Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) might be OK for primaries, but it should never be used for general elections because it is inherently unfair. Also, contrary to the claims of its advocates, RCV would not necessarily lead to more “moderate” candidates.
Under RCV, voters who pick the ultimate winner as their first choice only get to vote once, but voters who choose a loser as their first choice get to vote more than once. This is inherently unfair because it gives some voters multiple votes in a single race while others only get one.
It seems especially egregious to show the most favoritism to voters who preferred the least popular candidates. Why should voters who choose poorly get more votes than those who choose well?
Why should voters who prefer less popular parties, like the Greens or Libertarians, get to vote more times than Democrats and Republicans? They should not, and that is why Americans, and especially Republicans, should be very wary of Ranked Choice Voting.
Not surprisingly, advocates of Ranked Choice Voting rarely mention its drawbacks. They usually focus, instead, on the claim that Ranked Choice Voting would eventually spur political parties to run more “moderate” candidates. Those candidates would likely be ranked as a second choice by opposing party voters and, therefore, more likely to win if a second round of voting is required.
Ranked Choice Voting, however, would not necessarily lead to more moderate candidates. First, for RCV to work, there must be at least three candidates per election. How could that be guaranteed for each race? Would election laws have to be changed, and if so, in what ways?
For example, would parties be allowed to run more than one candidate per office? If so, how many? It’s not hard to see how this might increase, not decrease, the number of candidates who run for office when one considers the difference between pretending to be moderate and actually being moderate. It would also mean that voters would not have to choose an opposingparty candidate as their second choice, eliminating the incentive for “moderation.”
If political parties cannot run multiple candidates simultaneously in the same election, then Ranked Choice Voting might spur major political parties to create additional, ostensibly unrelated parties to give them more de facto candidates. For example, a contest with a Democratic candidate, a Socialist candidate and a Green Party candidate all running against a lone Republican would give the progressives an unfair advantage.
Once in office, Democrats, Socialists and Greens would almost always vote together against Republicans. Would Republicans be capable of forming sufficiently popular allied parties of their own to counter the many progressive party candidates? Or would they become perpetually disadvantaged under Ranked Choice Voting?
Of course, smaller parties might emerge on their own without major party backing. Their candidates might not be able to get on the ballot, however, if they are required to get some minimum number of signatures on a petition allowing them to run.
Under RCV, would election laws be altered or eliminated to make it easier for fringe candidates to get on the ballot in an effort to make sure that there would always be at least three candidates per race? If so, that might increase the number of fringe candidates who get elected.
Granted, much depends on how RCV is implemented. Nevertheless, for general elections, Ranked Choice Voting will always be a bad idea whose time should never come.
