🧒 Engaging Young People - State capital visits, mock elections, student school board members, and more
💡 Better Ways for Parties and Legislators to Pick Leaders - Combining the old and the new
⚡The Case for Faster Runoff Elections - Balancing voter access and voter energy
🕓 This Week’s Timely Links - Free press, judicial elections, social media, weak plurality winners, new RCV support
In keeping with The Fulcrum’s mission to share ideas that help to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives, we intend to publish The Expand Democracy 5 in The Fulcrum each Friday.
If you want to suggest a pro-democracy idea for coverage in The Expand Democracy 5, please use the contact form at Expand Democracy.
Future of RCV is Bright - Energy and trends favor voter choice 🌟Dubbed “Mr. Ranked Choice Voting” by Andrew Yang in his podcast with me in 2022, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the future of the movement for ranked choice voting (RCV). Last year, RCV on its own lost on the ballot in Oregon. RCV’s pairing with all-candidate primaries was upheld in Alaska, but that reform package lost in Nevada (by 6%), Colorado (by 7%), and Idaho (by a landslide). Following the 2022 lead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, 16 Republican-run states have performatively “banned” RCV - and while no such “ban” stopped a current use of RCV, it signaled partisan opposition after years of RCV earning support across the partisan spectrum..
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I’m as disappointed with these setbacks as any backer of RCV, but my optimism for America’s eventual shift to RCV - and more broadly, to redefining voting as ranking – is as high as ever. Eveline, Cynthia Richie Terrell, and I are working on a book to be published next year where we’ll lay out the case for that change, and I wanted to share a few toplines about where we are:
To be clear, I’m not calling the shots for future RCV advocacy, but am an advisor to groups like FairVote that do. I’m impressed with the RCV movement’s leadership and confident that we’ll have much good news to share on RCV for years to come.
[Rob Richie hiking in Oregon in 2023.]
Engaging Young People - State capital visits, mock elections, student school board members, and moreAs we experience declines in democratic institutions across the world (with average declines in democracy ratings every year of this century, according to Freedom House), it becomes all the more imperative to invest in our young people as they go through our K-12 education system and enter their adult role as governing citizens. Some nations, like Sweden, take this exceptionally seriously, offering year-long civic education classes in the spirit of “driver’s ed.” These classes include trips for every student to the national capital to participate in a mock parliament and see the actual parliament in action; American civic education lags.
There are some great groups working to address what can be done. Founded by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, ICivics has an ambitious vision. Citizen University brings together a range of key civic players. For examples of ideas that earned my support over the years, here are four from FairVote’s blog and old policy guide:
[Stanford has used RCV since 2001 to elect Associated Students of Stanford University executive officers and class presidents. Source: The Stanford Report]
Better Ways for Parties and Legislators to Pick Leaders - Combining the old and the new 💡Last week, Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly tragically died of cancer. A special election will be held to fill his House seat later this year, while Politico reports that on June 24th, the Democratic caucus in the House will hold a vote to fill the ranking Democrat on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that, “is shaping up to be a competitive four-way race that could test Democrats’ adherence to their seniority system for committee leadership and appetite to elevate younger members. Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, and Robert Garcia of California are all expected to run for the position.”
In 2022, House Democrats nearly enacted a rule change to hold such caucus elections with ranked choice voting. Recommended by Robert’s Rules of Order as an alternative to a series of single-choice elections until a candidate secures a majority of the vote, RCV is widely used by private organizations and parties. It encourages voters to consider all their options in ways that align with a desire for more collaborative, consensus-driven leadership. Already, a number of Democratic state parties have turned to RCV for internal elections, including party chair elections in Wisconsin and Iowa.
RCV works well in such settings, but it may not come with as much deliberation and negotiation as with multiple rounds of voting. When voters gather in person for a significant internal election, such as selecting a national party chair, a presidential nominee at a convention, or the Speaker of the House, I recommend striking a balance between straightforward RCV and multiple rounds of voting. An example would involve starting with two or three single-choice voting rounds, which would allow voters to see where the candidates stand, engage in discussion and negotiation between rounds, and then “call the question” with a binding RCV election. That approach would allow time to identify compromise choices where needed, but it would still benefit from how RCV encourages both voters and candidates to engage beyond their first-choice support.
Calling the question can also be very important. In 1924, national Democrats held 103 rounds of voting to pick a presidential nominee, adding days to their convention. In 2023, Congress was put on hold for four days while Republicans sought to elect a Speaker of the House over 15 rounds of voting. Combining a few rounds of voting with a decisive vote utilizing RCV would limit delays and diminish the influence of those primarily aiming to obstruct outcomes rather than contribute to them.
[The late ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerry Connolly. Source: ABC News]
The Case for Faster Runoff Elections – Balancing voter access and voter energy ⚡ Guest-blogging for Rick Hasen’s ever-valuable election law blog, Loyola law professor Justin Levitt lifted up news coverage from the Massachusetts city of New Bedford on the challenges of holding a winnowing primary and general election four weeks apart, terming that turnaround time a “horrible idea.” With full respect for Justin and great empathy for the pressures on election officials, I want to push back against the idea that longer gaps between runoff rounds are better for democracy.
The reality is that longer gaps between rounds are worse for voter turnout. University of Georgia professor Charles Bullock has a new manuscript on runoff elections that builds on his impressive academic work on this issue. It can’t reach the public too soon, as how we conduct runoff elections is an important question – not only in the nine states using runoff elections in their primary and/or general elections, but also in many major cities and in states that may vote on variations of California’s Top Two primary model and Louisiana’s all-candidate election model. A teaser from Bullock’s forthcoming book reveals that among the runoffs he studied, voter turnout declined by 12% on average in the 1,234 runoffs where the runoff period was less than four weeks. For the 879 runoffs where the runoff period was exactly four weeks, the average decline was over 26%. For the 590 runoffs where the runoff period was more than four weeks, the average turnout decline was nearly 40%.
FairVote has identified similar patterns in its important report on all 294 congressional primary runoffs held between 1994 and 2024. It found turnout decreased from the primary to the runoff in 97% of contests by a median of 41%. In 2024, the pattern was even more stark, with turnout declines in all 16 runoffs, with a median decline of 63% and with fully 81% of winners receiving fewer votes in the runoff than in the first round.
FairVote also affirms the influence of runoff time, with author Rachel Hutchinson writing: “Since 1994, runoffs held within 30 days of the initial primary had a median turnout decline of 33%, while those with a gap greater than 30 days had a median decline of 48%.” Notably, the 2024 runoff with the smallest decline (still high at 32%) was in South Carolina, where the runoff period is just two weeks, based in part on having its overseas voters cast instant runoff ballots. This turnout difference based on time intuitively makes sense. A faster runoff makes the two rounds of voting feel more like a single contest. Imagine if the gap between National Football League games were six weeks rather than one, or the impact on ratings if a TV show’s final annual episode premiered two months after its previous episode.
As we examine election reforms, I’m an obvious fan of ranked choice voting, or “instant runoffs." However, for states and cities that have two rounds of voting, discovering ways to merge them into a single, engaging election session is highly appealing. Notably, it’s quite common overseas, such as the two-week runoff for France’s presidential elections (where in 2022, the turnout was 73.7% in the first round and 72% in the runoff) and the two weeks needed for Romania’s recent presidential runoff, where turnout surged from 53.2% to 64.7%. Exploring how to keep the runoff period under a month is worth the effort.
[Source: FairVote, 2024]
Timely Links - Free Press, judicial elections, social media, weak plurality winners, new RCV supportWe close The Expand Democracy 5 with notable links:
