Ranked choice would boost NC democracy and discourage negative campaigning

All eyes were on New York City last week as voters cast their ballots in a primary race for their next mayor. Much of the attention was centered on the city’s use of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), an increasingly popular way to vote that ensures that those who win public office do so with a true majority (more than 50%) of all votes cast.

The unfortunate ineptitude of the city’s Board of Elections has led some mistakenly to blame RCV for the ensuing mess, but a closer look makes clear that RCV worked perfectly well, that 95% of voters found their ballot easy to complete, and that 77% of New Yorkers want to use RCV in future local elections.

RCV isn’t a new concept. Most of us use it in our daily lives as we rank our choices (first choice, second choice, third....) about what we’ll watch on TV or what we’ll order for dinner.

With RCV, if a candidate gets more than 50% of first-round votes, they win, just as always. But if no candidate reaches that 50% threshold, an instant run-off is held: the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated, and all votes are counted again, with first-choice votes for the eliminated candidate instantly reassigned to their next-choice candidates. So, everyone gets to vote in the run-off without having to return to the polls. This continues until a majority winner emerges. In addition, today’s voting machines are not only equipped to tabulate RCV votes with lightning speed, but require a paper ballot, leaving a paper trail that ensures against hacking and rigging.

Using RCV in New York City resulted in a winner with a majority base of support; encouraged coalition-building among candidates, and discouraged negative campaigning. (Candidates could focus on the issues instead of tearing down opponents whose supporters might provide second-choice votes.) And, it saved the city from having to hold run-off elections. (By contrast, the two U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia in the past election cycle cost the parties – and the voters – a total of $433,210,048... and took more than two months to complete.)

Another positive outcome of the use of RCV in the New York City election is that it brought more candidates into the race, since they didn’t have to fear being cast as ‘spoilers.’ It also brought more voters to the polls since they had candidates to choose from who more closely represented their values, without fear of voting for someone with little chance of winning. Voters knew that their voice would be heard all the way to the finish line, instead of being ‘wasted’ in a winner-take-all election.

So, rather than re-hash what went wrong in New York City, let’s look at what RCV elections would provide for voters here in North Carolina. Current North Carolina voting laws allow for candidates to win with a mere 30% of votes cast. That means 70% of the voters wanted someone else. That’s a problem for the voters, and for the politicians who rule with a weak base of support. With RCV, we’d have less rancor and more civility, with negative campaigning a non-starter, and ‘spoilers’ a relic of the past. We’d save money, increase voter turnout, have more choice and a greater voice... and a stronger democracy.

To learn more about efforts to bring RCV to North Carolina, visit BetterBallotNC.org, a statewide nonpartisan grassroots organization working to upgrade the way we vote in our state. Our next public information session will be held Aug. 9, and we invite you to join us.

This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 12:00 AM.