Millions of Democratic votes were lost in the primaries. Is this the fix?
Across the country, millions of voters turned in early ballots for the US presidential primary elections, often voting for candidates no longer in the race on election day.
In Colorado and Texas, early voters for candidates other than Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders might have made a statement, but they didn’t have the chance to influence the primary election. Some of the estimated 20% of Californians who voted early asked for a do-over. In Minnesota, 40,000 people had reportedly cast their ballots a week before Super Tuesday – and days before Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out.
Just yesterday, more than a million Washington voters finally had the chance to weigh in. Unlike other states, which saw long lines and voting machine errors, the state votes by mail and has a highly engaged electorate.
As a result, a significant proportion of ballots were returned early, essentially throwing away their vote.
Early voting is generally viewed as a good thing by civil rights advocates – it helps avoid errors on election day, and curbs long lines at the precinct. But voting for soon-to-be unviable candidates is not only a frustrating reality for proactive voters, but intrinsically harmful to the democratic process.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution: ranked-choice voting (RCV). And it’s one that has the potential to address a host of other problems that plague our electoral system, including negative campaigning and lack of minority representation.
Four states – Alaska, Kansas, Wyoming and Hawaii – are already using ranked-choice voting in the current Democratic presidential primaries, and one state, Maine, uses it for state elections and for US Congress and president. New York City also recently adopted ranked-choice voting beginning in 2021. But most of the country