20 May 2022 — 0743 mdt
Ranked choice in Montana requires a constitutional amendment
Tuesday’s primaries underscored
the need for ranked choice elections
By James Conner
Elections can turn weird when the field of candidates is large, and only a plurality is necessary to win. Sometimes the vote is so fragmented that fringe extremists who never could win a majority prevail.
Here are a few examples from Tuesday’s primaries:
- Oregon’s projected Republican nominee for governor, Christene Drazen, is winning her primary with 23.2 percent of the vote. Drazen may increase her percentage slightly when the votes in her home base of Clackamas County are finally counted.
- Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate — either Dave McCormick or Trump endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz — will win with less than 32 percent of the vote.
- Kentucky’s 6th congressional district Republican nomination is being won with less than 30 percent of the vote.
- Six congressional primaries in North Carolina were won with less than a majority; four with less than 40 percent of the vote. The state’s turnout was 19.6 percent. North Carolina requires a runoff election if no candidate receives at least 30 percent of the vote.
- Two congressional primaries in Pennsylvania were won with weak pluralities; one with 41.7 percent, one with 33.2 percent.
- In Oregon’s new 6th congressional district, the Democratic nominee received 36.5, and the Republican nominee 34.9, percent of the vote.
Plurality elections, also known as first past the post elections, date from the hand counted paper ballot era, and are the norm in the United States. Some states require a runoff if an election is not won by a majority. Two states, Maine and Alaska, have moved to ranked choice “instant runoff” elections in which, as Fair Vote explains,
…if there is no majority winner after counting first choices, the race is decided by an “instant runoff.” The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who picked that candidate as ‘number 1’ will have their votes count for their next choice. This process continues until there’s a majority winner or a candidate [wins] with more than half of the vote.
A ranked choice instant runoff has these advantages:
- It is conducted with only the voters who cast ballots in the original election.
- It eliminates the cost of a full blown runoff election.
- It accommodates third party and independent candidates, yet usually prevents them from becoming the spoilers they can be in first past the post elections (Remember Minnesota’s Jesse Ventura and Maine’s Paul LePage?).
Primaries with a glut of candidates are not unusual. Here are a few examples from this year’s primaries in Montana:
- Five Republicans, four from the Flathead, are running for the western congressional district GOP nomination. Three are running for the eastern district GOP nomination.
- Three Democrats are running for the western congressional district Democratic nomination.
- Four Republicans seek the nomination for Public Service Commission District 5.
- Four Republicans seek their party’s nomination in Kalispell’s MT House district 8; three seek the nomination in both HD-9 and HD-11.
- In Helena’s open, Democratic leaning, HD-81, three prominent Democrats seek their party’s nomination.
Montana’s primary turnout of registered voters on 6 June will be at least double North Carolina’s on 17 May, but because Montana does not require a runoff election if a percentage threshold is not met, some candidates in Montana could be nominated with less than 30 percent, perhaps with less than 25 percent, of the vote.
Extremist crackpots could win a Montana first past the post primary they probably would not win in a ranked choice instant runoff election.
But switching Montana to ranked choice elections requires amending Section 5 of Part IV of Article IV of Montana’s constitution, which controls the winning of elections:
Section 5. Result of elections. In all elections held by the people, the person or persons receiving the largest number of votes shall be declared elected.
I therefore propose repealing Section 5 and replacing it with new language requiring ranked choice elections:
Section 5a. All elections shall be conducted by ranked choice voting in which on their ballots voters rank candidates in order of preference. A candidate receiving a majority of first-preference votes wins the election. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. First-preference votes cast for the eliminated candidate are discarded, and the second-preference choices indicated on those ballots become first-preference votes. A new tally determines whether a candidate has won a majority of the votes. The process repeats until a candidate wins a majority.
Section 5b. If it becomes necessary to break a tie to determine the winner of an election, the tie shall be broken by the toss of a fair coin, or its functional equivalent, in full public view at high noon.
I’ve added Section 5b because currently most tie breakers in Montana are decided not by lot but by processes that reward the political party in power.
Tallying ranked choice elections is easy with machine counted paper ballots. Only a few small counties in Montana would need to acquire ballot counting machines, the cost of which could be underwritten by the state.
First past the post elections are the friends of crackpots and extremists, and therefore are a threat to democracy. It’s time end that threat by employing ranked choice voting for all elections.