in an RCV election.

Nevertheless, very few voters made an error in indicating a first choice in RCV races. In Alameda County RCV races, for example, more than 99.5% of voters in multi-candidate RCV races cast valid ballots, including more than 99.6% of voters in the races with the most candidates in Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro. In San Francisco’s large-field RCV races in District 5 and District 7, more than 99.4% of voters cast valid ballots for their first choice, and more than three in four voters indicated a valid second choice as well. These rates of invalid ballots are far lower than the invalid ballot rate in the U.S. Senate primary in June 2012 , and lower than the expected rate of error in the San Francisco school board races.

Ballot image reports are not yet available for the Alameda County races, but are available for analysis in the two San Francisco races that require multiple rounds to determine a winner (District 5 and District 7). In both races two-thirds of voters used all three of their rankings and eight in ten voters ranked two – this despite the fact that many endorsing entities like the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed only one or two candidates.

A TRUE “INSTANT RUNOFF" IN 2012 : MOST RCV OUTCOMES CLEAR ON ELECTION NIGHT

Election officials in San Francisco and Alameda County should be applauded for choosing to run the ranked choice voting algorithm on election night. Doing so not only provided faster results, but also clarified that RCV has not been the reason for any past delays in determining outcomes.

Indeed the timing for reporting results should be no different than when reporting non-RCV results. Just as with non-RCV elections, most RCV races will be known as soon as the RCV tally is run. If an RCV election is close, of course, then the winner may not be decided until absentee and provisional ballots have been completely processed. That of course is no different than in non-RCV races, such as the California Attorney General race in 2010 that required weeks to decide, in which the race is close and all absentee and provisional ballots must be processed before the winner can be conclusively determined.

This year, RCV tallies on election night made it instantly clear who was the winner in nearly every race in which there was no majority winner in the first round. In San Francisco’s District 5, for example, London Breed led with less than 30% of first choices, but was a decisive winner over incumbent Christina Olague in the RCV tally – showing strength in securing second and third choices that propelled her to being a certain winner. Lynette McElhaney was second in first choices in Oakland’s District 3, but was a clear winner after running the RCV tally.

By running the tally early, the public and the candidates had more clarity about who is ahead and who is behind, as is normal when election returns are reported. In San Francisco’s District 7, for example, Norman Yee leads in first choices, but is locked in a very tight race in the final round of the RCV tally with F.X Crowley. In San Leandro’s District 2, incumbent Ursula Reed leads in first choices and is in a tight race with challenger Morgan Mack-Rose in the final round of the RCV tally.

The only two RCV races where outcomes were in doubt as remaining ballots were tallied were ones where the election was extremely close. The winner was ultimately the finalist who earned the most votes in the “instant runoff” – in other words, was preferred to the other finalist by more voters. Norman Yee in San Francisco and Ursula Reed in San Leandro ultimately won these clsoe races, but all the votes has to be counted, just as would have been the case in a close non-RCV race that had uncounted ballots.

For more information, see FairVote's page on Bay Area RCV Elections and San Francisco civic leaders' website SF Better Elections.

New Report Analyzes the Effect of Top Two in Washington State

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 08:51:27 -0700

The Top Two primary system has drawn increasing attention as a way to reform our elections. Instead of conducting ordinary partisan primaries, Top Two jurisdictions run an open preliminary in which all candidates run against each other irrespective of party label. Then, the two candidates who receive the most votes run against each other again in the general election. For many years, Louisiana was the only state using a form of the system for both state and federal elections. Washington State started using the system in 2008. California implemented it in 2012, and Arizona voters may adopt it in a November 2012 ballot measure.

In a new report, FairVote takes a "just the facts" approach to how Top Two has operated in Washington State since 2008. Looking only at party labels and vote totals, it analyzes the effect of Top Two on voter choice in both rounds of the election, the role that split votes and so-called "spoiler" candidates have in the preliminary round, and what can be gleaned from the difference in turnout and vote totals between the preliminary and general elections. Although it focuses on state legislative races - to ensure that comparisons are apples-to-apples to the greatest extent possible - a last section considers the very different impact the system appears to have in higher profile federal and state executive races.

The report concludes that Top Two largely does not accomplish its goal of encouraging the election of moderates in Washington State. Over three election cycles, almost three quarters of preliminary races had no competition at all with only one or two candidates in the preliminary. Where the preliminary includes a broader field of candidates, voters tend to treat the system essentially just like a partisan primary; over 86% of general election races were either uncontested or involved only a Democrat running against a Republican, and our data shows that in most such races, the Democrat receives very nearly the same percent of the vote as the combined votes of Democrats in the Preliminary, and the same is true for Republicans. In no race did an Independent participate in the general election if both a Democrat and Republican ran.

Over three cycles, there have been 29 "intraparty" races - in which a Republican runs against another Republican or a Democrat runs against another Democrat in the general election - but every single intraparty race resulted in the election of the candidate who received the most votes in the preliminary, suggesting a lack of the sort of crossover voting that would result in the election of moderate candidates. Further, Top Two is plagued with problems of vote splitting, with more than half of those preliminaries with four or more contenders resulting in candidates splitting the vote such that it cannot be determined if the most popular candidate even advanced to the general election. Finally, although we only have election cycles since 2008 to work with, the evidence so far does not suggest any trends, either improving or getting worse, as Washington voters continue to use the system. The numbers are largely consistent across cycles.

To be clear, these issues occur in partisan primaries as well. As recommended in a prior policy paper, FairVote recommends that Top Two should be adjusted with a few simple proposals to increase voter choice and candidate competition while minimizing the possibility of vote splitting.

Top Two in Washington State

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 07:55:16 -0700

FairVote Report: Low Turnout Plagues U.S. Mayoral Elections, but San Francisco is Highest

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:43:45 -0700

Voter turnout in the most recent elections in America's 22 largest cities ranges from low to minuscule. In mayoral elections taking place from 2008 through 2011, no city had a turnout of more than 43% of registered voters -- which translates into an even lower figure among eligible voters. Of those 22 elections, 15 cities had mayoral voter turnout under 30%, and 11 experienced a turnout under 20%. Two cities, El Paso and San Antonio, had turnout under 10%.

To underscore that fact: in half of America's largest cities, the mayors were elected in elections in which fewer than one in five registered voters voted -- and in two, more than nine out of ten registered voters stayed home.

In the six cities that held primary elections for mayor, none had a primary turnout of greater than 24%. In the second most recent mayoral election of the 22 cities, no city other than San Diego had a turnout above 36%.

The city with the highest turnout in its most recent election was San Francisco, with a relatively strong 42.5%. San Francisco is also the only city of the 22 to use the instant runoff voting (IRV) form of ranked choice voting in its mayoral elections. Even when it doesn't bring new voters to the polls, IRV typically means one single, decisive election takes place when the most voters are likely to participate. For example, by going to IRV, the city of Oakland had a November 2010 election for mayor with the highest turnout in a mayoral election in a generation.

We're about to have a new leader in turnout, as San Diego is holding an election for mayor this November. Riding on the coattails of the presidential election in California, San Diego will soar to the top of the charts. But as we look to a new round of mayoral elections next year in more cities, it's clear that we should have a national conversation about participation in non-presidential elections -- as FairVote is doing with its new Promote Our Vote project, with specific ideas for how cities can take action to spark higher turnout.

Click here for a spreadsheet containing turnout data for these 22 cities for their last three elections, including primaries, first rounds, and special elections.

Putin's United Russia Wins Resounding Victories in Local Elections

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:55:33 -0700

Election officials draw ballots from ballot boxes after the election / RIA Novosti

As the results of Russia's October 14 local elections show, the rumors of United Russia's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Protests against Vladimir Putin and his United Russia Party, starting in December of last year, appeared to shake the foundations of the Russian political titan's hold on power. But Putin won a decisive victory in the March 4 presidential elections, and the October 14 elections further confirmed United Russia's continued dominance of Russian politics. The party won the majority of the 5,000 regional and local elections held on Sunday, including all five gubernatorial elections.

The legitimacy of the election results is somewhat marred, however, by low voter turnout--hovering in the 30-40% range in most regions--and accusations of electoral fraud. According to the independent monitoring organization Golos, there were "open and transparent violations of the law, and nobody in government is doing anything about it."

More problematic than cases of fraud, however, are the restrictive and undemocratic electoral laws that the Kremlin implemented for this election. In elections for provincial governorships, for instance, candidates were required to represent a party--preventing any independents from running. Furthermore, those candidates had to have the endorsement of at least five percent of lawmakers in regional legislatures, which are largely in the control of United Russia. There is also the problem of what Golos (via the Huffington Post), refers to as "spoiler candidates," who are "used to steal votes from genuine opposition candidates" in single seat races.

The Huffington Post's analysis doesn't make it entirely clear whether the so-called spoiler candidates are simply third parties with low levels of support or are actually being enlisted by the Kremlin to create problems for the opposition. Either way, the obvious solution is enacting instant runoff voting for single seat races. That would allow voters to choose whichever minor candidates they prefer as their first choice without harming their preference among the major candidates--whether that preference be for United Russia or an opposition party. In multi-seat elections for local legislatures, a more uniform proportional representation system nationwide would help to prevent parties from manipulating local election rules to their advantage.

While electoral fraud is a problem in Russia and should continue to be closely monitored, the electoral structures that Russia chooses will likely have an even greater impact on its developing democracy. Those systems should be given more attention in outside media coverage of Russian elections.

Revealing Evidence of Who Votes – and Who Doesn’t – in Local Elections

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 07:48:56 -0700

On July 18, 2012, FairVote conducted an exit survey in the Ward 5 vacancy election for city council in Takoma Park, Maryland. City voters in 2005 had backed adoption of instant runoff voting (IRV) by a margin of 83% to 17%, and the City Council unanimously backed a charter change that enacted IRV in 2006. With three candidates seeking the vacancy this past July, the election provided a revealing window into what America's elections might look like if voters had the opportunity to elect candidates using IRV.

In the election, no candidate won a majority in the first round of counting. Therefore, the second choices of the people who voted for the third-place candidate helped decide the election - with their votes added to the totals of the two finalists in the instant runoff. As detailed in FairVote's analysis after the election, voters handled IRV exceptionally well. Our survey found that not a single participant opposed IRV's use for city elections, and an overwhelming percentage backed its extension to county elections.

After collecting the exit surveys, we became particularly interested in the demographic data we collected about the participants. Our findings are quite revealing about who votes - and who doesn't - in Takoma Park city elections, with the disparities we found almost certainly extending to local elections around the country that do not coincide with more publicized November elections.

One hundred and eighty-nine voters cast ballots in the special election, for a turnout of approximately 15% of registered voters in the ward - low, to be sure, but more than twice the ward's turnout in last November's mayoral election in Takoma Park, and higher than the single digits in several recent mayoral elections in the United States. Of those 189 voters, more than half (92) responded to our survey, with another 31 identified by the survey-takers based on estimated observations of race, sex, and age.

Despite being a racially diverse ward with large African American and Latino communities, more than two-thirds of survey respondents were white, and not even a fifth of respondents were African American. That was true even though the winner was Jarrett Smith, an African American seeking election to a city council that had been all-white for nearly a decade. Smith ran well. He finished first in first-choice rankings and in the instant runoff gained more votes from the defeated candidate after she was eliminated. He ultimately won with 55% of the votes in the instant runoff round-confirming that racial minority candidates can do quite well in IRV elections.

But the survey results tell another important story: that a racial divide exists in Ward 5 voter participation. Despite constituting barely a quarter of Ward 5's residents, white voters constituted nearly two-thirds of survey respondents, while African American and Hispanic voters constituted less than a quarter of respondents. The depressed turnout among racial minorities indicates that the city council may need to further engage its racial minority constituents.

Perhaps the most revealing survey result concerns socioeconomic class. Despite being a district with a large lower-middle-class population, half of the respondents indicated a household income exceeding $100,000 a year. Furthermore, more than half of our respondents had obtained a graduate or professional degree. This reinforces the conventional wisdom that voter participation is positively correlated with income and education, and it further illustrates the need for the city council to engage constituents who do not traditionally participate in the election process.

Further confirming the value of that outreach is data involving non-citizen voters. Takoma Park is one of a few cities in the United States that allows non-citizens to vote in its city elections. Despite this inclusivity, not a single respondent indicated non-citizenship status - and the city clerk reported no non-citizens cast ballots even though many non-citizens live in the ward. This suggests that simply granting the right to vote to non-citizens is not sufficient to allow non-citizens to feel comfortable participating in American democracy, and it suggests that further work is necessary to ensure that non-citizens are engaged in local government.

The age range of the voters also reinforced conventional wisdom; the majority of respondents were older than 50. This occurred despite the position of the election's sole voting location: a university.

Gender also played a surprising role in the election. While more men than women tend to vote in elections nationally, nearly three-fifths of respondents were women. Nevertheless, the only female candidate won the least amount of votes in the election and lost in the first round of counting. This demonstrates that, like race, voters in Ward 5 do not polarize around candidates based on gender.

Finally, although the Takoma Park City Council elections are non-partisan, the survey showed that the ward is ideologically homogenous: more than three-fourths of respondents identified as "liberal" or "very liberal" and as a member of the Democratic Party.

These survey results are given below, and they are compared to census data for the Ward 5 area. (Note: Educational attainment is based on data for individuals 18 years or older as provided in the the 2006-2010 American Community Survey Selected Population Table B15001 for Census Tract 7017.02, located here. Household income is based on data provided in the 2006-2010 American Community Survey Selected Population Table B19001 for for Census Tract 7017.02, located at Household income is based on data provided in the 2006-2010 American Community Survey Selected Population Table B19001 for for Census Tract 7017.02, located here. Race, gender, and age is based on data provided in the 2010 Census for Census Tract 7017.02, located here.) For more on instant runoff voting elections, including exit surveys in several other cities, visit InstantRunoff.com.

Exit Poll Survey Results, July 2012

Census Data, 2010

Race/Ethnicity

65.6% White

19.3% Black

5.0% Latino
1.7% Asian

0.8% Native American
7.6% Other

No respondent indicated non-citizenship status

Race/Ethnicity
26.4% White
44.1% Black

18.9% Latino

5.8% Asian

0.1% Native American

4.7% Other

Approximately 744 residents are non-citizens

Gender

42.1% Men

57.9% Women

Gender

45.5% Men

55.5% Women

Household's Total Annual Income

6.8% Less than $10,000

2.3% $10,000-$24,999

13.6% $25,000-$49,999

11.4% $50,000-$74,999

15.9% $75,000-$99,999

50.0% $100,000 +

Household's Total Annual Income

9.7% Less than $10,000

9.8% $10,000-$24,999

24.9% $25,000-$49,999

18.5% $50,000-$74,999

15.0% $75,000-$99,999

22.1% $100,000 +

Education
0% Did not finish high school
2.2% High school graduate or GED
12.2% Some college or associate's degree
30.0% Bachelor's degree
55.6% Graduate or professional degree

Education

6.5% Did not finish high school
24.2% High school graduate or GED
37.0% Some college or associate's degree
22.3% Bachelor's degree
10.0% Graduate or professional degree

Age
0% < 18

3.3%    18 - 24
3.3%    25 - 29
16.4% 30 - 39
26.2% 40 - 49
32.8% 50 - 59
15.6% 60 - 69
2.5%    70+

Age

13.6%    < 18
26.6%    18 - 24
15.0%    25 - 29
11.6%    30 - 39
12.7%    40 - 49
12.9%    50 - 59
2.7%      60 - 69
1.6%      70 +

Political Ideology
40.9%   Very liberal
35.2%   Liberal
18.2%   Moderate
2.3%     Conservative
1.1%     Very conservative
2.3%     Other

Political Ideology

N/A

Party Affiliation
85.6% Democrat
2.2% Republican
2.2% Other party
10.0% No party affiliation

Party Affiliation

N/A

Todd Akin and Non-Majority Rule

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:03:08 -0700

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) captured the attention of election spectators across the nation when he asserted that a woman's body could avoid pregnancy by "shutting the whole thing down" in the case of "legitimate rape." Leading Republicans, including the party's presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, have called on him to step down as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri. As the country raises its brow and wags a finger in Akin's direction, many have wondered how such a candidate came to office in the first place.

I make no judgment about Akin's alleged extremism. This month he won a major party's nomination for a highly competitive Senate seat and he is finishing his sixth term in the U.S. House, having won most of his previous elections by lopsided margins. But given the controversy over his nomination and his long history of being seen as particularly conservative on social issues, it's instructive to see how our electoral rules may have contributed to his political success.

A sparsely publicized fact is that the majority of voters rejected Akin as their choice candidate in his first primary bid for Congress. In 2000, Akin narrowly won by 293 votes, securing only 26% of the primary electorate's support against 74% of the vote split among other candidates. His closest competitors Gene McNary and Francis Flotron received 26% and 22% of the vote respectively, resulting in no majority for a single candidate.

After securing his first nomination, Akin never again faced a tough primary - the usual norm for incumbents, particularly if they haven't disappointed highly partisan voters in their party. In the general election, Akin represented a solidly Republican district, which again is typical of incumbents due to how most parts of the nation lean clearly toward one party or other. (See our assessment of Akin's district and all other congressional districts at FairVote's new Monopoly Politics 2012 report summarized with an interactive map).

In 2012, Republicans saw a great opportunity to pick up Missouri's U.S. Senate seat. Although historically a swing state, it now leans Republican - and first-term incumbent Claire McCaskill is seen as vulnerable. Several Republicans sought the nomination. Just as in Akin's 2000 primary, far short of the majority of Missouri Republicans supported Akin in the primary. Receiving a plurality of 36%, Akin advanced as the Republican candidate for senate despite being opposed by 64% of the electorate - including challengers who won 30% of the vote and 29% of the vote, respectively. Observers suggest that McCaskill tried to boost Akin, who was thought to be the easier cadidate to beat the general election, by running $2 million in ads for him, aware that doing so would strengthen his support among conservative Republicans.

Missouri's voting law made such a strategy all the more effective. Candidates lacking majority support often fill our elected offices due to plurality voting, a system where the candidate who receives the most votes in an election wins. Plurality voting affects who runs in a race and who wins it. On the one hand, potential candidates are often discouraged from joining plurality races due to the spoiler effect, which occurs when the vote is split between two like-minded candidates allowing a less desirable candidate to win. On the other hand, when more than two candidates run - as is common in primary races where the winner will be favored in November - you can get winners who would have been unlikely to secure a majority of the vote in a one-on-one race.

FairVote opposes plurality voting for both of these reasons: we believe voters should have real choices, but we don't believe having those choices should lead to unrepresentative winners. Because we cannot be satisfied with structures that impede democratic principles such as majority rule, reform of plurality voting is necessary to advance the franchise of the individual and the will of the majority.

When electing single winners in governmental elections around the world, only three systems are used: plurality voting and two systems that would avoid its problems of split votes and undemocratic outcomes. Used for most presidential elections around the world and in primaries in several states, the most common alternative method is to require the top two finishers in the first round to face off in a runoff if no candidate has won a majority. Runoff elections have three big advantages over plurality voting: candidates must demonstrate substantial support among voters, voters in the first round have much less concern about splitting the vote and voters get a "second look" at candidates.

Instant runoff voting, a ranked choice voting method, is the other alternative to plurality voting that has gained growing support. Used to elect offices such as the president of Ireland, parliament of Australia and mayors of London (UK), Minneapolis (MN), Portland (ME) and San Francisco (CA), IRV allows voters to indicate their compromise choices along with their first choice by ranking candidates in order of preference. IRV does an even better job than runoffs in avoiding "spoiler": concerns, requires candidates to reach out to more voters to win and avoids some of the downsides of traditional runoffs such as extra campaign finance burdens, declines in voter turnout between rounds and highly negative campaigns.

Reforming plurality voting creates an opportunity to improve our democratic system by ensuring a candidate doesn't win just because the majority splits its votes among other candidates. Whether Akin would have won a majority vote in a runoff election or under IRV is unclear. That ambivalence should provoke a national conversation about whether we should uphold the plurality system. As a nation founded upon democratic principles, we must ensure that our elections appoint the candidate who best represents the goals of the electorate.