What’s the Deal With Voting by Rated Pick?
Despite the turmoil of the last few presidential election cycles, the most common electoral format in the United States is undeniably simple … in theory: voters choose the candidate they like best, and whoever gets the most votes at the end of the count wins. ( If they don’t .)
Despite the perceived simplicity, it is clear that problems prevail, and critics continue to oppose many of the institutions that define our system, from voter ID laws to campaign finance laws and the Electoral College.
For these and other reasons, the new form of rating voting is becoming more and more popular in many cities of the United States, while the most populous city in the country – New York – is ready to accept this format at the upcoming June 22 mayoral competition (early voting has already begun). While this is not new – it has performed well in cities like Oakland, California and St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as the way Maine conducts all of its federal elections, Alaska will soon follow – the rating vote is very different from a system that many in the US are used to, but there is something to recommend.
And if it is found to be successful in New York, it could potentially gain even more credibility and spread to more cities, states, and school boards – perhaps your own.
What is a rating vote?
At first glance, the premise is simple: in an election with multiple candidates, voters rank their preferred choice from most favorite to least favorite. For example, in an election with eight candidates, the voter will hypothetically place their preferences from first to eighth place.
The winner (or winners in the primary) are selected through a redeployment process, in which candidates who finish last in each of several subsequent rounds of counting are progressively eliminated from the race. Voters who first rate the cast out candidate then redistribute votes to their second elected candidate, and so on, with the elimination process continuing until there is only one candidate left. If one candidate wins the majority of the votes for the first choice from the jump, then there is no need to count the votes for the second choice.
It is a system that pleases a certain kind of politician, given the various probabilities that may arise:
The theory behind the system is that it broadens the political spectrum, giving a wider pool of candidates a fairer chance of winning office. As The New York Times explains:
The basic idea is that , to let people like to choose their favorite candidate, and indicate their preference among the other candidates. This combination can allow the most popular candidate to win the election, as well as clarify the entire spectrum of voters’ views.
The number of candidates involved will vary according to race and municipality. Technically, 13 politicians are aspiring to become New York’s top official, although city rules only allow five of the most popular politicians to vote on June 22.
What are the benefits of rated voting?
From a strategic point of view, the ranked selection is aimed at eliminating the possibility that two identical candidates will steal votes from each other and possibly pass the victory over to a candidate whose political positions are generally less popular. A classic example was the 2000 presidential election, in which Green Party’s Ralph Nader is credited with cutting a significant portion of Democrat Al Gore’s potential votes. George W. Bush won the race by a narrower margin, and the rest is history.
The way the conventional majority-winning system works can allow rather unpopular candidates to win elections, even before you factor in the difficulties of the Electoral College. As noted by the non-partisan voting rights organization FairVote , “[b] 49 senators from 27 states were elected between 1992 and 2019 with less than 50 percent support.”
However, FairVote data suggests such victories are the exception rather than the rule. Summarizing the organization’s data, Vox concluded that in any case, most rated elections usually have one winner with a majority, noting that “there were 236 rated elections in the United States, in which there were single winners and at least three candidates participated. “. Ninety-four percent of the time, the candidate with the most votes in the first ballot is the winner at the end.
Some critics have argued that the complexity of the ranked pick system – and the rare cases where it takes some pretty sophisticated mathematics to figure out the true winner in a tough competition – is not what this country needs, especially in a time of deep – if produced – skepticism about legitimacy. our elections.
While no system is perfect, it is true that a wider slate of candidates made viable by ranked electoral votes could open up the political field to a broader range of views – and possibly lure apathetic voters back into the fold, and the voting booth. … This post was edited after publication to correct an error regarding Maine’s use of the ranking choice in federal elections only.