Ranked Voting

Some localities are implementing ranked voting schemes--in which voters list both their first and second choices of candidates--to effect an instant runoff in the event that no candidate receives a majority. Such a scheme applies the second choices of those who listed as their first choice a candidate who came in third place or worse. For example, if Candidates A, B, and C received 350, 400, and 250 first-choice votes, respectively, Candidate C would be eliminated, having come in third. The 250 ballots of those who voted for Candidate C would then be examined for their second-place choices. In the case where 200 of those second-choice votes went to Candidate A, giving her a total of 550 first- and second-choice votes, and the other 50 went to Candidate B, giving him a total of 450 first- and second-choice votes, Candidate A would be declared the winner, even though Candidate B won a plurality of the first choice votes (see Table 11).

How would the ranked voting mechanism apply to presidential politics? To begin with, there is no runoff in presidential elections. The idea of instant runoff voting does not apply to presidential primaries, because there is nothing to instantly run off, no office to immediately fill. The presidential nomination process comprises 50 individual state contests that select slates of delegates to a national convention.

The functional equivalent of a runoff, if necessary, occurs at the national level at the national party convention through successive balloting. In the absence of a delegate majority for one candidate, there would be an open convention. There would be a succession of ballots, a process in which delegates would at some point (probably after the first or second ballot) be released from their initial commitment to a candidate, and would be free to vote for their second choice, who need not be one of the two top delegate-holders going into the convention. Of course, neither major party has had recent experience in this. The last Democratic Convention to go beyond one ballot occurred in 1952, when Adlai Stevenson won on the third ballot. The 1948 Republican Convention went to a third ballot before Thomas Dewey won the nomination. Republicans had a close vote in 1976 when Gerald Ford prevailed over Ronald Reagan by 1187 votes to 1070 votes.

As discussed earlier, so long as delegates are awarded on a proportional basis, plurality “wins” should not be a big issue. If a candidate wins a plurality of 27%, should he or she not get what is coming... 27% of the delegates? However, for those who are uncomfortable with this idea, in that it might not lead to a clear winner at the end of the primary season, ranked voting might provide a remedy, either at the state or national level. At the state level, ranked voting could be used to proportionally award delegates among the top three vote-getters in a much larger field of candidates; those who failed to win, place, or show would receive no delegates. Also, ranked voting could come into play at an open national convention. For instance, when third place Candidate C released her delegates, the number of delegates proportional to the voters’ second choices (on a state-by-state basis) would then automatically be committed to those candidates for a specified number of ballots. In cases where second-choice candidates had already withdrawn from the race, delegates would be free to vote their conscience.