Majority won’t rule in Democratic primary
State should move toward runoff system
Much of the focus Friday was on the Democratic primary for governor, with a multitude of candidates beating the deadline to file for the August primary and November general election. In one sense, having lots of candidates in a partisan primary — whatever the party — is a good thing for voters. Lots of choices, like deciding what cereal to buy for breakfast. Invariably, there is a candidate who matches a voter’s desires.
Unfortunately, this scenario has some negative connotations for good government. After all, the essence of an election is that the majority rules. The oddity is that this principle of democracy does not apply to partisan primaries in Wisconsin. Rather, the winner of the party’s nomination is whoever gets a
plurality of votes, even if it is less than a majority.
Let’s say there are a dozen names on the August ballot for governor and the votes are spread widely and evenly. In that case, it is possible the winner may be the person with about 20% of the vote. That means 80% of the primary voters that day voted against this particular candidate.
This is not merely a hypothetical scenario. It’s happened in both parties in my lifetime. In 1979, after congressman William Steiger (R-Wis.) died, there was a special election to fill his seat. Six Republicans were on the primary ballot (including an obscure state representative named Tommy Thompson). The winner was then-state Sen. Thomas Petri with 35% of the vote. When congressman Henry Reuss (DWis.) retired in 1982, there were 10 candidates in the primary. The winner was state Sen. Jim Moody with 19% of the vote.
There are relatively simple solutions. It is too late for this year, but perhaps this particular race will prompt a bipartisan consensus so that it doesn’t happen again. There are two solutions: run-off primaries and second-choice voting.
A run-off primary is relatively common in the U.S., particularly in southern states. If no candidate in a partisan primary wins a majority of votes cast, then about a month later there is a runoff primary between the two top votegetters. In a two-way contest, one of them will be the choice of the majority of the voters. In a sense, Wisconsin’s spring nonpartisan elections are a version of this: The two top vote-getters in the February primary have a run-off in April. Probably the strongest argument against the Legislature and governor enacting a runoff primary is the cost of conducting another election.
So consider another solution — second choice voting or instant runoff. This is less common in the U.S. (though there are a few examples) and more common in, for example, Australia.
Here’s how it works: A citizen casts a vote for the candidate she or he prefers. Then, the voter is asked a hypothetical question: If the candidate you voted for was not on the ballot, who would you vote for instead? This is the voter’s second choice. There are several ways to present this on a ballot.
One approach is that the voter marks “1” next to the name of the most preferred candidate and “2” as the voter’s second choice. Another approach is to have two columns next to a list of all the candidates’ names. The voter marks the first column next to the name of the
candidate to indicate first preference and then, in the next column, places a mark next to another candidate’s name to indicate her or his second choice.
After the polls are closed, the initial tally of votes (for first preferences only) is done. Did any candidate get a majority of the votes cast? If yes, case closed. If not, then the second-choice votes for the candidate with the least number of votes are redistributed. After doing that, did anyone get a majority?
And so on until the winner of a majority is identified.
It is a bit complicated. But certainly, this is better than someone winning a partisan primary with less than a majority of the votes, particularly a ridiculously low percentage, as may happen in August.
For what it’s worth, Wisconsin had second-choice voting during the La Follette Progressive era.
In 1911, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill establishing second-choice voting in partisan primaries. Like some other examples of La Follette reforms, in principle, this was a good government idea.
However, it also reflected the ideological power struggles of the day.
The Republican Party had two wings, the Progressives and the Stalwarts. Progressives felt that secondchoice voting would result in a de facto one-against-one showdown and thought this gave them a political advantage. Stalwarts thought the opposite.
When Stalwarts won the 1914 elections, they promptly repealed the law during the 1915 session of the Legislature. In my opinion, and from a good government perspective, that was too bad.
I hope that whatever the results of the August primary, legislators from both parties will realize the importance of the principle of majority rule and enact either second-choice voting or run-off primaries in Wisconsin when they reconvene next year.
Mordecai Lee served in the state Assembly and then the state Senate from 1977 to 1989. He has been a professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee since 1997. He will retire in August and shift to emeritus status. He plans to stay in Milwaukee and remain active in promoting good government.