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[Rob Lanphier]

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-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: "Total Vote Runoff" proposed as better way to determine
ranked-choice winners
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2022 13:13:21 -0500
From: Ralph Suter <RLSuter at aol.com> <RLSuter at aol.com>
To: election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com


In a Washington Post opinion article published today (11/2/2022), election
law scholar Edward Foley and economist (and Nobel laureate) Erik Maskin
propose a "tweak" to correct what they describe a flaw in how ranked choice
winners are currently determined. They call the resulting election method a
"total Vote Runoff".

Would anyone like to comment? It appears they are essentially proposing
replacing instant run-off voting with Condorcet voting.

-Ralph Suter

---------------------------------
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting is flawed. But there’s an easy fix.
By Edward B. Foley <https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/edward-b-foley/>
and Eric S. Maskin
November 1, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/alaska-final-four-primary-begich-palin-peltola/

Excerpt:

Alaska’s special election in August for the House of Representatives was
heralded as a triumph for ranked-choice voting, because MAGA favorite Sarah
Palin, a personification of polarization, could not attract enough
second-choice votes from moderate Republican Nick Begich’s supporters to
win.

That’s true. But the way Alaska uses ranked-choice voting also caused the
defeat of Begich, whom most Alaska voters preferred to Democrat Mary
Peltola, the candidate who ended up winning.

This anomalous outcome, contrary to the principle that the majority’s
preference should prevail, would be easily remedied by one small change.

The key to ranked-choice voting is that a voter lists the candidates in
order of preference, starting with their favorite, rather than naming just
that favorite. The problem in Alaska — and other ranked-choice systems now
in use, from Maine to San Francisco — is the rule for eliminating
candidates when no one gets a majority of first-place votes. By tweaking
this rule, Alaska’s system would become more palatable to Republicans and
Democrats alike, and more likely to be adopted across the country.

Begich was eliminated because he had the fewest first-place votes. That
seems logical at first glance. But the flaw in this outcome — and why
Republicans have reason to be resentful — is that a majority of voters
would have favored Begich had the race come down to a head-to-head matchup
against either Peltola (52 percent to 48 percent) or Palin (61 percent to
39 percent). He lost only because it was a three-way race.

Here’s how to fix the flaw. If Alaska eliminated the candidate with the
fewest *total* votes, rather than the fewest *first-place* votes, the
ranked-choice system would be sure to elect a candidate such as Begich who
defeats all rivals in one-on-one matchups.

Call it a “Total Vote Runoff.” A candidate’s total votes in such a system
would be determined by the number of other candidates he or she is ranked
above. For example, when a candidate is ranked first on a ballot in an
election involving three candidates, then this first-choice candidate is
ranked above two other candidates and gets two votes from this ballot.

When that same candidate is ranked second on another ballot, the candidate
is favored over only one other candidate and would receive only one vote
from that ballot.

A candidate ranked last on a ballot, or not ranked at all, is not favored
over anyone and gets no votes from that ballot.

Calculating the number of votes that a candidate gets on each ballot — two,
one or zero — and adding up the candidate’s votes from all the ballots
yields the candidate’s total votes.

Using this method, we can identify the number of ballots on which each of
Alaska’s three candidates was ranked first or second and then calculate
each candidate’s total votes (there were only three candidates in the House
special election):

Alaska House results using total vote runoff

*First-place votes get counted twice because voters put their first choice
ahead of two other candidates.*
Column 1: Candidate
Column 2: first-place votes
Column 3: first-place votes, counted again
Column 4: second-place votes
Column 5: Overall Total

Begich 53,810 53,810 81,253 188,873
Peltola 75,799 75,799 19,024 170,622
Palin 58,973 58,973 31,611 149,557
Source: Alaska official results, Alaska cast vote records, MIT Election
Data and Science Lab, Election Law at Ohio State, author calculations
<https://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/22SSPG/RcvDetailedReport.pdf>

Palin had the fewest total votes, so she would have been the first
candidate eliminated in a “Total Vote Runoff” tweak to RCV.

With Palin eliminated, the race would have been between Begich and Peltola.
Because a majority preferred Begich to Peltola, he would have been elected.
Total Vote Runoff captures the will of the majority more accurately than
Alaska’s current elimination system does.

Republicans should like Total Vote Runoff because its procedure would help
ameliorate the “candidate quality
<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/mcconnell-says-republicans-may-not-win-senate-control-citing-candidate-rcna43777>”
problem that plagues their party, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) lamented. A candidate popular only with the party’s base would be
eliminated early in a Total Vote Runoff, leaving a more broadly popular
Republican to compete against a Democrat.

Democrats, too, should welcome Total Runoff Voting to protect against
losses caused by excessively progressive candidates who are unacceptable to
a large portion of independent voters. Alaska-style ranked-choice voting
might keep in contention a left-wing candidate whose first-place votes
reflect enthusiastic but limited support, but Total Runoff Voting would
promote Democratic candidates whose wide appeal makes them more competitive
overall.
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