In two recent posts (Redesigning the New Jersey Legislature and Ruminations on the Party List) I discussed the “party list” voting system whereby voters select an entire slate rather than individual candidates, with members of the slate being deemed elected in a set order and in proportion to the number of votes the slate receives as compared to all other slates.. In this post I want to discuss very briefly some other alternate voting systems.
First, however, I should explain the system to which these others are alternatives.
Most elections to which we are used designate as the winner the candidate who receives a greater number of votes than any other candidate. Such a candidate is said to have won a plurality, not necessarily a majority, of the valid votes cast.((Hereafter I will simply refer to the total votes cast, but I mean the valid votes, excluding ballots that are invalidated, say for voting for more candidates than permitted by the rules of the election.)) This system is also sometimes called “first past the post.”
A variation on this system, having gained recent fame for being used in the 2020 U.S. Senate elections in Georgia, provides a runoff between the two top vote getters if no candidate obtains a majority in the first round.((Yet another variation, not really practical for a popular election but possible for bodies that actually assemble for an election, is a runoff where only the candidate receiving the fewest votes is eliminated before the next round of voting. The elimination and new round of voting continues until one candidate receives a majority.)) An advantage of the runoff is that it reduces the chance that a third (or fourth or fifth) candidate will play the role of spoiler and allows voters to vote in accordnace with their actual preferences without worrying that they are wasting a vote by voting for a candidate unlikely to win . A disadvantage is that it requires multiple elections.
Ranked choice voting (sometimes called the instant runoff) can provide at least some of the advantages of the runoff system without requiring multiple rounds of voting. In this system the voter indicates a ordered preference among the candidates (say by writing “1,” “2,” etc. next to their names). The first choice ballots are counted and, if no candidate receives a majority, the candidate receiving the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes are redistributed to the other candidates according to the second preferences, and so on until someone has a majority. The counting of ballots in this system is more complicated as it must be done in multiple rounds.
So far it has been assumed that the election is choosing among multiple candidates in an election that will produce a single winner. Sometimes, however, the will be several winners, such as New Jersey general assembly elections (two members chosen from each legislative district) and many municipal governing body and school board races. In this scenario it becomes a bit more complicated to talk about anyone (other than perhaps the top vote getter) having received a majority.
Where the particular race is designed to result in multiple winners, it is, I think, more common for each voter to have the same number of votes as there are positions to be filled, but these votes may not usually be cumulated for any one of the candidates but either cast (or forfeited) no more than one per candidate. Thus, in a school board election among candidates A, B, C, D, E, and F, where three winners are chosen, a voter may cast one vote for each of one, two or three of the candidates, but not two or three votes for Candidate A.
The next variation is called “cumulative voting” and it does allow the voter to cast more than one vote for the same candidate.
The final system I am going to discuss is that used for the Dáil Éireann, the first house of the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas). The chamber consists of 160 members elected from 39 constituencies, each electing from three to five members, using what is called the “single transferable vote” system of proportional representation. Like the ranked choice system, the voter indicates a preference among the candidates. A formula using the variables of votes cast and seats to be filled determines the quota, the number of votes a candidate needs to be elected. After the first round of counting any candidate who obtains the quota is deemed elected and any excess votes are transferred to the other candidates in accordance with the next preference.((This is where it starts to get really complicated as the next preference will likely be different for different voters and only the excess votes are transferred. If A gets the quota, the next preferences of all voters who voted for A must be considered and excess votes transferred to each of the other candidates in the same proportion as each candidate was listed as the next preference. As counting rounds increase, it can become even more complicated.)) In each succeeding round the votes (including transferred votes) for the remaining candidates are counted to see if anyone receives the quota. If in any round no candidate receives the quota (and thus there are no excess votes to transfer), then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and that candidate’s votes transferred, etc. etc.
Jay Bohn
May 27, 2021