Why we are stuck with the same limited choice, election after election?

Get off the hamster wheel: use the Runoff (instant) ballot

K.N.I. Bell

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Introduction

The parliamentary democracy model traditionally includes a constituency-based House of Commons. The link with a constituency is important so that electors can choose a representative able to counsel /lead the constituency or/and (depending on one's expectations and hopes) represent its interests.

Let's compare 3 systems, the One-Tick ballot*, Proportional Representation, and the Instant-Runoff (a.k.a. Preferential, a.k.a. Rank-Choice) ballot that is a true Runoff (just like our political Parties use to elect their leaders) but all done on a single ballot to make it quick, easy, and efficient. There are 'hybrid' systems, e.g. the MMP that brings the worst of two worlds, but we'll leave them for that reason. Let's look at the 3 key systems, because even the differences between these are very poorly understood, even amongst politicians:
     [*what we have now, a.k.a. "first-past-the-post", which actually is not a very useful description; it'd be more useful if it said that the post was set so low (the more candidates in one contest, the lower the 'post') that people are commonly elected with far less than 50% support.]

Figure 1. Comparing 3 systems: FPTP (OTB), PR, and Runoff (Instant).

Table I. Summary of features of 3 possible systems. Key: green = good, red = bad.

Table II. Explanation of features from Table I.

As said, what we have now is the typical (defective, crude, antiquated, ineffective) FPTP electoral system that works via the One-Tick-Ballot [OTB] (FPTP). The purpose behind the label "One-Tick-Ballot" is to show that FPTP is a simple mechanical result of that ballot type, and is therefore so very easy to change.

The problem(s) with FPTP and its One-Tick Ballot [OTB] table of contents

Well, for a start, it gets us a series of governments that typically have large numbers of people unhappy with them. Let's explore why that happens.

FPTP (OTB) problem: vote-splitting 

    The one that wins with FPTP and the One-Tick Ballot is the one with not necessarily a majority of the straws, but merely more straws than anybody else. With enough 'everybody-elses' to split the vote, it doesn't take many straws to have more than anybody else. (The OTB has no way for those voting for 'parallel' candidates to recombine their 'split' votes after the ballot --- but as you saw, Instant Runoff lets each voter choose how to do that). That's why candidates often 'win' in the FPTP (OTB) system with support of only 30-40%, and obviously that often means more than 50% would have refused to support them at all. That's not a real winner, that's just somebody holding the least-small-bunch of straws. Here is what vote-splitting and 'strategic [opposing] nomination' looks like:

Figure 2. Vote-splitting and Strategic Nomination to make it happen (FPTP (OTB), PR are vulnerable to this, Runoff isn't).

Remember that if these 'anti-X' voters had had a runoff opportunity, "anti-X#1" who had only 18% would be dropped as the lowest vote, and that 18% would be distributed to "anti-X#2" and "anti-X#3" and one of them would likely have >30%, at which point the "pro-X" candidate might be the lowest and drop to leave only two, both anti-X, and the final tally would produce a candidate with support >50% at some level of preference.

The One-Tick ballot is overly simple and restricts you to putting one tick or mark, against one candidate only. Trouble is, it means that with, say, 5 candidates, it is common for the person elected to have only 30-40 percent support. There might be 55% of voters for whom the winner was their least-favoured. But the One-Tick ballot allows the opposing vote to be split amongst several candidates so that the wrong person wins.
     E.g: imagine an election where 65% of the people strongly dislike one candidate (say, some shade of grey special-interest candidate), but are undecided about the other 4 main candidates (say, all some shade of purple, all generally liked). At least 65% will vote for one of those four. If the vote for the opposing candidates is only slightly similar, say with 2.5 as many for the most popular as for the least popular, then the candidate with special-interest support will likely win (despite 65% against!), simply because the opposing votes are split between an number of similar alternatives.
      Vote splitting happens whenever there are more parties occupying one part of the political spectrum than the other; somewhat paradoxically, the less-popular part of the spectrum can benefit as more candidates follow the more-popular part and essentially split that vote. The problem doesn't happen with a Preferential ballot, but in the One-Tick ballot it does. That means the joint participation in the more-popular end of the spectrum has the potential to 'split the vote' against the less-popular end, resulting in loss of the more-popular positions on the spectrum. In this situation candidates can win even if >50% of the people would refuse to vote for them, because the opposing votes have more alternatives and therefore less focus. That's why, with the antiquated One-Tick ballot, democracy can backfire; it's only simple arithmetic. Often, people adjust to this by tactical voting, by following the polls and voting on their One-Tick ballot for a candidate who may not be their first choice but who (they think) has the best chance of winning over the candidate they don't want to support. Trouble is, tactical voting is very imperfect: many people won't do it, and if they do many of them have a different idea of what everybody else will vote because they follow different polls.
     If the person who wins was a candidate that more than 50% of voters would have put last on a list of preferences, then the One-Tick ballot failed to express the voters' wishes, correct? And if it fails to collect and convey your wishes into the process, then the process is not fully democratic, is it; more like sort of a vague attempt at democracy with a lot of noise and luck thrown in.

If you are in the lucky situation that your favourite candidate* is polling first or second, no problem, the FPTP (OTB) will do you. If you're not that lucky, you end up voting tactically, listening to the polls, to vote for the most favoured candidate who is opposed to the one we really don't want. In other words, the FPTP (OTB) forces many of us to second-guess the election.
         (*The one who can actually think, perhaps; who didn't pick his campaign platform from a canned list on the web, who isn't merely mouthing those motherhood lines and grinning for your vote; who will always answer a direct question plainly; and who might possibly be not merely a representative but maybe just possibly a trustable counsellor and leader capable of showing us new ways to approach old problems.)

FPTP (OTB) problem: duopoly    table of contents

In FPTP (OTB) countries --- like Canada and the US --- we tend to vote tactically in order to pry one party loose. "Tactically" means we first ignore any candidate that we don't think has a chance, even if we think they would be best, which means we are voting the way we are guessing other people would be voting --- but that makes no sense; whose vote is our vote? And the result is: we end up (again and again and again) using one party to pry out the other that anoyed us most recently. Left, right, left, right ..., blue, red, blue, red, ... a duopoly. In the venerable Tommy Douglas's words, the mice vote for black cats, white cats, black cats, white cats (finally, in Douglas's story, one mouse says 'hey, why don't we vote for a mouse' and he is drowned out in cries of 'bolshevik!').
     In short: we don't vote people IN, we vote people OUT.
     Why?  We're stuck with an antiquated balloting system that forces us to vote tactically, i.e. usually for one of the main 2 parties. And tactical voting means follow polls, but that's problematic because: (a) polls are often wrong; and (b) polls should document, not influence, the election process; and (c) reliance on polls means expanding the opportunity for partisan polls to interfere with the election process. I.e., whatever way you slice it, the One-Tick ballot is a problem.

Remember a few years back in the USA, when Nader ran, but Bush and Gore were running neck and neck, and your vote for Nader might put Bush in? ... and Nader was called a spoiler? That wasn't very fair to Nader, or any candidate, because candidates are the choice offered in an election, and elections are (supposedly) to present a range of choices so people can choose ... after all, choice is what democracy is about, right?
    So, instead of blaming Nader, what should have been blamed was the One-Tick-Ballot [OTB] (FPTP) system that just by being what it is limits choice to, usually, a duopoly. Because that was the system that made Nader a 'spoiler', a 'vote-splitter'; but there are systems that don't have that problem, that do allow a free choice, that do allow a better democracy.
      Let's consider the kind of election machinery that the main parties in Canada use to choose their own leaders. The run-off vote. A series of ballots, but each time dropping the last-runner so that those supporting that one get to choose between a list of finalists that shortens with each round. Eventually a run-off vote ends up with a winner who has >50% support, >50% of people willing to accept the candidate. A runoff vote can only be won with >50% approval!  That run-off vote is a pretty good system.
     But what system CAN elect candidates that most people vote against, i.e. the wrong candidates? --- you got it, the antiquated One-Tick-Ballot [OTB] (FPTP). It is a constrained-choice system that effectively keeps two parties in control of the system because the third-runners are seen as spoilers, splitting the vote.
     Which is why, in Canada, our elections don't so much vote anybody IN as vote somebody OUT. We follow the polls and vote for the one most likely to defeat the one we most dislike. We vote tactically.

We don't vote IN the person we most like, we vote OUT the person we most dislike.  No wonder we fail to attract inspiring candidates to the process.  So the One-Tick ballot also inhibits diversity of candidates.

Runoff, instant: A small step in voting, a giant leap for democracy   table of contents

But just imagine we had a system that would let us vote IN the person we MOST LIKED? Imagine we didn't have to follow polls (polls aren't guaranteed to be either accurate or impartial, some are just hype, so really any system that pushes voters to use them is already flawed).
     Imagine we had a run-off vote (just like our political parties use to elect their leaders...). "OH NO!!" some will reply, "it would be way too expensive, it would take days or weeks..." ... but ...
     ... But what if there was another way to have a run-off-type vote, but all on one ballot? Well (news flash!), there IS!!
     It's called the INSTANT RUNOFF = PREFERENTIAL = RANK-CHOICE BALLOT, which for a single-seat election it is the same as STV, single-transferrable-vote* that you may hear about.
(*STV is referred to fairly often, but usually for a more complex systems not advocated here that include re-using all the 'opposing' votes that remain after one candidate seat is filled by the rank-choice or instant-runoff methods, and allocating those to a proportional-representation process; it's not advocated here because that part is party-based and involves choosing secondary winners from Party Lists which themselves are put forth by the parties so the voters had no direct vote for the people on them, therefore it is an undemocratic step.)

Clearly, the Preferential/RankChoice/InstantRunoff ballot is an amazingly simple electoral reform for Canada. No change to constituency system, no change to riding boundaries, ... just change the balloting system.

If the mainline parties use a Runoff* to elect their leaders, you've got to wonder why don't they extend this to electing MPs!  If it's good enough for the Parties, why isn't it good enough for the people?
                 (*instant runoff works almost exactly like a sequential runoff; the only difference is you don't re-assess the candidates between 'votes')
     Imagine an election assuming Tracy R. was not popular (<50% support) but Magnum P.I. was thought to be most popular opponent, you'll see that the voter with only one choice to oust Tracy R. chose the most popular opponent, while the voter with an Instant Runoff ballot was able to vote his first preference (Rockford, J.) and then have his vote shift to Magnum, P.I. if Rockford J. was not to make it (and placed Tracy R. last). Here is what that ballot would look like as FPTP (OTB) compared with Instant-Runoff:

Table III. Comparing ballots: FPTP (OTB) and Runoff (Instant). IR or any runoff is a majority system; FPTP is not a majority system, but a mere plurality system.

Obviously, the mainline parties (Libs & Cons in Canada, Dems and Reps in USA) would lose their automatic duopoly, so it's easy to see why they haven't given us this yet.
     But why don't the "minor" parties (like the NDP in Canada) go for it? Why are they stuck on PR (Prop-Rep)? They apparently don't notice that IR is (a) do-able and (b) would get at least most of what they hope from PR with much less trouble.
     Where's the leadership?

It is so simple a change that one has to wonder whether the very complicated alternatives (e.g. Mixed-Member-Proportional!) are really there to simply delay a change.

Demand that your candidates earn your vote by either supporting the Preferential/RankChoice/InstantRunoff ballot, or explaining sensibly why they won't.

Other resources, e.g:    table of contents

For a good general guide to voting systems: fairvote.org .

Note that the site fairvote.ca does not present information fairly, and seems opposed to IR. My cynical conclusion is that fairvote.ca is designed to de-rail viewers from fairvote.org, and to preserve the status quo by the tactic of asking for what is not likely to happen. That would be the clear explanation for their opposition to IR, which is acknowledged to be the best method for choosing one option out of many (PR changes this by seeking several choices out of substantially more possibilities, or seeking n choices out of >n possibilities.

See Grenier, Éric (20120507): "How would Harper fare in a French-style run-off election?" in the Globe and Mail.
       See also Grenier's blog, threehundredeight.com/ .

The Wikipedia page on Instant-Runoff lists how many governments and organisations already use it.

"Instant runoff voting is used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives,[1] the President of India, members of legislative councils in India, the President of Ireland,[2] the national parliament of Papua New Guinea, and the House of Representatives of Fiji.[3] It is also used in Irish by-elections and for electing hereditary peers for the British House of Lords.[4]
IRV is employed by several jurisdictions in the United States, including Portland, Maine; San Francisco, California;[5] Oakland, California;[6] Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Saint Paul, Minnesota.[5]
It is used to elect the leaders of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom and the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in a national primary[7] and in the elections of city mayors in a number of countries. IRV is used to elect the mayor in cities such as London in the United Kingdom (in the variant known as supplementary vote)[8] and Dunedin and Wellington in New Zealand.[9]
Many private associations also use IRV,[10] including the Hugo Awards for science fiction[11] and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in selection of the Oscar for best picture.[12]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

In the UK the Preferential/InstantRun-off/RankChoice ballot is called the "Alternative vote". Here is a BBC page about the 2011 referendum.

"18 April 2011 Q&A: Alternative vote referendum
A referendum will be held in May on whether to change the system for electing MPs. Here is a guide to the issue."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11243595