The Daily Oklahoman, daily newspaper for Oklahoma City, has this op-ed in favor of ranked choice voting, written by Chris Powell, the Libertarian nominee for Governor last month.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
The Daily Oklahoman, daily newspaper for Oklahoma City, has this op-ed in favor of ranked choice voting, written by Chris Powell, the Libertarian nominee for Governor last month.
The editorial assumes that voters would have been able to rank 10 candidates in the Republican primary for governor. Many voters probably had a hard time choosing one candidate. They likely would have chosen other candidates at random or perhaps by simply going down the page.
They would have had to have ranked candidates for seven additional statewide offices, a congressional race, and one or two legislative races.
A runoff gives voters a chance to reassess the contenders. The last time OKC actually had a runoff, in 2017 for Ward 4, the results for the runoff were substantially different and turnout was higher.
If OKC wanted to increase turnout and interest in city elections, it would get rid of the weird stagger where elections are held 3 out of four years, but with only 1/2 the city involved in two of the years.
Congratulations to Chris Powell for an excellent OP-ED. His logic is flawless as always. Ranked Choice Voting is the best method.
Jim Riley: Speaking to my fellow Okies after the last election, I did not find a single voter who had any trouble choosing a candidate. Ranked Choice Voting is so simple no one would have any difficulty understanding the process.
Jim, while it is certainly true that many if not most GOP voters would not have ranked as many of the gubernatorial candidates as they were allowed it is also the case that RCV does not require a voter to do so and nearly all GOP voters would have had definite opinions about several candidates. Very few would have marked just one candidate, not that that would be a problem.
If not marking ballots is a problem then it is not just a problem with RCV but with any ballot with multiple races, the undervote increases with every additional contest on the ballot.
If the runoff election had the same voters as the initial election then I might be more inclined to accept your point about reassessing the contenders but the fact is that the electorate is different and often dramatically so. It’s also the case that the ‘reassessment’ is usually negative campaigning directed at a smaller and more partisan slice of the electorate that often overturns the plurality choice of the primary voters. I’ve seen that time and time again in Oklahoma and in my view runoff winners who came in second in the primary are usually undesirable.
It may be interesting to know how we got our runoff system in the first place which was a second choice after the Legislature tried to enact ranked-choice voting but bungled it: https://medium.com/@Chris_Powell/that-one-time-when-oklahoma-enacted-ranked-choice-voting-1374d2f6253d
Nearly everyone who is seriously considering an election will have made the choice for whom to vote for long before election day. Many make the choice the day the candidates file, and sometimes before. If you were to tell those same voters that not only should they consider who they want to vote for and win, but that they should also consider their alternative candidates, they would be more than willing to do do so.
Most arguments against RCV, and as Jim so kindly raises, is that voters are dumb and lazy. Not a very compelling argument, even if it is true of some voters.
The fallacy with RCV is that someone has to get greater than 50%. The better option is offer a “None of the Above” choice and if that polls higher than any other candidate, it triggers a new election with all new candidates.
Condorcet – RCV done correctly.
In the meantime —
PR and AppV
The United Coalition USA is pleased to announce the Herd/Ogle [Libertarian/One] for POTUS 2020.
Us men are uniting to try to elect the first woman as President or Vice President of the USA in more than 240 years.
It’s not that hard to do under the pure proportional representation (PPR) Electoral College, because under ranked choice voting (RCV), we can guarantee that should 33.33% (plus one vote) of the Electors collaborate with us by ranking our opposite gender #1 ahead of our own as #2, then we can guarantee the first woman ever will be elected President and/or Vice President of the USA.
This only works under ranked choice voting (RCV) for President and Vice President as a two-member district.
Join the team that has brought PPR before US voters since 1992, the United Coalition USA.
Go Herd/Ogle [Libertarian/One] 2020
http://www.usparliament.org/google2020.php
Bring the horse to the herd, not the frog.
@Robert Stock,
There were 31 Republican candidates for statewide office. Every race but the one with two candidates went to a runoff. There was about a 10% dropoff in votes cast between the race with the least votes cast. You may not have talked to those voters.
The results in some of the races were dramatically different between the primary and the runoff. See the Lieutenant Governor race.
I used to live in Tulsa. One of the remarkable differences between Oklahoma and Texas is that in Oklahoma, store clerks had a difficult time determinining the amount of change. How many teams in the Big 12?
How many States are de facto STONE/DARK Age regimes of pre-history HACKS ???
How many DEAD American Indians to get States 15 to 50 created ???
@CP,
There was about a 10% dropoff between the gubernatorial race and the lowest turnout state offices. Those were the honest voters, who said they had not a clue who these persons were. Others voted based on whether the candidate has a female name, or an odd sounding first or last name.
In Houston, there was a judicial candidate whose hippie parents had named her Mekisha, thinking it sounded Native American. With a last name of Murray, it sounded black to some voters, or perhaps just odd. She lost her race when almost all the judicial races were won by Democrats. When she worked for the DA she was confused with a ‘Tiffany’ who was black. That is, she was thought of as having the name of the black ADA, because she had a “black” name. Mekisha felt that her name was holding her back in her private practice, so she changed her name to that of her grandmother, Jane.
Another judicial candidate Cathy Herasimchuk did badly as a candidate. The next time she ran, she won using her maiden name of Cathy Cochran. Her husband also changed his last name from Herasimchuk to Cochran.
California SD-32 had a special election, and regular primary last June. The incumbent, Tony Mendoza resigned the day before he was going to be expelled. He then decided to run to fill his vacancy, as well as the full four-year term beginning in December.
The order of candidates was different between the two races on the same ballot. I think the two elections were on the same page of the ballot.
Republican Rita Topalian received 25.0% and 24.4% to finish first in both elections (there were 8 Democrats and two Republicans in a very Democratic seat).
Bob Archuleta was first on the ballot in the full-term election, and received 17.4% of the vote, enough to advance to the general election where he was easily elected with 67% of the vote. In the special election, he was further down the ballot, and finished 4th, with only 11.7% of the vote. He lost 1/3 of his votes because of a lower ballot position.
Vanessa Delgado finished second in the special election, and won the election for the last four months of the current term in August.
The voters could not even fill in X in a consistent fashion. I doubt that they would have done much better ranking, 1, 2, 3. Rita Topalian might even have been elected under RCV. She would have received 90% of the other Republican candidate, and the Democratic vote might have been exhausted due to incomplete ranking.
You might be able to make a case if all the elective statewide offices except governor were eliminated and the election moved to odd-years with the legislative races (unicameral).
@CP,
I have a different take on the different electorates. In RCV elections without partisan or ethnic clues transfers are almost random, as if voters were flipping coins or throwing darts. Perhaps 20% of voters will have made a deliberate choice which leaves a 60:40 split in transfers. Basically, an RCV election can end up being a plurality election, as challengers are eliminated one-by-one. Tactically, a candidate want to get as many votes as possible, without offending supporters of other candidates too much.
A conventional runoff is more like when you are told that the kitchen is all out of your first choice. You’ll express disappointment, and ask to see a menu. Some folks might go to a different restaurant, or order a pizza and stay home. Hardly anyone would have bothered to rank all the entrees on the menu or even some of them. They had simply deferred a decision that had seemed remote to them.
It is only a pollster who would ask a second question – if you had to choose among Lamb, Stitt, and Cornett who would you choose. RCV takes the first choice, and then lists the remaining nine.
The reassessment is that some folks had not been motivated enough to vote in the first round, and others lost interest after their choice lost – even though they marked some different preference.
By the way, the primary map, plurality by county looks like two eggs sunny side up in a skillet. I guess we can pretend that McCurtain is a bit of parsley.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2018_Oklahoma_gubernatorial_election&action=edit§ion=0
The story about why Oklahoma abandoned Bucklin is sort of like why San Francisco did.
@EZK,
How do we screen for serious voters?
If you told those voters they had to rank candidates for more than a dozen offices they would think you were crazy.
How many voters decide who they are going to vote for state auditor before the filing deadline?
Jim, it is duly noted that you have no confidence in the electorate.
Jim Riley: I have personal experience with store clerks in Texas and Oregon who cannot figure out how to give change. I think it is a failure of the American public school system in general and not just an Oklahoma phenomenon. But then again you have the right to express your prejudiced, bigoted nonsense.
Men, the Libertarian Party bosses didn’t want you to know about our team, the United Coalition USA.
That we guarantee the top-ranked women for US President who garners 33.33% (plus one vote) in the new PPR Elector College will be elected, possibly as Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate with the Libertarian Party, then to vie nationally of their ticket.
The party bosses want to bring division, us against Democratic and Republican, while spreading their spew about ballot access instead of unity, about men uniting to make elections more fair for female presidential candidates.
We want the Ds and Rs to buy in, along with the Ls and Gs, to unite under the mathematics of pure proportional representation like that in Cambridge Massechusetts and not single winner districts like SF, all single winner districts to be eliminated everywhere with no exceptions.
If we unite for this cause then we can demonstrate good teamwork, humble rhetoric and more collaboration with everyone.
Nebraska falls in the same mini-state as Oklahoma and united within the region under the proposed PPR Electoral College.
South West Super-state Parliament
http://www.usparliament.org/ss10.php
The twelve population-ballanced Super-states is based on the lunar calendar, twelve months per year, for better scheduling under monthly cycles.
We are searching for and signing up Electors now for Earth Day 2020, voting to be on paper ballots in Central California, unbiased to the all.
ALL mail paper secret ballots
— to deal with the many offices/issues with Condorcet Number Voting with YES/NO tiebreakers.
Oregon survives with AMPSB
@CP,
I took a look at the county results for the 2018 gubernatorial primary. Cornett’s results were wildly variable, with a standard deviation of 10.8%, Lamb’s was 6.6%, Stitt’s was 5.0%.
I infer that a lot of of Cornett’s support was based on his title (mayor of OKC), which is plus in the central part of the state, where he piled up 45.3% in Oklahoma County, but not so much elsewhere a low of 4.5% in Choctaw County, about as far from OKC without going to the panhandle.
As one might expect, Stitt did better in the Tulsa area. His top county was Okmulgee, which is not far from Gateway’s Jenks headquarters at 34.3%, with a low of 13.1% in Jefferson County, which is south of OKC on the Red River. But the spread between these two was about half of Cornett’s spread.
Lamb did batter in more rural areas, perhap because he was less identified with the urban areas, though he was senator from Edmond and OKC. Oddly for an OSU graduate his weakest county was Payne. I assume his support base was based on his being elected statewide.
Looking at polling it appears that Stitt had the momentum going into the primary, and the broader base.
I’m not saying that voters are stupid or lazy. Instead they may have different priorities. They may think keeping the children fed, or fixing the roof leak, or making sure they have a job is more important. The priorities might seem frivolous. Looking at the candidates for governor and choosing one, and maybe the candidates for Congress and legislature. How is an ordinary citizen going to know which candidate for insurance commissioner will perform best?
With a runoff our busy voter gets a second chance, and instead of sorting through 35 brochures or going to dozens of websites, his or her decision is simpler. If the kids are fed and the house dry, they may even squeeze in some quality time watching a debate on TV.
I do not believe that the average Oklahoma primary voter had any difficulty getting an idea of what the major candidates are about and in the GOP primary the voters were more than sufficiently informed, if they had an inclination to be. Everybody knew since the previous fall that Cornett and Lamb were the top contenders. Stitt’s ability to come from being a virtual unknown to getting into the runoff, albeit at the cost of several million dollars of his own money, is an indicator that voters were paying attention. Anyone for whom being against abortion is their top issue knew Dan Fisher was campaigning on that. Everybody knew Gary Richardson was against turnpikes and everybody knew Gary Jones was the state Auditor and the most moderate.
There wasn’t a lack of information and the uninformed voters weren’t going to become more informed with an extra two months. The voters who rejected the rest of the field for Cornett and Stitt because they weren’t part of state government followed that up in the runoff by rejecting Mayor Cornett as more establishment than Stitt who had never been involved in politics before(this year’s gubernatorial primary was the first one he’s ever even voted in). However, if those who had marked ballots on June 26th had been able to mark second and third choices it is very likely that Todd Lamb would have been a popular second choice for Cornett voters concerned about Stitt’s complete lack of experience or ethical issues with his mortgage company, and Lamb would have been a popular second choice for Stitt voters concerned about Cornett’s big-government style as Mayor. Gary Jones also would have been a popular second choice for many and would have been a more popular first choice if voters didn’t have to worry about if he had a chance. Dan Fisher also would have been a more popular first choice although he would have been the second choice of very few.
An RCV election would have been dramatically different in very positive ways as voters could worry less about who has a chance to win and would have known that their alternative choices would count.
I also note for myself that having to go through a runoff critically delayed us in beginning our general election campaign which not only meant less time reaching out to the general public but also really hampered our fundraising efforts and the lack of participation in our runoff primary was a PR black eye. RCV would not have changed the nominee but would have put us in much better shape for November. And of course RCV in the general election would have entirely eliminated the argument that we heard from both sides ad nauseum that votes for me would benefit one or the other establishment parties. Taking the ‘wasted vote’ argument off the table would have made a big difference in public perception, fundraising, and ultimately the vote.
NO wasted votes with AppV and then Condorcet.
Yes, AppV has wasted votes. That’s because the biggest faction can use slate voting across the board and so smaller minority groups cannot win in multiple winner districts.
In single winner districts AppV brings in one-party system because the biggest faction wins every single winner district.
AppV is no good.
But RCV also brings a one-party system.
RCV in a two-member district, Gov and Lt Gov, would bring a three-party system because there can tie at 33.33% and then two win with one vote each to break the tie.
Single winner elections cause a two-party system under plurality voting and a one-party system under RCV, AppV, etc., because those systems guarantee that only one party wins in every district – the biggest party.
The biggest party isn’t going to let any 2nd or 3rd biggest to win, they will run plenty of names, and using RCV they don’t need to worry about the split-vote problem, because no matter what the biggest (50% plus one vote) will always win, guaranteed, 100% of the time.
RCV in single winner districts = one-party system.
Attention Ogle —
AppV is for exec/judic offices — for folks paying ANY attention to my posts.
Sorry delusional Ogle-
— will NOT be multiple Prezs, state govs, city mayors, etc.