By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is an electoral system where voters rank candidates by preference instead of choosing just one.
While choice is the personal judgment in favor of merit or value, preference determines favor by any methods available, often sacrificing the evidence of merit or value. A choice is a context-driven decision. A preference emerges when a person assesses different options, hence ranking one’s options.
RCV promotes a bromide which insists if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed according to the voters’ next preferences. This process continues until a candidate achieves a majority.
Two states, Alaska and Maine, have adopted RCV for statewide purposes.
It is noteworthy that Maine has six active political parties as opposed to Alaska’s 17 active political parties.
Maine has a population of about 1.35 million people with about 950,000 voters. Maine’s voter population represents almost 70.4 % of the state’s population. Maine’s population is increasing. Maine adopted RCV in 2016 and started to use it in 2018. It is used in all federal elections, including U.S. Senate and U.S. House races and its state elections.
Alaska has a population of about 734,000. The Alaska Division of Elections reported for Aug. 5, a 605,892-voter population. Alaska’s voter population represents almost 82.6 % of the state’s population. Alaska’s population is on the decline. Alaska adopted RCV in 2020 and started to use it in 2022. It is used in all federal elections, including US Senate and US House races and its state elections.
The Maine RCV maintains the Democratic Party’s majority support of its elected officials. Maine is a predominantly Democrat state where the Democrats include over 36% of the voters while Republicans include over 29.5% of the voters. The balance of voters is what Maine’s Office of the Secretary of State calls “unenrolled voters” which are independents, almost 29%. As the voting preference for independents is Democrat and with the inclusion of the Green Independent Party of 3.9%, Maine’s Democratic voter population is about 69%.
The Alaska RCV also maintains the Democratic Party’s majority support of its elected officials.
Using the voter roll report from Aug. 5, the Democrats include over 12% of the voters while Republicans include almost 24% of the voters. The balance of voters who share Democrat ideological perspectives includes the Moderate Party of Alaska, .065%, the Green Party of Alaska, .25%, Nonpartisan, 13.9%, the Progressive Party of Alaska, .042%, and Undeclared, almost 45%. With the inclusion of the Democratic Party voter population, this total of over 59% of Alaska’s voting population.
Ranked choice voting is a progressive reform. Denying its connection to politics would be both misleading and academically unsound.
Although RCV itself is not inherently partisan, clear political trends can be observed in its adoption. To account for the political culture and ideology within the states of Alaska and Maine, the adoption of RCV in these states reflects a broader movement of how the system dehumanizes the voting process, especially when compared to the traditional “one person, one vote” method.
This process of the ranking of voter preferences leads to depersonalization. This is central to understanding how RCV is dehumanizing.
In the 1960’s, a series of social psychology experiments were conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, who intended to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
Milgram’s experiment was designed to explore the extent to which individuals would obey authority figures, even when asked to perform actions that conflicted with their personal morals. The experiment exposed a disturbing inclination for individuals to follow authority figures’ orders.
RCV instructions require voters to rank candidates in order of preference, introducing a level of complexity that differs significantly from the simplicity of casting a single vote for a single candidate. This complexity creates by design a sense of distance between the voter and the impact of their ranked preferences.
Just as Milgram’s experiments demonstrated that its subjects become detached from the consequences of their actions through the structured nature of the experiments, voters in an RCV system become detached from the immediate impact of their vote. The need to trust a complex, algorithmic process leads to a sense of incremental powerlessness as often, voters do not fully understand how their ranked preferences translate into the final outcome.
In contrast, the traditional “one person, one vote” system is straightforward and transparent. Each voter casts one vote for their preferred candidate, and that vote directly influences the election result. This simplicity reinforces the connection between the voter and the outcome, allowing individuals to feel that their participation has a clear and direct impact.
Does Alaska want an electoral system which upholds the democratic ideal of individual empowerment, where each person’s vote carries equal weight and significance?
Moreover, the reliance on complex algorithms in RCV can mirror the way Milgram’s participants placed trust in an authority figure, even when it conflicted with their personal judgment. Voters in an RCV system are compelled to trust an impersonal process, which leads to a sense of alienation. The transparency and directness of the “one person, one vote” system, on the other hand, allows voters to see the results of their collective decision-making more clearly, fostering trust and reinforcing their role as active participants in the democratic process.
In essence, Milgram’s model of obedience and depersonalization provides a framework for understanding how RCV, despite its intentions to create a more inclusive and representative system, risks creating a sense of detachment and dehumanization.
Through the deceptive semantics of “choice” versus “preference”, RCV falsely aims to broaden voter choice, improve election outcomes and eliminate “dark money”. The complexity of the process leads to a feeling of alienation among voters as their personal impact seems diminished by the intricacies of the system. The traditional “one person, one vote” method, by contrast, maintains a stronger connection between the individual voter and the democratic process, ensuring that each vote is both meaningful and direct.
As further evidence of RCV dictating political outcomes, it is also used in New York City, New York, San Francisco, California, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Burlington, Vermont. The Democrats are the dominate political party in all these cities.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) presents itself as a progressive reform aimed at enhancing democracy, but upon closer examination, it reveals significant flaws that undermine the very principles it seeks to uphold. The complexity of the RCV system, which requires voters to rank candidates by preference, introduces a layer of detachment between the voter and their individual impact on the election outcome.
This detachment mirrors the disturbing findings of Milgram’s experiments, where participants became increasingly disconnected from the consequences of their actions as they obeyed an authority figure. Just as Milgram’s subjects were led to act against their moral judgment, voters in an RCV system are compelled to trust a complex, impersonal process, which can lead to a sense of alienation and powerlessness.
The traditional “one person, one vote” system, in contrast, is straightforward, transparent, and reinforces the direct connection between the voter and the election result. It upholds the democratic ideal of individual empowerment, where each person’s vote carries equal weight and significance. The deceptive promise of “choice” in RCV, when in reality it often amounts to a mere ranking of preferences, dilutes the strength of personal judgment and leads to a depersonalized voting process.
As Alaska faces the implications of RCV, the state must consider whether it wants to continue down a path that risks concentrating political power in a single dominant party, as has been observed in the above RCV-implemented entities, or whether it will uphold a system that ensures every vote is meaningful and directly impactful.
The decision Alaska makes will determine whether its electoral process remains a true reflection of the people’s will or becomes another victim of dehumanizing political engineering.
Michael Tavoliero is a resident of Eagle River and writes for Must Read Alaska.
‘The Experimenter’ movie gives the story.
There is also a 1962 documentary available:
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdrKCilEhC0
The book is excellent. A terrifying story.
If the voters think a candidate should have a straight majority to win, have a run off.
Not an instant run off (RCV), a separate run off election, where the top two vote getters are on the ballot. It gives the voters the opportunity to (re)evaluate the candidates, and voters who did not rank one, or both, of the run-off candidates highly have an opportunity to select based on freshly evaluated information.
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That is the correct approach. Forcing a voter to evaluate all four candidates, plus a write in, and abide by the outcome is just plain wrong. What if a voter ranks the two highest vote getters as numbers three and four? Do you think they will be happier if they get a few weeks to evaluate, or if their fourth choice is put in place?
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If you wanted to come up with a system to destroy any remaining enthusiasm about voting, I do not think you could devise something better than RCV for reducing voter turn out.
I hate it but it’s one of the reasons I refuse to vote again until this garbage is repealed. When you know a game is rigged, do you still play anyway? I just can’t. Not until it gets put back to the way it always has been.
Whatever Daisy. You are a broken record. You don’t vote? You don’t have any feet to stand on in this discussion. Just go away and come back when you are ready to vote.
And, the leftists thank you for your service.
If you refuse to vote this November, your desire to overthrow RCV will not be counted, and it will likely stay the law of the land. Net result, the leftists continue to occupy seats in the legislature, and will likely RCV themselves into the Governor’s mansion as well.
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Refusing to vote is just plain ridiculous. It is throwing a tantrum, and losing anyway.
Alaska has had three slates of candidates under Rank Choice Voting: Governor, US Senate, and US House of Representatives. A Republican won the governor’s race. A Republican won the US Senate. A Democrat barely won the US House race, and probably because Sarah Palin has such high negatives in Alaska.
How can anyone say RCV favors Democrats?
How can the democrats be suing their Alaskan party because their party allowed another candidate to be on the ballot? For them to take this kind of action when the Republicans are supposed to allow it is and allow votes to be split speaks loudly that they are worried that RCV is going to favor someone other than their Mary Mary quite contrary candidate. The Republican party has never brought a lawsuit against itself…maybe they should have though!
Pointing out the exception does not disprove the rule.
Secondly, a Republican in name only won the Senate seat, and she votes solidly in line with the democrats.
And, this was discussed nationally, not AK specific.
That may be the ultimate goal. Get even more people to disenfranchise themselves.
Ranked-Choice Voting works for Democrats because they all march in lock step and stick together like the good commies that they are.
Crude way of putting it, but absolutely true.
This is absolute, seething nonsense. Unreadable.
Says the supposed pollster, who tries to lean elections towards progressives w/ dishonest polling methods.
Do you like RCV Ivan?
Why is your team in court now, trying to delay our elections because the RCV scheme they push is not going their way?
A bunch of hypocritical cry babies all ….. and that’s your team Moore.
Well, maybe if you would take that rafter out of your eye Ivan, you might be able to read the words. Unbelievable. Haha
Don’t disagree with most of this, but you can hardly say the 45% that are Undeclared have “Democrat ideological perspectives”. My entire family are all Undeclared but always vote Republican. I myself dropped my Republican registration about 10 years ago as there was no benefit, only endless spam from the Republican party. You can probably say some Undeclared share “Democrat ideological perspectives” but probably just as many share “Republican ideological perspectives”.
Thank you for your post. We left the Republican Party in 2016 for many of the same reasons you stated. We are conservatives who have grown increasingly disgusted by the spineless Republicans who refuse to stand for freedom against the globalists and the left, all while they beg for $$$ claiming they are doing just that.
Heaps of word salad there. Let me offer a concise translation: Democrats are smarter than Republicans. Dems understand the complexity of, and “perceived alienation they feel from,” the RCV system. Conversely, Repubs apparently struggle with the same.
Michael- I appreciate this but your system returns to the very few declared repubs and dems making choices for the rest of us. Your system benefits the lesser of two evils and frankly the resulting track record is horrible. Your party and the other side of the uniparty’s cookie cutter candidates brought us $35t of debt, estimated $235m in budgetary fraud according to the GAO, the passage of the largest fraudulent legislation ever the PPP, mandates, Litoral Combat Ship, the Constellation Ships, F35 fielding disaster, Biden’s infrastructure/inflation bill, reduction in parental rights, continued flow of taxpayer funding to the military industrial complex and more. Sadly these are just the things your party voted for. How many times must we read an apology from Dan for his wayward votes?
No Michael, a return to the uniparty gatekeepers disenfranchises the rest of us, forcing us to select the lesser of two evils which continues stupid spending as highlighted above.
You cannot fix your party from the inside, it is far too corrupted.
Let Alaskans determine their field of elected officials through freedom not restrictions.
The GOP used the repeal of Obamacare as bait for years to motivate the public to vote in a GOP president, senate and house. They then voted down the repeal. There was no intention ever to do it. The GOP was in control when the Russia Gate hysteria and witch hunt against Trump commenced. The GOP controlled the SSCI with fake conservatives like Rubio and had oversight of the Intelligence Complex and did nothing. They are scared to death of the IC, as it has dirt on every one of them. Mitch McConnel went after the Tea Party with a vengeance, the GOP hated the Tea Party movement more than the Dems. Just as the GOP leadership hates Trump and will back stab him at every turn going forward. Trump is hated because he represents the common citizen, period. Sullivan is pathetic, he does not even attempt to hide his puppet strings. None of these congressmen have written legislation in decades. Their donor lobbyists hire attorneys to write thousands of pages long bills, funding every conceivable NGO, agency, foreign meddling and subsidy, giving the bills catchy names and then bribe or threaten politicians into passing them. Most voters have no idea the “disagreements” between the GOP and Dems are meaningless theatrical performances. Like opposing divorce attorneys who play fight, then get together for a beer to discuss how long the estranged couple can afford them. The FBI was forged into a political weapon by Obamas’ puppeteers and used to insure the permanent state control is not ever threatened by the public. The imminent monetary and economic collapse was created by a Uniparty joint venture. Not even the US economy can withstand the level of corruption and mismanagement of the magnitude its’ been subjected to.
So many words. So few of them sensible. In case you missed it, Alaskan politics are not a uniparty operation. There are many, many political parties up: Republican, democrat, Green, Libertarian, AIP all regularly field candidates. There is a strong indy movement. Sometimes they even win write-ins (Lisa in 2010).
Members of different political parties have the right and responsibility to choose who represents their viewpoints as candidates. Your worldview would take those rights away and substitute them with your personal preferences. In the rest of the world, this is done on election day rather than at the nomination point. Following election day, if nobody gets 50%+1, the top two candidates go into a runoff some weeks later.
RCV makes this simple, transparent process illegal.
In the sports world, it would be the functional equivalent of the rest of the NFL getting to choose who is starting QB for Seattle. I am mystified how that would be a superior system. Perhaps you can explain it to me and the other readers. Cheers –
Explain to us all why anyone who is not a registered member of a political party should have any say whatsoever in the candidate representing that party in the general election?
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I know… freedom to choose the best candidate regardless of party, etc… etc… etc… I hear the ads, and am not convinced. A registered Republican is not likely to select a Democrat in the primary as the best candidate. Almost zero chance of it.
Whereas, a registered Republican is motivated to select the WORST Democrat candidate to run in the general election.
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If you want a way to electioneer the general ballot, there is no better way than open primaries.
Maintaining the modern construct of governance by a permanent, all powerful admistrative state uses a multitude of tools to maintain power while maintaing the narrative pretense of a legitimate, democratic process. RCV is the final filter to insure the public, which is ficle and might wander off the reservation, cannot choose an unapproved result. Large excess quantities of mail in ballots in conjunction with bloated voter registers, and an extended voting schedule minimizing in person contact to avoid a proof of identity is the critical framework. Determining the allocation of which and how many ballots to officially count as “votes” to achieve the proper result must be a controlled process by state officials. The predetermined result must be achieved in a manner that is smooth, not sloppy like the near disaster of Joe Miller defeating the approved candidate Murkowski debacle. Taken off guard, the state GOP bosses and state officials coordinated Murkowskis’ “win”, but in a manner they couldn’t spin into a believable narrative. The systematic corruption was exposed in a very unprofessional manner. RCV provides more options to maintain a professional and smooth gloss to maintain the publics’ focus on the velvet glove instead of the iron fist of top down power it covers.
Comparing RCV to Milgram’s experiments is a crock. Milgram’s experiments explored people’s willingness to follow orders to hurt others against their own consciences. There’s no connection. The idea that expressing relative preferences is somehow dehumanizing is also absurd. People do this all the time without adverse consequences. And it’s insulting to people’s intelligence to say that it is somehow beyond most people to put 2, 3, or 4 things in the order of their preference in case their first choice doesn’t pan out.
To claim that RCV has a Democratic Party bias is also absurd. Whether you think this is a good idea or not, and I know some here don’t, RCV elects candidates with the broadest base of support. Plurality elections can elect the ones with support from the largest single faction, not necessarily with a majority, but are easily distorted by vote splitting if there are more than two candidates. The winning faction does not have to have broad support.
Even with a regular runoff after a plurality election, if there were 10 candidates running, the top two could pass on to a runoff with little more than 10% of the vote each (if the votes were relatively evenly split), so the “majority” winner in a runoff would not reflect the majority of voters. Even if the top two had 20% or 30% that would be likely.
The most important features of our form of government are that power ultimately resides with the people, that through our representatives, the majority rules, and through our Constitution, laws, and representatives, the rights of the minority are protected from the temporary whims of the majority. At least that’s how it is supposed to work. The “traditional” plurality voting systems we have used do not support this very well. RCV does this better, and I think that’s why people in factions that can’t attract a majority, and who think they should control everything, don’t like it.
It may be that Democratic candidates do have a broader base of support in some areas, in which case they *should* win. (But it is also absurd to claim that all Independents who don’t register with one of the two major parties are aligned with the Democrats). However the vast majority (59) of the 62 contests where RCV was used in AK in 2022 were decided on the first round so RCV had little to no effect on the party affiliation of the winner, and many of the winners were conservatives.
RCV was an expression of the voters ability to self correct via the initiative process. the large number of “undeclared” voters in Alaska would suggest that either party lacks sufficient clout to win on the issues. wedge issues dominate the political landscape to divide voters and contain party members.
RCV also means that no one is elected at below the 50% margin and contains the extreme political actor from getting elected, especial since only 30% of eligible voters participate in elections.
“RCV also means that no one is elected at below the 50% margin and contains the extreme political actor from getting elected, especial since only 30% of eligible voters participate in elections.”
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If it is so all important to elect someone with 50%+1 vote majority, have a traditional run off election a few weeks later. The “instant runoff” provided by RCV removes the ability of a voter to re-evaluate their candidate choice, especially with a narrowed field.
If my #1 and #2 choices do not garner sufficient votes to be in the top two, I must have the chance to evaluate the remaining candidates against each other. RCV removes that from the voter.
Which is why so many of the commenters on here hate RCV, because they represent the far right extremists. They just don’t see the echo chamber they live in. Anything that they see as interfering in their desire to have their candidates win is declared communist/Marxist or any number of other pejoratives
Wow, interesting. And, just as biased and prejudiced as you claim the “far right extremists” are.
By the way, what constitutes “far right extremist” in your mind? Where is the threshold between conservative and extremist in cman’s world? Define it.
Great question and thanks for asking! I would say the extremists are the ones that claim election fraud when the result is one they don’t like. That’s one definition.
Removing party affiliation from municipal ballots did the same thing. When an unknown is on a ballot, I choose to vote for party. That critical data was stripped from us, and has been brazen election manipulation for years. The BS reasoning was ‘better for Anchorage’ political lies.The Assembly’s Left political bias is flagrant, although you wont see any of those hot issues addressed on their campaign websites.
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