Those who push ranked-choice voting (RCV) make over-the-top claims for it, as we have seen in Massachusetts recently. The ads claim RCV will lead to consensus candidates and remove the impact of spoiler candidates. Not so fast. Stop and ask yourself: Why is RCV being pushed by a group that advocates changes to election laws to help elect liberal candidates? Clearly, they see an advantage beyond the first-mover advantage.
RCV is really a get-out-the-vote strategy. The New York Times reported that a progressive candidate ran in this year’s Maine Senate race to help throw the race into an RCV decision: “Lisa Savage, a progressive running as an independent in the race, has urged her supporters to list [Sara] Gideon second. . . . Savage emphasized that she was not looking to undercut Gideon in her bid to unseat [Sen. Susan] Collins, but instead to help attract otherwise reluctant, young and first-time voters who were discomfited by the bitter campaign and wary that Ms. Gideon was not liberal enough.”
Before we change to this system, shouldn’t we ask if we want a dozen (or more) fringe candidates on the ballot who run not to win or to advance a cause but rather to manipulate an election system whose outcome few can understand and fewer can explain? Look at the official election results for the San Francisco mayor’s race in 2011 which had 16 candidates and went 12 rounds. Transparency isn’t a feature of RCV, and it will lead to more polarization, not consensus, as the parties figure out how to win RCV elections.
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