Ranked Choice Voting Articles

The Primary Concern: A Better Way to Hold Primaries

by Awesome Author | Mar 21, 2020 | United States Politics

1 Thing Thursday: Un-Sexy Primaries

Welcome to our weekly breakdown of political issues within a post-partisan context that puts our well-being over political loyalty, today’s topic is primaries.

TL;DR: A Better Way To Primary

The way we choose presidential nominees is like using a flip phone in the iPhone era. Statewide elections held at different times that require voters to pick one candidate lead to shitty outcomes. Don’t fret, there is a way to make primaries sexy: have each state vote on the same day using ranked-choice voting.

How Primaries Work

Honestly, it’s a mess. In simple terms, delegates are chosen by the voters, and the candidate with the most delegates wins. Voters chose delegates in state primaries which are held over the course of four months from Feb to June.

Alas, it’s not that clean (of course), because how states do delegates is weird. First, the number of delegates a state gets to award is based on population and voter turnout (weird). You can also get “bonus” delegates if you hold an election the same day as other states (hence “Super Tuesday” where 14 states held their primary on March 3rd). Some state delegates are awarded based on how districts within the state voted while others are awarded based on how the state voted overall.

Here’s a great breakdown of the primary process.

Sketchy tiebreaker: Superdelegates

If no candidate has been awarded more than 50% of delegates by the end of primaries, the Democrats have a sketchy tiebreaker process using super delegates. Super delegates are roughly 400 party elites (wealthy donors, former politicians, etc.) who get to award 15% of all delegates to whoever they want to. This last happened in 1952.

Primaries Don’t Work So Good

The main ways in which primaries are flawed:

People don’t vote for who they think is best.

We are more likely to vote for the candidate who other people voted for, rather than who we individually think is best. We do this because social influence undermines our ability to make independent decisions. When we learn lots of other people made a specific decision, like voting for Joe Biden, we become far more likely to vote for Biden. This is a well-studied behavior in humans. Having states vote at different times amplifies this effect.

States who vote later have fewer choices

Staggering when states vote for candidates leads to fewer choices for voters in later-voting states. Voters in South Carolina had 12 options in the Democratic primary. Only three Democratic candidates for President are still running. This is after less than half the states have held their primaries.

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Some votes don’t count

Approximately 2 million ballots were cast in the Democratic primary in advance of their state’s election day in various states. Judging from polls, somewhere between one-eighth and one-fifth of these voters chose Amy Klobuchar or Pete Buttigieg, and then learned that their favorite had dropped out of the race after they sent in their ballot. In other words, at least 240,000 people’s votes around the country now don’t count. Woof.

People don’t vote in primaries

Less than 30% of eligible voters vote in primary elections. Our guess, is voters don’t feel like spending their valuable time participating in something that doesn’t make sense to them.

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Post-Partisan Take

Sexy Primaries Use Ranked-Choice Voting

The confusing, drawn-out way we do primaries ain’t a good look, but there’s hope. What is sexy is using ranked-choice voting where each state votes on the same day and voters rank candidates in order of preference.

Ranked-choice voting explained

Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those who marked that candidate as No. 1 get their second choice counted instead. That can go on for several rounds until a candidate emerges with a majority.

Here are more reasons why it’s great:

People vote for who they think is best

We increase the likelihood people vote for who they think is best by having every state vote on the same day. Voters won’t see the results of other states and be influenced by whose winning elsewhere.

More choices

Voting on the same day means all voters across the country would get the same candidate choices rather than candidates dropping out after early state results.

All votes count

Ranked-choice voting ensures that people have at least one of their preferences counted in the final tally. Also, voting on the same day ensures no candidates are on the ballot that is no longer running.

Increase voter turnout

Eliminating multiple rounds (days) of voting and allowing voters to better express their preferences using ranked-choice voting increases turnout.

Increase civility / reduce negative campaigning

Under ranked-choice voting, candidates vie for non-core voters to rank them second. Therefore candidates don’t want to offend voters who might rank them second by attacking voters’ preferred candidate.

Reduce polarization

By increasing turnout and incentivizing candidates to earn second place ranks by voters leads to a reduction in polarization in elections using ranked-choice voting.

Sounds too good, why aren’t we using it?

The people in power were elected using the current system, so they are scared of something new. It’s like that friend who refuses to download the latest Apple update…their battery drains super quick and their apps don’t work, but they’re too scared of change to update.

The operating system of our democracy is outdated, we need an #upgrade.

What can I do about it?

Glad you asked. On the ChangeRoots app, we calculate a post-partisan score for each politician. Politicians who support ranked-choice voting get mad points. So, go to the app, find politicians with a good score, show them some love by micro-donating to their campaign.

The original article was published at Changeroots.com

Featured Image Credits: Changeroots

What is Bipartisanship, Really?

by Awesome Author | Mar 7, 2020 | United States Politics

Simply put, bipartisanship is working with the other party to get something done. It’s the opposite, partisanship is working only to get done what your party wants, at the expense of the other party.

Zero-Sum Partisans

Partisans believe the world is zero-sum, meaning they believe there is a fixed amount of prosperity to go around and they need to fight to capture as much of it as possible for their team. Zero-sum thinking is dangerous because it splits the world into groups at war with each other. In a zero-sum world, attacking those in other groups becomes ethically acceptable because you are protecting your own. In our modern world, this mindset has evolved into the idea that it is better to sabotage the other party than to compromise in order to get the W for your side.

Positive Sum Bi-partisans

Those who believe in bipartisanship believe the world is positive-sum, that prosperity can be increased for everyone if we work together. A positive-sum mindset believes that the best ideas come out of a process where different perspectives are taken into consideration and an entirely new solution arises that neither group thought of. It sees the other party as an ally in making the world a better place.

In practice, bipartisanship can look like a Republican Senator voting on a bill introduced by a Democratic Senator. It can be a Democratic President nominating a Republican judge to the Supreme Court. Bi-partisans support the best solution for all people, regardless of who the idea came from.

Notable Bipartisanship

While we mostly focus on how bitterly partisan the country has become, as a nation we have a rich history of bipartisanship. A few notable examples include:

Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals. Lincoln beat three Republicans to win the nomination and then the presidency in 1860. Once elected, he appointed all three rivals as well as a Democrat to his cabinet. It would be like if Elizabeth Warren was elected president and appointed Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Mitt Romney to her cabinet.

Democrat Harry Truman appoints Republican Supreme Court Justice. Three months after FDR’s death, new Democratic President Harry S Truman was faced with an open Supreme Court seat. Truman broke with his party and chose Republican Ohio Sen. Harold Burton for the Court. It was an olive branch to congressional Republicans—and a chance for a new president to find common ground with the congressional opposition.

Civil Rights Act. The landmark civil rights law that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin was passed with over 60% of both parties voting for it.

So How’s Bipartisanship Lookin’ Today?

Acts of obstruction by each party are increasing. Fewer bills are being passed each year. Political revenge has become normal. We have seen an increase in gridlock over the last decades at a time when the problems we face – climate change, healthcare, debt, immigration – threaten our republic.

What Can We Do About it? Get Nerdy

There are a number of technical democracy reforms – changes to how we elect politicians – that are proven to decrease partisanship, increase bipartisanship, boost voter turnout and decrease gridlock. Let’s get nerdy for a second.

Expanded and Multi-member Districts

One of these reforms is called multi-member districts (nine states use this method today). Today we have a system where one congressperson is elected per district. We have 435 congresspeople and 435 districts. In an expanded and multimember district world, we’d reduce the number of districts, increase the number of congresspeople and elect multiple members in each district. See the example below.

Ranked Choice Voting

Today we have a winner-take-all system where we can only vote for one candidate in the primary and general election and whoever wins the majority of votes wins. Under ranked choice voting, voters to rank candidates on their ballots. If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, he or she is declared the winner. If not, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated, and second preference choices are allocated to the remaining candidates. The process is repeated until someone obtains a majority.

Will These Really Help?

Research shows that if we passed multimember districts and ranked-choice voting the country would have far more competitive elections, fewer extreme candidates, and more bipartisan politicians. If these sound technical and weird, I get it. One way to think about it is to think of Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been using the same voting methods over and over, and we have a bitterly partisan country that won’t pass any meaningful solutions. We need to try something new and the truth is that these reforms have been researched and tested for decades. They work.