[EM] Easy fix to Alaska's ranked-choice voting
Richard, the VoteFair guy
electionmethods at votefair.org
Mon Nov 7 09:22:50 PST 2022
IRV can be modified easily, without switching to an entirely different
method, which is what the article authors suggest.
A much simpler -- and fairer -- change to IRV is to eliminate a pairwise
losing candidate during the top-three round, even if a different
candidate has the fewest "transferred" votes.
Sarah Palin was the pairwise losing candidate (in the top-three round)
in the recent special Alaska election. Eliminating her instead of
Begich (who had the fewest transferred votes) would have yielded a
"head-to-head matchup" between Peltola and Begich. Then the
majority-supported Begich would have won.
This improvement to IRV, along with counting multiple marks in the same
"choice" column, is the RCIPE -- Ranked Choice Including Pairwise
Elimination -- method:
https://electowiki.org/wiki/Ranked_Choice_Including_Pairwise_Elimination
As a clarification, the RCIPE method eliminates pairwise losing
candidates when they occur, but the simpler version described above only
looks at the top-three round.
If someone wants to argue that pairwise elimination should also be used
during the top-four round, or invoked based on some other criteria, that
works too.
The advantage of limiting the pairwise elimination to the final rounds
is faster vote counting on election night. That's because the sequence
of elimination for minor can't-win candidates does not need to be
calculated on election night. (That exact sequence can be calculated
later.)
My point is that although I and others here have a strong dislike of
IRV, the idea of eliminating candidates one by one is widely understood,
and it's easy to understand for typical voters, so it's worth
considering simple improvements to IRV for use in real elections.
Later, when voters have experience using ranked choice ballots, and when
more voters understand some of the details we discuss in this forum,
elections can switch to other, better counting methods.
Richard Fobes
On 11/7/2022 6:06 AM, Bob Richard (lists) wrote:
> I'm not completely sure, but I think the method they are describing is
> Baldwin
>
> https://electowiki.org/wiki/Baldwin%27s_method
> <https://electowiki.org/wiki/Baldwin%27s_method>
>
> If I understand them correctly, the main advantage they see is the
> purely practical one that it can be sold as a modification of IRV rather
> than something different from IRV.
>
> --Bob Richard
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Hahn, Paul" <manynote at wustl.edu <mailto:manynote at wustl.edu>>
> To: "election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com>"
> <election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> <mailto:election-methods at lists.electorama.com>>
> Sent: 11/7/2022 1:40:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [EM] Fwd: Election-methods messages not being posted
>
>> To me that description sounds like Borda.
>>
>> --pH
>>
>>> On Nov 7, 2022, at 3:09 AM, Rob Lanphier <roblan at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:roblan at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Ralph asked me to forward this message to the list....
>>> -------- 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> <mailto:RLSuter at aol.com>
>>> To: election-methods-request at lists.electorama.com
>>> <mailto: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://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fpeople%2Fedward-b-foley%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cmanynote%40wustl.edu%7Cfa133c67c4dc47f95e4b08dac09fb788%7C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%7C0%7C0%7C638034089901705981%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=CWW9yLx9%2BiXydFJ0Z3t40zdmCxJOdDSIM9DJMmxRBjc%3D&reserved=0>andEric 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/ <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fopinions%2F2022%2F11%2F01%2Falaska-final-four-primary-begich-palin-peltola%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cmanynote%40wustl.edu%7Cfa133c67c4dc47f95e4b08dac09fb788%7C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%7C0%7C0%7C638034089901862217%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=ZyjYWk4PJuT%2FGrW3L4%2Bh6Q%2BOGx6rWpwSmh6wiQcDyI4%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> 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://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elections.alaska.gov%2Fresults%2F22SSPG%2FRcvDetailedReport.pdf&data=05%7C01%7Cmanynote%40wustl.edu%7Cfa133c67c4dc47f95e4b08dac09fb788%7C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%7C0%7C0%7C638034089901862217%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=6dJZaB3lo5EwSDENGHGYX4Uugjg3tUL8EWl3moGfUMM%3D&reserved=0>
>>>
>>> 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://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022-election%2Fmcconnell-says-republicans-may-not-win-senate-control-citing-candidate-rcna43777&data=05%7C01%7Cmanynote%40wustl.edu%7Cfa133c67c4dc47f95e4b08dac09fb788%7C4ccca3b571cd4e6d974b4d9beb96c6d6%7C0%7C0%7C638034089901862217%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=1dl8uetLcUijN9N%2FRjbloioH7ytYSJmANmk8JrAyZZs%3D&reserved=0>” 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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