Ranked Choice Voting, Minority Rule, and Maine's Second Congressional District

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by Gaius Publius

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure.

—James Madison, on why a Senate is needed to counterbalance the majoritarian House

Minority rule occurs in a political system when a small group of citizens is able to force its will on the large group of which it is a part. Minority rule describes what we have in the United States. A minority of our citizens, self-styled Republicans, write the rules that govern all of the rest of us — Democrats, independents and non-voters.

Mechanisms for creating and enforcing minority rule are many. In the U.S., those mechanisms start with the U.S. Constitution, which has many anti-majority features, such as the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate. According to the New York Times, for example, "a majority of the Senate now represents just 18 percent of the nation’s population." Because most of that majority, senators from the 25 smallest states, are Republicans, control of the minority-empowering Senate has been achieved by the political party (of the two viable parties) representing the fewest people.

In fact, the original plan for the selection of senators wasn't even by popular vote, but by the various state legislators. The people were to have no direct say at all in who represented them in the Senate — again, by design.

Other anti-majoritarian U.S. institutions include the U.S. Supreme Court, in which five unelected justices can nullify ("declare unconstitutional") any act of Congress they wish without review or appeal; and the Senate filibuster, by which a minority of senators can block passage of bills supported by the majority. Senators representing just 44% of the country recently confirmed the deeply unpopular Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, where he will likely serve for life.

One could easily add the ease of gerrymandering congressional districts to this list. And our elections themselves, in which the winner is determined by whoever gets the most votes, sometimes supports minority rule, since the person getting the most votes doesn't always get a majority of the votes. In as many ways as possible, it seems, the U.S. is designed to be governed by powerful minorities.

So what are the offsets to these anti-majority mechanisms? Obviously, major constitutional reform is needed in more than one area. But one way to avoid rule by the minority in elections is by implementing something called "ranked choice voting."

Watch the short video below to see, first, how ranked choice voting works, and second, how it's working in Maine, where Democrat Jared Golden is in a tight race against a Republican and two independents in the Maine's second district.

Maine is pioneering ranked choice voting in its federal elections this fall and it could change everything about the way that candidates campaign — and win. We take a look at the race for Maine's 2nd Congressional District, where ranked choice voting could decide the race. pic.twitter.com/iBkDRdhFwD

— The Fix (@thefix) October 31, 2018

Notice that even though the measure is called undemocratic by some and even unconstitutional by others, it's neither. The fact that it's mainly opposed by Republicans is an added indicator that it solves at least part of the problem of rule by a minority.

I'd like to emphasize two points before ending. First, our current voting system is called "plurality voting" because a majority is not required to produce a winner; a plurality of the votes cast will do it. Recall that President Clinton won his first election with just 43% of the popular vote (a plurality, not a majority), but 55% of the Electoral College. Ranked choice voting always requires an absolute majority of votes — 50% plus 1 — before a winner is declared.

Second, the argument that ranked choice voting sometimes produces anti-progressive results (i.e., sometimes benefits Republicans and corporate Democrats) is accurate. Ranked choice voting simply enables the will of the majority, whatever that will is at the time the vote is taken. And majorities too sometimes go off the rails.

Yet is that a reason not to support it? After all, if progressives are people who believe in expanding the electorate, rather than just expanding our electorate, it should make simple sense to support and enact ranked choice voting wherever possible.

After all, expanding only our electorate is what Republicans do, right?

GP