Washington State Senator Eric Oemig has introduced SB 5536, which provides that the primary stage should use Ranked Choice Voting to determine which two candidates qualify for the November ballot. The bill has a hearing on Tuesday, February 10, at 1:30 pm in the Senate Committee on Government Operations and Elections. Here is a link to the bill.
Why bother having two elections?
exactly!
If you have only a single election, then political gangs, parties, or other organizations will work to reducing the number of candidates on the ballot.
The purpose of the Top 2 primary is to winnow the field so that voters may concentrate on two candidates in the general election. By using ranked choice voting, you address the concerns where for an open seat, you might have two candidates who prefer Party A, who receive 23% and 22% of the vote; and 3 candidates who prefer Party B who receive 20%, 18%, and 17% of the vote. In this case, the two Party A candidates advance even though Party B received a majority of the vote.
The way that the bill is worded is that counting continues until one candidate receives a majority of the votes, at which point the Top 2 candidates are determined. So you could have cases where the original vote is split 45%, 16%, 15%, 14%, 5%, 3%, and 2%, and where the votes for the 3 trailing minor party candidates (say, the Libertarian, Green, and Salmon Yoga parties) either have no second preferences or are generally scattered. At this point the vote might then be 50.1%, 16.8%, 16.7%, and 16.4% at which point counting would stop, and the candidate with 16.8% of the vote would advance to the ballot without consideration of the preferences of the final candidate.
I do not know whether this is deliberate, or trying to use the same algorithm (and law) for an IRV election and a RC Top 2 primary.
The counting method described in current law (and retained in the proposed bill) calls for consolidating the exclusion of trailing candidates if their vote total is less than that of the 3rd placed candidate.
So you could have a 22%, 21%, 20%, 18.01%, 17.99%, 1%. This would require exclusion of the 5th and 6th place candidates at the same time. If only the 6th place candidate were excluded, it is possible for the 5th place candidate to move into 4th place, and then based on subsequent transfers from the now 5th place candidate eventually be elected. Conventional AV counting permits consolidated exclusion of candidates in (M+1)th through Nth place if their vote total is less than that of the Mth-place candidate. In such a situation, there is no way that one-by-one exclusion of the trailing candidates could produce a greater total for any of them greater than the Mth-place candidate, and the consolidated exclusion is mathematically equivalent with one-by-one exclusion.
OK, my head is spinning.
Does this mean that IRV will be used to determine the top two? Or does it mean that determining the winner from the top two will be done by IRV?
IRV is stupid. IRV is a liberal fantasy to squash Conservative views. They know Conservatives are a pretty united bunch and speak with one voice. Traditionally liberals have splintered into Greens, Labor parties, Socialists, Communists, Peace and Freedom, etc. Conservative candidates would be ganged up by all groups even if they have more votes but not a majority. Our traditional run-off is what should stay.
NO party hack STONE AGE primaries, caucuses and conventions are needed.
P.R. legislative and A.V. executive/judicial — pending MAJOR public education about head to head math.
P.R. used in the Iraq provincial elections on 31 Jan 2009
P.R. used in the Israel election.
U.S.A. — stuck in the gerrymander minority rule DARK AGE.
The idea that IRV is partisan simply doesn’t hold water. If conservatives got a majority of the vote under IRV, they would win – if not, they wouldn’t. In 1992 IRV would likely have resulted in a Bush win, in 2000 it would more likely have helped Gore.
I agree that proportional representation would be much better for legislative elections, and also result in much higher turnout.
For single-winner elections, IRV is the best system in use. Approval voting is more complicated and still compels voters to vote strategically. The top-two system is an unloved reform that will hopefully never be replicated. People want more choices, not less.
New Age Approval = BARELY Tolerable = same as YES on voting on ballot questions.
Mini-IRV
34 Leftwing monster
33 Rightwing monster
32 Muddled moderate middle
If the muddled middle is divided (as usual), then some leftwing / rightwing extremist will claim a mighty IRV *mandate* (a buzz word of STATISTS) for their EVIL actions — even if the second choice of ALL of the L and R voters is M.
I.E. IRV does NOT treat ALL votes the same — a major problem for single offices.
#5 The bill (SB 5536) would re-style “Instant Runoff Voting” (IRV) as “Ranked Choice Voting” (RCV). Washington approved a pilot project where IRV was used for electing counties officials in Pierce County (Tacoma is the county seat). The bill would also open up the optional use of IRV by other counties and cities. Coincidentally, Pierce County is considering repealing (in its county charter) its use of IRV. Such a change would have to be approved by the voters.
If RCV were used for the Top 2 primary, voters could rank the candidates (up to 3 preferences). Candidates would be eliminated until one candidate had a majority of the (non-exhausted) votes. At that point, the top two candidates who would appear on the general election ballot would be determined. The candidate with the majority would be placed first on the ballot, and the candidate who placed second.
In 2008, there was one legislative race where all 5 candidates expressed a preference for the Republican party, and where the candidates received 27%, 27%, 17%, 15%, and 14% of the votes. The Top 2, who collectively barely received a majority of the vote were placed on the general election ballot. Under the proposed use of RCV, 2nd preferences of the 5th-place candidate would be transferred to the other candidates. These transfers could change the ranking of the remaining 4 candidates, and determine which was excluded next.
In this case, it would be possible for any of the original top 4 to finish in the Top 2. But given that the candidates were all from the same party, transfers would probably be relatively mixed, so that what would probably be determined was the ballot order of the candidates that appeared on the general election ballot.
Thanks, Jim, for the explanation.
Unfortunately, I’m more confused than I was, but that’s not your fault. 🙂
I’ll need to reread it again.