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Anchorage recently held its mayoral election. Looking back at past elections, it may be time to consider changing to ranked choice voting (RCV) for municipal elections, as well as statewide elections. Anchorage elects a mayor every three years. Since 2000, nine mayoral elections have been held. Five of these elections have been decided by runoff elections. Mayoral elections are typically close races, with an average of 10 or more candidates vying for the top spot. If no candidate receives 45% of the vote, a runoff election is necessary. Typically, a runoff election is held when the incumbent is not running, but this election and 2003 are exceptions.
In 2003, Mark Begich ran against incumbent George Werch and won with 45.03% of the vote, meaning 55% of voters chose another candidate. Such a large majority choosing another candidate raises questions about the electoral process. Furthermore, 45% is an arbitrary number. Why not 44%, 40%, or 39%? Majority rule means that no other candidate can receive more votes. Majority rule is a central principle of democracy.
The average cost of a vote-by-mail runoff election is just over $500,000, while voting at a polling place (in person) is about $100,000 less, but vote-by-mail turnout appears to be about 15,000 more. Thus, the base cost of a vote-by-mail runoff election over the past 20 years has been over $2.5 million.
It's helpful to remember that RCV is sometimes called “instant vote.” Once voters rank all their choices, all the information available in a runoff election is revealed without the need for a runoff election. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated from each voter's ranking, and the next candidate rises to the top of the ranking, until one candidate receives a majority of the votes. This election achieves the same results as a runoff election, but is less expensive than a runoff election.
But the main attraction and power of RCV is that it elects the candidate who is favored by a majority of voters over all other candidates in an election. The winning candidate is always elected by a majority of voters. This is natural in a representative democracy. This eliminates what is called the “spoiler effect.” There are many examples of this spoiler effect in national, state, and local elections where the existence of a third (or more) choice that actually had no chance of winning has changed the outcome of an election more than when there were only two choices. Ross Perot was a third party candidate in 1992, but he probably received more votes from George H. W. Bush than Bill Clinton, leading to the victory of the Democratic candidate. In 2000, Ralph Nader was a third party candidate and pushed George H. Bush to win over Al Gore. This is a bipartisan issue that can affect both parties. Many observers are concerned about how a third party led by Robert Kennedy Jr. or Jill Stein (or both) could affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
A runoff election never guarantees that the winning candidate will be supported by a majority of voters over all other candidates. This goes against democratic ideals and norms. Consider the last (2021) mayoral election. The top three vote-getters were Dave Bronson with 33%, Forrest Dunbar with 30.9%, and Bill Falsey with 12.8%, with the remaining seven candidates receiving a combined vote of 23.3%. Let's assume that if RCV were the rule, all voters for the remaining seven candidates would have named Falsey as their second choice. Let's further assume that half of Dunbar's voters named Falsey as their second choice. In RCV, Dunbar would have dropped out when the field was narrowed down to the final three, Bronson would have received 33%, Dunbar would have received 30.9%, and Falsey would have received 36.1%. Falsey would then have received half of Dunbar's votes, a total of 52%, and won under RCV. If the race had been just between him and Bronson (no one else running), Farsi would have won his head-to-head election in this scenario.
RCV guarantees that the final winner will beat all other candidates in a head-to-head election. There are no spoiler effects. The above example is only hypothetical based on the listed assumptions. However, it shows that RCV produces truly democratic outcomes, where the winner is elected by a majority of the voters.
In retrospect, there was likely no spoiler effect in the recent mayoral election, but we can't know for sure until we know the rankings of the second and third place candidates. The election is over, and the new mayor is Suzanne Lafrance. A runoff could have been avoided if none of the lower-ranked candidates had run, but there is no way to limit candidates and encourage their participation in the electoral process. Declaring a winner with less than a majority of the votes is arguably an undemocratic solution.
One interesting feature of RCV is that any number of people can run for office without creating any disruptive effects. They can run for office and tell the electorate what they think about the public sector. This is true participatory democracy. Politics is the natural forum for putting public policy ideas on the market.
As it stands, unless a single candidate receives 45% of the mayoral vote in the general election, there will be a runoff election between the top two vote-getters. Runoff elections are expensive and a completely unnecessary expense when you consider RCV. Remember, a top-two runoff election in no way guarantees that the winner will win a two-way matchup against the other candidate. Anything less than a majority vote is arbitrary and defeats the purpose of democracy, which should be the goal.
PJ Hill is a retired economics professor who taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
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