| Fixing California's Recall
By Robert Richie and Steven Hill
OpEdNews.COM
California has become home to this year's biggest
political circus.
Governor Gray Davis may be booted out in a special
recall election. His replacement could be...almost anyone, ranging from
previous Republican losers Bill Simon and Bill Riordan to Arnold "The
Terminator" Schwarzenegger to pornographer Larry Flynt to the Green
Party's Peter Camejo.
One of the reasons for the chaotic uncertainty of Davis'
possible replacement is that the first-place finisher will take office no
matter how small the percentage of their vote. Twenty percent, fifteen
percent, no amount is too small, in this "highest vote-getter
wins" roll of the dice.
For a sense of what that means, how does "President
Pat Buchanan" sound?
In 1996, Buchanan "won" the New Hampshire
primary with barely 25% of the vote. If the Republican field had remained
divided, Buchanan could have ridden similar plurality victories to the
Republican nomination despite clearly not being the party's majority
choice.
As happens in every big-candidate field with plurality
voting, this fall much attention will focus on which California candidates
are "spoilers." Did independent John Anderson "spoil"
Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential race? How much did Ross Perot hurt
George Bush in 1992? Did Ralph Nader elect George W. Bush in 2000?
Having a range of strong candidates participate
seemingly should strengthen democracy, providing voters with more
opportunity to consider issues, a wider range of political debate, and
greater incentives to vote. But the plurality voting system makes it
possible for the highest vote-getter to win, even if that candidate is not
preferred by a majority of voters. That turns democratic principles on
their head.
We should no longer accept a system where credible
candidates are dismissed as mere spoilers, and where voting for your
favorite presidential or gubernatorial candidate can contribute directly
to the election of your least favorite -- particularly if that candidate
is opposed by a majority. Even as California showcases the bizarre
realities of plurality voting, sensible alternatives exist.
Other cities and nations use a method known as instant
runoff voting.
With the instant runoff, voters select their favorite
candidate, and at the same time can indicate their runoff choices by
ranking their choices as 1, 2 and 3. If a candidate receives a majority of
first choices, the election is over. If not, the candidate with the fewest
votes is eliminated, and a runoff round of counting occurs. In this runoff
round, your ballot counts for your top-ranked candidate still in the race.
Runoff rounds continue until there is a majority winner.
By adopting instant runoff voting in all of our big
races for executive offices, we would determine a true majority winner in
one election and banish the spoiler concept. Voters would not have to
calculate possible unintended consequences of voting for their favorite
candidate, and ending up with their least favorite. Voters would be
liberated to vote for the candidates they truly like, because if their
first choice didn't win their runoff vote would go to their second choice.
Under this system, in 2000 those liberals who liked
Ralph Nader but worried about George Bush could have ranked Nader first
and Al Gore second. Similarly, hard-line conservatives that year could
have ranked Pat Buchanan first and George Bush second. Rather than
contributing to Gore's or Bush's defeat, Nader and Buchanan instead could
have stimulated debate and mobilized new voters. And the winner would have
had to demonstrate majority support, as neither Bush nor Gore won a
majority of the vote in Florida or the nation.
Our primitive voting system is our elections' real
spoiler. Instant runoff voting would give us a more participatory, vital
democracy, where candidates could be judged on their merits, and the will
of the majority would prevail. Voters would be free to vote their hopes,
instead of their fears. California has led the nation many times in the
past. The nightmare of the impending recall should spur California to lead
in changing its "plurality wins all" method to a fairer, more
sensible method like instant runoff voting.
Robert Richie is executive director of the Center for
Voting and Democracy (www.fairvote.org) and Steven Hill is the Center's
senior analyst and author of "Fixing Elections: The Failure of
America's Winner Take All Politics" (www.FixingElections.com).) For
more information, contact: PO Box 60037, Washington, DC 20039 |
