Misguided election reform

An operation dubbed Americans Elect has an intriguing idea - conduct a national primary election on the Internet to run a centrist candidate for president.

On the surface, it sounds like a useful process to bolster the democratic system. However, the organizers would be wise to spend their time, effort and money to benefit more realistic initiatives.

Doyle McManus, in an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times, explained how it works: “Americans Elect…plans to put a centrist presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states…Americans Elect is a collection of Republicans, Democrats and independents who say they’re fed up with the polarization that has poisoned American politics.

“The group plans to hold a national primary election on the Internet - a mass-participation exercise that anyone can join,” he continues. “Candidates can nominate themselves and voters can form committees to ‘draft’ candidates, including politicians drawn from the major parties

“…The group is collecting signatures to put itself on every state’s ballot…Americans Elect says it plans to choose a presidential nominee (and a vice presidential candidate, who by the group’s rules can’t come from the same party) by June. What happens then depends mostly on the shape of the contest between the Democratic and Republican candidates.”

If history is a guide, we can safely predict that AE’s nominees will either make no practical difference or divert enough votes from one party to tip the election for the other party. We certainly cannot discount the possibility that the AE team will actually win.

A presidential election is a grandly ambitious starting point for installing independent or third-party candidates into elective office. Any political campaign takes an extensive amount of money and organization, and obviously a presidential election could be too much to manage.

McManus correctly points out that Americans Elect should start with running candidates for congressional posts.

At this time, every member of the House is a Democrat or Republican, and two senators are independents.

It would be practical to run independent candidates in swing House districts and for Senate seats in low-population states. The smaller scale of the district or the state will allow the candidate an easier opportunity to reach many voters, especially if most residents are clustered in metropolitan areas.

Most independents elected to the Senate or governor in recent years ran in small states, including Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island. Independents also won statewide office in Connecticut and Minnesota.

It would probably benefit the nation far more if Americans Elect joined forces with two other movements, one to effectively replace the electoral vote with the popular vote and another to level the playing field for independent candidates.

California lawmakers passed identical measures in 2006 and 2008 to join other states in turning over the electoral votes of all participating states to the presidential candidate who wins the most votes nationwide, but then-Gov. Arnold Schwarenegger vetoed it, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. (SFChronicle, 8/9/11) California’s electoral votes currently go to the person who wins the most votes in the state.

Current Gov. Jerry Brown signed an updated version last Aug. 8, making California the largest state to make this commitment. Brown’s signature raised the number of combined electoral votes to 132, from 77.

An organization called the National Popular Vote has been working with lawmakers in all 50 states since 2006. To succeed, states with a combined 270 electoral votes are needed, which is the majority that a presidential candidate must obtain to win the election.

Political reform organizations have been promoting a system called Instant Runoff Voting that allows the election of a candidate to receive the majority vote in a race with multiple rivals.

Under this system, roughly, a voter casts a ballot for his preferred candidate (Candidate A) and then votes for other candidates in order of preference. Let’s say his second preference is Candidate B.

The first result leaves no candidate with a majority, but Candidate C has the top spot with a plurality of 40 percent. The voter’s first preference, Candidate A, has 20 percent and Candidate B has 33 percent. His vote for A is transferred to B and, if most voters think this way then B will win with 53 percent of the vote.

Because Maine employs the winner-take-all system, its current governor can now follow through with his intent to tell the president to “go to hell.” Paul LePage, the Republican, was elected with 38 percent of the vote while his two closest opponents shared 56 percent.

“Three is a crowd in our current voting system,” reads a description posted by the Center for Voting and Democracy. “Plurality voting, in which the candidate with the most votes win, is dysfunctional when more than two candidates run.

“It promotes zero-sum politics that discourage new candidates, suppress new ideas and encourage negative campaigns rather than inclusive efforts to build consensus.”

The Center for Voting and Democracy further clarifies how IRV works: “IRV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish, but can vote without fear that ranking less favored candidates will harm the chances of their most preferred candidates.

“First choices are then tabulated, and if a candidate receives a majority of first choices, he or she is elected. If nobody has a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoffs are simulated, using each voter’s preferences indicated on the ballot.

“The weakest candidates are successively eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to next choices until a candidate earns a majority of votes.”

Instant Runoff Voting is currently employed to elect mayors and other officials in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Aspen, Colo., Takoma Park, Md., and London, England, according to the Center for Voting and Democracy.

Australians have elected its House of Representatives this way since 1949 and Ireland has elected its president since 1922 with IRV.

There is now a realistic chance for us to acquire the popular vote for president to level the playing field for independents. It would help if all reformers would join this effort.