Ranked Voting! Do the numbers add up?

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), also called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), will be on the Fort Collins City Elections ballot this April. Voters will decide if it will be used in future local elections. Credit should be given to the supporters for their success in getting this measure on the April ballot. Many, who signed that petition, and those who will now vote on this measure in April, will be surprised to learn that there are real and complex problems associated with RCV/IRV.

RCV/IRV lets voters rank their candidates from their top to last choices among several candidates. If a candidate does not get an absolute majority vote (50+1) during the 1st round/count then there is an instant runoff (Second Count). The candidate with the fewest votes is dropped and the votes made for that candidate are redistributed using voters 2nd choices. Other voters’ top choices remain the same. The redistributed votes are added to the counts of the candidates still in competition.

The process is repeated until one candidate has majority support.

The method sounds quite plausible, right? If you look into municipalities that have used it a totally different story emerges. Take Aspen Colorado which was used as an example of RCV/IRV while the petition was being circulated. City of Aspen officials cited numerous problems with their 2009 election and critics also cited that the procedure is flawed because it is prone to “non-monotonicity” a mathematical phenomenon that can cause a candidate who received fewer votes than other candidates to win”. As it turns out Aspen voters repealed the procedure in the November 2010 after just one May 09’ election cycle. Aspen voters reinstated the traditional voting method by 65.3 percent to 34.7 percent. (As stated in the Aspen Times, November 3rd 2010)

One of the more documented examples of how RCV/IRV disenfranchised voters is the town of Burlington Vermont. On March 2, 2010 Burlington voters voted to repeal IRV after having used it for just two election cycles. In a study of Instant Runoff Voting conducted by Anthony Gierzynski, PhD, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, Gierzynski related the following voting paradox in the 2009 Burlington Vermont Mayoral election which precipitated the demise of RCV/IRV:

“…the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington witnessed several…perverse outcomes in what was only the second election Burlington ran using IRV. One candidate, who lost the election, Andy Montroll, was preferred over all other candidates in a head-to-head matchup. That is majority of voters ranked Montroll ahead of the winner Bob Kiss and ahead of the second place finisher, Kurt Wright, yet Montroll lost the election. Democrat Montroll was favored over Republican Kurt Wright 56% to 44% (930-vote margin) and over Progressive Bob Kiss 54% to 46% (590-vote margin) majorities. …In sum, it is unequivocally clear that IRV did NOT result in a majority winner in 2009”. (www.uvm.edu/˞vlrs/IRVassessment.pdf)

And there are others who’ve ditched RCV/IRV as well, Sunnyvale California, Cary North Carolina, Pierce County Washington, the Utah Republican Party, San Francisco and even Georgetown University. Wonder who is left using RCV/IRV? This is difficult to determine since many of the places listed on websites promoting RCV/IRV have since ditched the method.

Who is behind promoting this change? FairVote.org seems to be the organization pushing RCV/IRV. Their stated purpose is, “FairVote acts to transform our elections to achieve universal access to participation, a full spectrum of meaningful ballot choices and majority rule with fair representation for all.” If you look further into the reasons proponents want this change it seems to stem from the 2000 election in which Al Gore lost to George W. Bush. Ralph Nader was cited as being the spoiler in that race. If those who’d voted for Nader as a first choice had Gore as their second then Gore would have won. Some notable supporters are Senator John McCain, Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. There is also some third-party endorsement by the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.

So the question is should this measure pass would it really do anything to change the current “first pass the post” system? Or would it add more complexity, expense and result in delays to our traditional voting system? Could switching to RCV/IRV eventually lead to doing away with the Electoral College System? Would the change create dissatisfaction among voters as indicated by the long list of municipalities mentioned above who tried RCV/IRV and have since ditched the method?

It would be advisable to do some research before you mark your ballot in April, just Google “Stop Instant Runoff Voting”. You may be surprised at what you’ll find.