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Casting ballot in box
The perilous 2024 election is still a year away but is already shaping up as a reprise of Biden versus Trump, a prospect that has encouraged third-party efforts to arise to spare the nation such a re-run. Despite Joe Biden's numerous economic and foreign policy successes, polls of likely voters have his approval rating underwater. Presumably, this is because of his age and because the media finds it easier and more lucrative to report the criminal problems of Donald Trump than the legislative accomplishments of the Biden Administration.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is now the presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican party. Since Republican primaries are determined by plurality rule, not majority rule, and state party delegates are distributed on a winner-take-all basis, the dilution of the non-Trump vote among several candidates guarantees that Trump can win with just a slim percentage: 35% will do it for him as it did in 2016. National polls have him losing the general election popular vote, but running neck and neck with Biden in the Electoral College. Trump could benefit from third party candidates taking enough votes in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that may be sufficient to swing the election to Trump, just as in 2016.
Enter "No Labels" Third-Party Candidates
The No Labels coalition claims they are only fulfilling a compelling public service since polls indicate the voters do not want a rerun of Biden versus Trump. According to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), National Chair of No Labels, “... if most of the voters don’t want A or B, we have an obligation to give them C, I mean, for the good of the country.”
No Labels is the best financed and publicized of the third-party efforts and so far is likely to promote the presidential ambitions of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin together with his probable running-mate former, Utah governor John Huntsman, a ticket with relative youth and the appearance of bipartisanship.
But recall the fundamental rule: third party candidates will take votes from those with whom they are most closely aligned. Recent examples of third-party candidates changing the course of history: Ralph Nader in the Bush v. Gore race in 2000; Jill Stein in three swing states during the Trump v. Clinton race in 2016.
Ranked Choice Voting (aka Instant Runoff Voting)
Ranked-choice Voting (RCV) would assure majority rule in state elections of electors, even when Third Party candidates take part in the contests. The RCV ballot provides spaces for the voters to rank their provisional choices of candidates in the order of their preference. The ballot permits voters to vote for their preferred candidate and, at the same time, vote provisionally for other contestants should their first choice not win.
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After the polls close computers would tally the first-choice votes. A winner is declared if the top vote-getter has a majority of all cast first-choice votes. If not, a second round of tabulation ensues in which the last-place finisher in the first round is eliminated. In this second round, the ballots which had a first choice for the eliminated candidate are searched for their provisionally ranked choices. That is, their lower-ranked votes are then redistributed to the other candidates. If this second round calculation produces a majority vote getter, that candidate is the winner. If not, additional rounds are conducted in the same way, promoting more provisional votes to first choice votes until a candidate gets a majority.
If the No Labels candidate is eliminated in this process, subsequent rounds will face off Trump versus Biden in a true test of which the voters prefer without the spoiler effect of third-party candidates. If either Trump or Biden is eliminated, then the No Labels candidate—Manchin in this scenario—would go head-to-head in the next round against the other survivor; winner to be determined by majority rule.
Too Late to Implement RCV for 2024
True, it is obviously too late to implement rank choice voting for the 2024 election. But the high anxiety over the upcoming election indicates that between now and November 2024 will be an excellent time for a continuance of explanation of how RCV would calm our angst by assuring majority rule.
It is clear that certain institutional arrangements, including the Electoral College, two senators for each state regardless of population, gerrymandering, voter suppression, are all impediments to representative government. Reform will take time and diligence in each case. Rank choice voting should be added to the list.
