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.
