Electoral Reform Widens

Fourth Quarter 2002

In the United States, a system of genuine proportional representation (PR) does not yet exist. American elections at most levels involve single-member districts in which two or more candidates campaign to become the single representative of the entire district: the winner takes all. The proportion of the vote that goes to losing candidates in such an election receives no representation at all. Those votes are simply lost. The proportion of the vote that goes to the winning candidate, on the other hand, is highly overrepresented, unless, of course, the winner receives 100 percent of the vote. To overcome this kind of underrepresentation and overrepresentation of votes, multi-candidate or multi-party electoral districts will have to be established in which each party that runs candidates gains representation only in proportion to the percentage of votes its candidates receive.

However, even within the existing system of single-member districts, IRV can overcome one of the worst kinds of overrepresentation that occurs in American elections. The problem arises when more than two candidates compete for a single seat. Typically what happens is that the person with the most votes wins the election even if he or she does not win a majority of the votes. This is called plurality voting. For example, if one candidate wins 25 percent of the vote, another 40 percent, and a third 35 percent, then the winner will be the one with 40 percent of the votes, clearly not a majority. Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) overcomes this non-majoritarian, disproportionate overrepresentation of votes by a simple technique.

As the Center for Voting and Democracy explains, IRV is used for major elections in Australia, Ireland, and Great Britain and it ensures that the winning candidate in single-member electoral districts actually wins a majority and not merely a plurality of the votes. IRV "accomplishes the goals of a traditional runoff election in one efficient round of voting. Voters indicate both their favorite and their runoff choices [when they mark their ballot]. If no candidate receives a majority of first choices, the weak candidates [with the fewest votes] are eliminated and their supporters' votes are counted for their runoff choices."

To illustrate how this system would work at the level most familiar to all of us, consider the last presidential election. Let's say that you wanted to see Ralph Nader become president, which you thought was unlikely, and that your second choice was Al Gore. And let's say that your friend wanted Pat Buchanan to become president and that her second choice was George Bush. Instead of you and your friend being forced to decide either to "throw away your vote" by voting for Nader and Buchanan or to vote for your second choices in order to be practical, you would have been able under IRV to express your real preferences. You could have voted for Nader as your first choice AND for Gore as your second choice. Your friend could have voted for Buchanan as first choice AND for Bush as second. If this had happened in Florida, it seems almost certain that Gore would have won the election, because most Nader voters said they would have preferred Gore over Bush as their second choice. But since these "second choices" were not registered, the first-choice votes for Bush slightly outnumbered the first-choice votes for Gore. Or to say it a different way, Bush won the election without having won a majority of the votes nationwide. In fact, Bush, Bill Clinton, and the first George Bush all won election without winning a majority of the votes. IRV would have made sure that the winner actually won a majority of the votes.

Although IRV is still a long way from being established for the presidential election, it is now the rule for San Francisco elections. As our editorial adviser Bill Gram-Reefer reports, the Bay Area's Proposition A—to establish IRV—passed with 56 percent approval to 44 percent disapproval. San Francisco is not the first California city to go for IRV. That system of voting already exists in Oakland, San Leandro, and Santa Clara County, and is being discussed by the residents of Berkeley.

Towns across Vermont also approved resolutions calling on the state legislature to implement IRV for statewide elections, says Gram-Reefer, and Alaska will consider a statewide referendum for IRV this fall. New Mexico is looking into IRV for the future.

According to the Center for Voting and Democracy, "Common Cause played a key role in both San Francisco and Vermont. Scott Harshbarger, president of Common Cause, said, 'Instant runoff voting is an important tool for ensuring that the will of the majority is reflected in electoral outcomes in cases when multiple candidates vie for a single seat."

For more information about IRV and alternate systems of voting, visit these sites:
Fair Vote
Improve the Runoff
Voting Solutions
Youth Vote Coalition