Differences in ranked-choice voting

Iwant to support Maria Perez (“Santa Fe should use ranked-choice voting in ’18,” My View, July 2). But I want to caution Perez and all supporters of the electoral goals intended by ranked-choice voting. And I must inform you that FairVote, normally an organization with goals I support, has misleadingly appropriated the term “rankedchoice voting” to apply to the failed system that they had earlier marketed under the label “instant runoff voting.”

Ranked-choice voting is the term that encompasses all voting systems that use a ranked-order ballot, where voters rank their candidate preferences with 1, 2, 3 and so on, rather than marking only one candidate.

Any voting system using a ranked ballot is ranked-choice voting; however, that does not define the method and rule for how the ballots are tabulated and the winner is identified. There are four commonly known methods. Instant runoff voting is only one, and is certainly not the best nor even the correct method for discerning the voters’ popular choice in a field of candidates of three or more.

We fully support the desire and impetus to provide a level playing field for more candidates than just those from major parties. We would like to see the removal of the “spoiler effect” when a candidate enters a race and ends up both losing and changing the winner, and to lift the burden of “tactical voting” from voters who have to choose between voting their consciences or voting for a major-party candidate they dislike the least. Finally, there’s the hope of cleaning up campaigns where the incentive to attack is depreciated.

These are worthy goals, but instant runoff voting (which is what FairVote now misleadingly calls ranked-choice voting) fails to accomplish those goals except in the case where a potential spoiler has very little support (but perhaps enough to draw enough votes from the otherwise winner). In an election with three or more viable candidates, where any one of the three (or more) are plausible winners, instant runoff voting will fail — and that is the experience we had in Burlington, Vt., in 2009 that we want to share as a warning to the voters of Santa Fe.

In 2009, in Burlington, instant runoff voting elected a candidate to mayor when more voters marked their ballots that they preferred a different candidate. In 2009, instant runoff voting caused a spoiler candidate to change who the winner was. In 2009, instant runoff voting punished a large group of voters for ranking their favorite candidate No. 1 after promising that would not happen.

This is all settled fact because the marked ballots are a public record and we could count the ballots under other tabulation rules than instant runoff voting.

When there are only two candidates, everyone agrees who should win: If more voters mark their ballots preferring candidate A to candidate B, then candidate B should not be elected.

That rule can (and should) be extended to elections with more than two candidates, but instant runoff voting failed to do that in Burlington in 2009. As a result, there was great and acrimonious controversy. The elected mayor had diminished legitimacy. The following year instant runoff voting was repealed and, unfortunately, we have reverted back to plurality rule (a.k.a. “first-past-thepost”).

Don’t let that happen to the voters of Santa Fe. Please learn the hard lesson we had to learn in Vermont in 2009 and 2010. Don’t let FairVote hoodwink you into thinking that the only way ranked-choice voting can be tabulated is with instant runoff voting rules.

Instead, elect the Pairwise champion, otherwise known as the “condorcet” candidate. Otherwise, failure of instant runoff voting eventually will set back election reform for generations.