Bryan Costanzo

Cas 138T

Ben Henderson

1 April 2017

Majority Rules: Implementing Ranked Choice Voting for Pennsylvania Congressional

and Gubernatorial Elections

On November 8, 2016, a new President of the United States was named as the

electoral votes came in. Pollsters from across the spectrum had been reporting their

predictions for weeks, nearly all had Hillary Clinton pulling ahead. Nate Silver of

FiveThirtyEight said the day before the election Hillary Clinton has a 70 percent chance

of winning the election. (Silver) His statistical models pushed her up 5 points from just

the day before. When the final results came in the world and statisticians alike were all

surprised that Donald J. Trump was the President of United States. The following month

it was confirmed that the President-Elect Trump had not won the popular vote. This was

the fifth time in American electoral history and the second time in twenty years.

The leader of the free world was not chosen by a majority of Americans. There is

a problem if the peoples wishes cannot be translated into the candidate they chose in

the White House. There are several ways that this particular election result can be

scrutinized, and even more possible solutions to fix the problem at hand. The swiftest

solution is to consider how people vote. By analyzing the casting and counting of votes

American people can be given the chance to have their choices accurately represented.

Replacing the current plurality voting system with ranked choice voting for Pennsylvania
congressional and gubernatorial elections would solve many of the ills in the American

electoral system.

Faulty Voting

Traditional voting that the American voter is used to using is a plurality system.

This system has the candidate that gets the most votes winning the seat. The plurality

system only focuses on what box is checked to most and cares not for who gets the

majority of support. The people representing Americans can be elected without the

support of most of America. This system creates an environment where the more

candidates in a race the less votes are required to take the seat in government. This

problem can be seen all over the nation, but for now the focus will be on PA elections.

The American vote being misused and undervalued has a long and dismal

history, and not just at the federal level. The Clinton/Trump race was the most widely

covered, though another race that was closer to home and equally contested was the

Pat Toomey and Katie McGinty race for the Pennsylvania seat in senate. The

Pennsylvania Department of State reports that Toomey won the race though with only

48.9% of the vote. Not even half the people in PA wanted this man to be the Senator

and yet he is keeping his seat in the Senate. The libertarian candidate named Edward

Clifford was able to pull 3.9% of the total vote not allowing Toomey or McGinty to get the

majority of the support in PA. This outcome is not unheard of for PA or in the US in

general. The democratic primary for the same senate race showed that McGinty only

won with 42.5% of the total vote. This shows that no matter what party would with the

PA senate seat they would not have been backed by the majority of voters. In 2012, the

Republican candidate running for the federal Senate, Tom Smith, would get the
nomination from his party with only 39.51% of the vote. (Pennsylvania Department of

State)That is a dismal percentage for a candidate supposedly representing the entire

state. Smith would not win the Senate race. At some of the highest levels of government

are people that do not represent the people that represent them.

Voting as a civic duty has been a topic of question around the recent election.

People turned off by the major candidates are left with few choices. The Public Religion

Research Institutes Robert Jones and a team of researchers found that [f]ewer than

half (43%) of the public say they have a great deal of confidence that their vote will be

counted accurately. (Cooper) People need to be confident that their vote is be counted

and worth casting. This low level of confidence indicates people have lost faith in their

officials and the way they vote. As a country in the 2016 election 60.4% of the total

voting age population cast a ballot and Pennsylvania had 64.4% of its population cast

ballots. PA being a battleground state generally puts it higher than the national average.

(Pillsbury) This number needs to be much higher so that the leaders that are in power

reflect the sentiments of the people. A new voting system that takes into account the

complete preferences of voters.

Another problem with the current majority system of voting is it only allows for

major parties to have a legitimate chance at holding office. Americans are unhappy with

the only viable candidates that are running and there is little they can do in the current

system to change that. The American people want to change the face of government,

but can only vote from candidates within the parties that are considered mostly out of

touch, 79% consider most of congress out of touch, and corrupt, 52% consider most of

congress is corrupt. (Dugan) There is evidence that people want change and a vote for
a third party is one thrown away. Of the 253 members of the Pennsylvania state

legislature there is not a single third party member. In the Federal Congress, there are

only two independent senators among the 535 voting members of congress. The

current system does not allow for smaller parties to build the support necessary to

compete at the same level. To accurately represent the people and allow different

candidates to enter the playing field there must be a change in how American votes.

A Representative System

The voting system in place now is rife with problems creating an American

environment in which the people in charge of the country are neither supported nor

chosen by the minority, but the solution to this problem not only exists but has been

tested. The system in question is called the ranked voting or instant runoff system. This

system has worked all over the world and continues to be the system that many first

world countries have adopted. Ranked voting is a way of voting so that complete

preference is shown when a person hands in their ballot. The system also requires that

any winners declared by the system to have majority support among the populace. The

ballot would have all the names listed in three separate identical columns where the

voter would designate preference. In the example ballot above there are three columns

of possible mayoral candidates, and for each column one name must be picked. From

left to right this will signify the highest order of preference. A winning candidate requires

a simple majority of the votes, 50%+1 vote, and all votes will be kept in consideration. If

one candidate reaches a simple majority then they are declared the winner. If no single

candidate surpasses the threshold on the initially, then the candidate with the least

votes will be eliminated, with those votes being reallocated to the second preference.
This process will continue until one candidate has a simple majority, wining the office.

Considering the sample ballot above, if after the first count no candidate has a majority

then the lowest, Diego Riviera, will be eliminated. This persons vote would now count

as a

vote

for

Figure 1: Example
Arthur Miller. FairVote an organization Ballot (Bartlett)
committed to election reform describes ranking

voting as a more fair and functional [system]. It works in a variety of contexts. It is a

simple change that can have a big impact. (Richie) The system is effective and can be

implemented to better support the American people.

The ranked voting system is not new to the world having been implemented, or a

similar version, in many places around the world. Twenty-two countries in the world use

a form of proportion representation to elect candidates while only Australia uses the

ranked voting system in the form that would translate to the United States. (Richie) The

system has also started to make its mark at the domestic level. The cities of San

Francisco, Oakland, Minneapolis, and St. Paul are examples of major cities using
ranked voting to elect all officials. During the 2016 Presidential election, an addendum

was passed in Maine the ranked voting system for all congressional and gubernatorial

elections. This was the first major step to spreading the example of ranked voting.

A motion to adopted ranked voting has passed through numerous state

legislators already. Nineteen states have bills floating through their congresses to adopt

a ranked voting system. Currently there is not a bill being considered in Pennsylvania.

As recently as 2011 there was research commissioned by the governor into how ranked

voting would affect Pennsylvania elections. The Pennsylvania Election Reform Task

Force concluded that instant run-off voting, and proportional representation ought to be

studied further. (Cortes) Progress is being made time passes to bring this legislation

back to the minds of members of congress.

The Reality of Voting

The rate of implementation is a major factor in which to consider when

considering this policy. The full roll out of the plan would have to be over several years

with a gradual lead up to full state adoption. The policy in order to garner support will

start on the small scale, local level, and slowly proceed to full state implementation. For

that reason, large population centers will be centered for the first round of

implementation. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg will be the targets to introduce

the most amount of people to the policy. Chosen both for geographic and social roles

the movement and implementation will spread from these. Katharine Q. Seelye, of the

New York Times, pointed out that Ranked-choice voting has been easier in cities

because they have uniform voting equipment and are geographically compact, reducing

issues involving the central counting of ballots. (Seelye) Once the system begins to
move further and further into the country people become scattered and laws become

varied.

Ranked voting allows voters to have a greater effect on the candidate in charge.

Since the candidate in order to win needs a majority of the votes to win at least half the

population would be happy with the candidate in office. This allows for greater viability

for third party candidates. Since the votes can be reallocated the third-party candidates

can appeal to voters so to win a second or third round vote if they are still in the race. In

a 2010, mayoral race in Oakland California a candidate, Jean Quan, was able to

successfully campaign to be voters second and third pick. She was able to win the race

off of this strategy. (Seelye) Techniques like this show how third party candidates can be

more viable in major races.

The cost of this implementation is something that needs to kept in mind. In

Maine, when the ranked voting system was accepted by the people a state commission

published a fiscal note on the costs to update their system in the first two years. In order

to update the current system including print an additional ballot page, update the ballot

tabulating machines, lease additional ballot tabulating machines, purchase additional

memory devices, lease a high-speed vote tabulating unit and contract 2 limited-period

Special Deputy positions to oversee the central ranked-choice voting counting process

(127th Maine Legislature) would cost the state $1,402,784 between 2017 and 2019.

(Goldstein Maine calculated that in order to finance overtime and fuel to retrieve,

secure and return election ballots (127th Maine Legislature) $148,874 would have to be

allocated between 2017-2019. Many of these costs would be ongoing and would have

to be paid again and again. Pennsylvania is a much larger than Maine, about 33%
larger, and so both of these numbers would have to be increased when the system is

brought PA.

Something to keep in mind when considering the implementation of ranked

voting is the generally untested nature on a large scale in the US. All the research that

has been conducted on effects have been done on non-Americans. The system has

been tested at a city level, but applying it to a much larger area with people of very

distinct situations is exponentially harder. Maine is the only example of a State

implementing the system, but the effectiveness has not been tested. All eyes are on

Maine to see if the government will buckle under the weight of ranked voting.

Conclusion

There is a problem with the current voting system in place in America. A ranked

voting system is the answer to that problem with its promotion of candidates that appeal

to the majority. The solution to the American election problem is not one that can be

solved overnight and so the first step is to get Americans to understand the system. It is

best to start with the smaller offices so that people are more comfortable making the

change. Pennsylvania is perfect for that first step and will be the first step in a process

to change the face of American voting.

Word Count: 2912

 Works Cited

127th Maine Legislature. Initiated Bill To Establish Rank-Choice Voting. Print.

2 Apr. 2017

Bartlett, Ben. Eng Ballot Image. Digital image. City of Berkley City Clerk. City of

Berkley, Web. 2 Apr. 2017. (Figure 1)

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Report on Executive Order 2004-11." PENNSYLVANIA ELECTION REFORM

TASK FORCE. dos.pa.gov. The Pennslyvania Department of State, 12 May

2005. Web. 28 Mar. 2017.

Cooper, Betsy, Ph D., Daniel Cox, Ph.D., Robert Jones, Ph.D., and Rachel

Lienesch. "The Divide Over America's Future: 1950 or 2050?" The Public

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Dugan, Andrew. "Majority of Americans See Congress as Out of Touch,

Corrupt." Gallup.com. Gallup, Inc., 28 Sept. 2015. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

Goldstein, Jonathan S. "CONSTITUTION OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF

PENNSYLVANIA."Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1968. Web. 05 Apr. 2017.

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Pillsbury, George, and Julian Johannesen, eds. "America Goes to the Polls

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Richie, Rob. "Ranked Choice Voting / Instant Runoff." FairVote.org. FairVote, Web.

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Seelye, Katharine Q. "Maine Adopts Ranked-Choice Voting. What Is It, and How Will It

Work?"The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Dec. 2016. Web.

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