How can we ensure our electoral process supports democracy, is cost-effective, and encourages candidates and office holders to focus on policy rather than performative partisan politics?
Summary
- Elections are often “won” in North Carolina by a candidate who receives less than a majority of the vote: that is, someone who a majority of folks voted against.
- Our electoral system occasionally mandates costly runoffs with low interest/turnout.
- Because races can be won with a plurality, running a highly partisan campaign designed to energize the “base” and get-out-the-vote can often be a winning strategy.
- Candidates elected utilizing highly partisan campaigns have an incentive to continue to avoid and denounce bi-partisan policy compromise solutions while in office if they want to be re-elected.
Election by a plurality is fundamentally undemocratic
In theory, our form of government in North Carolina is representative democracy…but in fact, under our plurality voting system, candidates can “win” election here even when a majority vote against them. For example, in 2020 both Donald Trump and Thom Tillis won their elections despite the fact that a majority voted against them. This year, four of our US House elections feature candidates who “won” their March primary elections with only a minority of support—in one case, 74% of the voters voted against the certified winner (Addison McDowell in US 6 for whom 26.4% of the electorate voted; he finished first in a six-candidate race). There are another half-dozen “minority report” candidates on the November ballot in NCGA races.
Runoff elections are boondoggles
Occasionally, our arcane plurality voting system produces runoff elections between the top two finishers. Obviously that winner does get a majority…but turnout for runoffs is notoriously terrible…you can have the winner getting fewer votes in the runoff than the loser got in the original election! And, of course, conducting a runoff doubles the cost of that election.
So, both expensive and unpopular.
Plurality voting encourages and rewards performative politics
Plurality voting is not the main reason that political discourse today is so divisive and dysfunctional. But because you can win an election in NC with less than a majority, candidates and office-holders have an added incentive to play to their base, as the likelihood of success of that approach is greater.
And, of course, if your election campaign is premised on the proposition that your opponent has dishonorable motives and evil supporters, if you win you are not likely to then engage in bipartisan compromise…and if you did, you’d be vulnerable to being ousted in the next primary election by a (more) true believer.
Real, practical, effective solutions for electoral reform
- Replace our plurality voting system with instant runoff voting: voters get to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets 50%+ in the initial tabulation, the last place finisher is eliminated and her/his votes redistributed to each voter’s second choice. The process repeats until a winner is elected by a majority.
- Instant runoff voting saves money by eliminating the need to hold separate runoff elections.
- Instant runoff voting ensures that no candidate can be elected without a majority.
- Instant runoff voting incentivizes candidates to build consensus rather than being divisive because candidates who work to attract second- and third-choice votes have an advantage over candidates who only speak to their base and antagonize other voters.