Who Likes and Doesn’t Like Ranked Choice Voting?

• In Event: Alternative Voting Schemes

Abstract

Under the strain of hyper party polarization, 61 percent of Americans believe that “significant changes” should be made to the design and structure of government (Pew 2018). Ranked choice voting is gaining traction in US. Invented by an American in 1870, ranked choice voting is used in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Scotland, and for congressional primary elections in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana. It is used in 20 cities, the state of Maine and most recently Utah. Five states are using the ballot design in 2020 Democratic primaries and caucuses. New York City voters passed a ballot measure in 2019 adopting ranked choice voting for local races, significantly expanding its use. Who supports the election reform allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than cast a ballot for their single most preferred candidate (plurality voting)?

Ranked choice voting is a form of instant run-off voting where voters rank candidates in order of choice, usually their top three. If no candidate wins an absolute majority, the candidate winning the fewest number of votes is eliminated, and those ballots which ranked that candidate as the first choice then count toward the candidate marked as the second choice. The ballots are then recounted and the process repeats as needed until a single candidate has won an absolute majority of the votes.

Voting for multiple candidates ensures the candidate with the most votes--majority winner--is elected, rather than just a plurality winner. Because ranked choice voting is not widely used in the U.S., measuring support for the rule change systematically is difficult. Existing survey data does not provide a clear measure of support for this reform. We use a comparative research design, three national surveys, and experimental question wording to measure public attitudes about ranked choice voting.

Results suggest public attitudes about changing election rules to allow voting for multiple candidates (ranked choice voting) as opposed to a single candidate choice (plurality voting rules), shows evidence of rationality, with people who 1) live in places that use RCV (and have experience using the process) and 2) political independents, rather than partisans, more favorable. Younger voters and those who are more educated are also more likely to favor reform allowing people to rank order their preference for candidates. Individuals with higher political interest are more likely to favor allowing people to choose multiple candidates. We find evidence of an interactive effect, where the young who are highly interested in politics are the most supportive of this reform. While the voting rules were more popular in places where it was in use, older people are more opposed, because they're less likely to understand it, while non-whites (Asians and Latina/o) like it more.

Three national surveys are used. One is a unique national telephone survey from multiple cities over time (2013 and 2014 of nearly 5,000 respondents). Result show Americans are more likely to approve of alternative voting methods (RCV) when given the opportunity to use the ballot design. People living in cities with preferential voting support the ballot design at higher rates than individuals in places without RCV, controlling for other factors. However, only a plurality of people like RCV, in both surveys; while RCV is more popular than the current method of plurality voting, support never reaches the 50% threshold. The sample includes Democrats, Republican and independents.

A 2019 national survey from Yougov includes Democrats and independents with a sample of 1000. Nearly two-thirds of respondents favor the use of ranked-choice voting when question wording describes the rule change. This is compared to questions in which the rule change is explained but the word ranked choice voting is not mentioned.

A third source of data is a national stratified Yougov sample of 2000 registered voters conducted in 2020 including Republicans, Democrats and independents. Public attitudes about ranked choice voting are measured using multiple questions varying wording and comparing attitudes across election reforms.

The findings are robust to question wording experiments and statistical matching used to simulate a treatment and control research design.

Ranked-choice voting has received less attention from policy makers and the general public than other reforms. By placing a value on winning as much second or third round support as possible, ranked-choice voting may reduce incentives for negative campaigning (Donovan et al 2016) and increases the likelihood that more moderate candidates and independents can win elections. The reform may play a role in addressing party polarization. Public opinion about election reform and subnational experiments may open the doors to changing election rules for national politics.

Authors

• Todd Donovan, Western Washington University

• Caroline J. Tolbert, University of Iowa

• Kellen J. Gracey, DeSales University