Ranked Choice Voting Case Study

Social Media + Ranked Choice Voting = Election Reform

There was something else record-breaking about the 2016 Presidential election besides being trumped and being rocky mountain high. The heavily Republican state of Maine made a landmark progressive move. They became the first state to approve a referendum instituting ranked choice voting for state and federal elections; choosing to reject the antiquated single vote/first across the post/winner take all status quo system of election. To paraphrase Henry Grabar’s excellent description of ranked choice voting from his Slate.com blog posting titled Maine Just Passed Ranked Choice Voting; instead of voting for a single candidate, each voter ranks the candidates from first choice through fifth choice, eliminating any need for expensive runoff elections or in the event of a third party race, if no candidate gets a majority. To tally the votes, if there is no majority winner, drop the candidate with the least votes and apply those voters’ second choices. In the past, this idea was generally shelved due to the complexity of counting the ballots, but computerized voting

booths make it doable. It’s time for ranked choice voting to become the norm in the US.

A critic of ranked choice voting, Governor Paul LePage (R Maine) said, “This is just another way for sore losers to try and overturn election results they don’t like. It’s that simple. Maine’s constitution requires plurality elections.” He is correct about the plurality elections, so a petition containing 73,000 signatures calling for RCV put the issue to a vote and it passed. With only two more years of an embarrassing two terms of a LePage administration; in 2018, Maine voters will elect a new Governor, fill House and Senate seats and have State Legislation elections with RCV. Maine has a strong Independent Party, so in their three way races; a candidate often wins the most votes but not a majority. LePage won with as little at 38% of the vote. Maine is not alone in that; in 2014, there were 10 Governors elected without a majority. In the 2016 Presidential Election, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan all flipped from Obama to Trump, each by smaller margins than the number of votes cast for the third party candidate. Trump did not have a majority in any of those states. Sore losers’ numbers are mounting.

The number of RCV bills being considered in State Legislatures is increasing. In 2012 there were 17, 2014 saw 20 and in 2016 there were 27 states looking into ranked choice voting. Currently, the Libertarian Party is on the ballot in 33 states, the Greens are in 21 states and the Constitution Party is on the ballot in 15 states. Americans are hungry for variety and tired of stagnancy when voting for their leaders. Third party candidates are ignored by the media and our all or nothing, single vote elections no longer satisfy. Following Maine’s example and getting referendums on the ballots at all levels across the country will bring about much needed election reform.

There are many challenges with changing the voting system; the cost is substantial, add to that law maker’s aversion to changing the system that put them in office. Voter education continues to be a challenge and RCV does highlight the issue. Even though San Francisco has used RCV since 2002, when the University of San Francisco closely watched their 2010 mayoral race they reported that of 500 voters, 70% were confused about filling out the ballot. Some over voted by indicating more than one first place choice, others only put a first choice and their vote was silenced after the first round. But in that election the second place votes moved Ms Jean Quan from 24% of the first place votes to winning with 51% total over the incumbent Don Peralta’s 35% total first and second place votes. RCV does tend to highlight a voting gap between the more and the less educated and the attendant race and income divisions but this gap is pre-existing and needs to be highlighted and addressed.

We not only have San Francisco’s experience with RCV to learn from, twelve US cities and numerous college campuses, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and a handful of European countries us this system.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses ranked choice voting to choose their Oscar winners. There is bi-partisan support for RCV. US Senator John McCain(R Arizona) and Republican Presidential nominee in 2008 supports RCV. Howard Dean, Democrat Governor of Vermont from ’91 –’03 and Chair of the Democratic National Committtee from ’05-’09 supports RCV. President Obama, as the Democrat Senator from Illinois supports RCV. The time is right for election reform activists to educate themselves with the data these examples provide. The key to RCV success is activist and voter education. Social media makes it

doable.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his essay “Small Change” found in The Writer’s Presence, teaches us much about activism that we can use to create election reform. When describing the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964, he tells us of the courage of the peaceful protest activists who were rebelling against systemic racism in the southern US. This type of activism required in-person dangerous acts that did result in violence and loss of life. Quoting Stanford sociologist Doug McAdam’s comparisons of the Freedom Summer dropouts with the participants who stayed, he discovered that the key difference wasn’t, as might be expected, ideological fervor.” All of the applicants – participants and withdrawals alike – emerge as highly committed, articulate supporters of the goal and values of the summer program,” he concluded. What mattered more was an applicant’s degree of personal connection to the civil-rights movement…. Participants were far more likely than dropouts to have close friends who were also going to Mississippi. High-risk activism, McAdam concluded, is a “strong-tie phenomenon (426). Gladwell goes on to compare this kind of activism with the kind associated with social media. “The platforms of social media are built around weak ties…. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could do in real life (427). Gladwell goes on to summarize sociologist Mark Granovetter observations, “There is strength in weak ties, our friends – are our greatest source of new ideas and information. The Internet lets us exploit the power of these kinds of distant connections with marvelous efficiency. It’s terrific at the diffusion of innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration,… but weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism (427). That’s ok; first we need the education sharing aspect of social media activism to spread the idea of a ranked choice voting system and to get the word out to its supporters that now is the time to make RCV the norm in the US.

It is late November, early in the 21st Century. We are living in a democratic republic whose President has long been accepted as the leader of the free world. Earlier this month, using an antiquated election system, the citizens and journalists of this great land, manipulated by social media with powers of persuasion they barely understand, elected a President who ran on a platform based on the white race’s privileged access to power. Our President elect, born into an elitist culture, whose ego cultivated by greed, has powered his way to the Presidency by manipulating the media and taking what he wants, leaving destruction and grandeur in his wake; destruction for the lesser of us and grandeur for the privileged. If ever there was a time to use this powerful information sharing system to educate each other on a new, yet tried and true election system of ranked choice voting, now is the time. Ranked choice voting needs to become the norm in the US.