Can Ranked Choice Voting Actually Save Democracy? It Depends. | TaraElla Report Reset

Today, I'm going to talk about the recently popular idea of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), and whether it could save democracy as its proponents say. Basically, in RCV, voters rank the candidates on their ballot paper, from say, 1 to 6 or 8, rather than just voting for one candidate, as in the more commonly used first-past-the-post method.

In recent years, RCV has received increased attention, as an increasing number of American elections have adopted it, including most recently the New York mayoral primaries, although a referendum of RCV in the UK was defeated about a decade ago. Meanwhile, Australia has had RCV for nearly a century now, and it is routinely used in basically all elections, from federal elections right down to student politics. I think the Australian experience demonstrates two points: firstly, RCV can be readily understood and accepted by the general public. Secondly, once RCV is adopted, it becomes the commonly accepted way of doing elections, and first-past-the-post becomes essentially obsolete.

But let's return to the value of RCV itself: can it really save democracy, get people engaged, and offer choices beyond the left-vs-right binary, like its supporters say? I think it also depends on the context. Using the Australian experience, we have mixed evidence. Australia does have high voting rates, but that's probably because voting is compulsory in Australia, and you get fined for not voting. On the other hand, Australia still has a largely two-party system, with the preferences of most minor parties funnelling into the two major parties. One thing that seems to have happened in Australia is that, since the major parties will get the preferences of the minor parties anyway, and there is no need to 'turn out the base', both parties behave in a more moderate way compared to America.

The Australian experience with RCV shows that, except for maybe a bit more moderation from both sides, the political landscape isn't that different from first-past-the-post countries like the US or the UK. Indeed, Australia is actually closer to the American two-party system than many first-past-the-post countries, because there is no minor party that is capable of capturing a significant number of lower house seats like the British Lib Dems or SNP, or the Canadian NDP. This is reflected in Australian election debates, in which only two candidates are invited, like the American debates, but unlike the British or Canadian debates. It is therefore clear that RCV is not a magic bullet that will automatically solve the left vs right, Democrat vs Republican, or Labour vs Conservative problem.

So what about the vision that RCV will allow voters to choose what they actually want, unrestricted by the left-right divide? Why has that not happened in Australia? I guess it's a cultural thing. You see, in Australia, most of the minor parties are basically a more extreme wing of one of the two major parties. Mapping this onto an American context, it would be as if the Squad and the Tea Party, as well as other smaller groupings, were parties in their own right, but since their preferences reliably flowed to the Democrats or the Republicans all the time, they are bound to be seen as similar to one of the main parties rather than having a distinct identity of their own. Australia has also had several non-aligned minor parties that have played interesting roles in some elections, but in general they have not lasted for very long. This just shows that being neither left nor right is still a difficult thing, even in an RCV system!

The thing I wanted to say is that, RCV is great. It's great because it's much fairer. But to break out of the two-party deadlock will require much more than RCV. It will require a change in the way we think about things. As long as most people still think about things in terms of left-vs-right, like the Left supports certain things but the Right is opposed, and vice versa, the only new options that will come with a RCV system would be more extreme versions of Left or Right, which ultimately serve to funnel votes back into the establishment version of Left or Right. Therefore, I think, besides supporting things like RCV, the more important thing to do would be to encourage independent thinking, and to encourage new visions that go beyond the conventional left-vs-right divide.