Eugene among communities set to decide about a new form of voting.
In the United States, voting is the main way its democracy is shaped. Some people, however, argue that the very system we use to elect our leaders is deeply flawed. Across the country, cities, counties, and even some states are scrapping existing ways of voting for ranked choice voting. In May and November, Oregonians will vote on whether to adopt ranked choice voting for certain elections. Some people, however, think that it has its own set of flaws.
Most elections in the United States use a system called Single Member Plurality voting. Everybody casts a single vote, and the person with the most votes, a plurality, wins—even if they don’t have a majority. Single-member plurality voting has another problem: the spoiler effect. This effect refers to a situation where voting for a popular candidate or group with a low chance of winning instead of the more popular option has the effect of helping the opposing popular party. A recent example of this is the 2000 presidential election where Republican George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a margin of 573 votes and secured the electoral votes to become president. The more liberal Green Party, however, received over 90,000 votes in Florida. Some people believe that if more green voters had voted for Democrats, Al Gore could have won Florida and by extension, the presidency. To prevent the spoiler effect, some people feel forced to vote strategically, voting for a more popular, but not their favorite candidate to ensure the win of a party they can somewhat agree with. This can lead to people feeling disillusioned by politics, and unhappy that they can’t vote for the people they want.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting say that it solves many problems in our current system. In a popular type of ranked-choice voting, instant runoff voting, people rank candidates in order of preference. Once votes are counted–if no candidate has at least 50 percent of the vote–the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Their votes are then redistributed to whichever candidate each voter put as their second choice. This
then repeats until one candidate has a majority of the vote.
“Ranked choice voting can help transform Oregon’s elections,” said Blair Bobier, president of Oregon Ranked Choice Voting Advocates, “Oregon has been recognized as a leader in enacting landmark election policies. We were the first state to adopt vote-by-mail and automatic voter registration. Our next step forward is ranked choice voting”. The redistribution of votes also reduces the spoiler effect as voting for their favorite can still have their vote go to more popular candidates later on. In November, Oregonians will vote on whether to adopt ranked choice voting for state and federal elections.
Instant runoff voting may sound good, but it’s not perfect. It suffers from the center-squeeze effect. In an election with two parties and one in the center, the center will usually lose because people are likely to be absorbed by less centrist parties. This can lead to the results being more politically extreme even though the average voter is more moderate. Also, even though it reduces the spoiler effect, voting for a smaller party first can still help the opponent if they can get an early majority before the votes can be redistributed from the smaller to larger parties. It can also be confusing for some voters and will cost millions of dollars to implement. Instant runoff voting, however, is not the only system of ranked-choice voting on the ballot in Oregon
Oregonians will decide twice this year on whether ranked-choice voting has a place in our state. In May, Eugeneians will vote on whether to use STAR voting, a type of ranked-choice voting, for mayoral and city council elections. STAR voting lets votes rate candidates from zero to five stars and lets multiple candidates get equally scored. Once votes are counted, the two highest-rated candidates progress into a runoff election and votes are redistributed to the candidate each voter ranked highest of the two. Voters who ranked both finalists equally don’t have their vote go to one or the other. Eugene wouldn’t be the first place in Oregon to adopt ranked-choice voting. Portland and Corvallis use it for city elections. Benton and Multnomah counties also use it for county elections. On the whole, it shows a shifting climate in Oregon and the country toward what many see as fairer elections.
The Axe 