What are the strategic downsides of a state using a non-FPTP method for presidential elections?

rob

Maine used ranked choice voting in the last presidential election, the first state to do so:
https://www.themainewire.com/2020/09/maines-high-court-rules-rcv-must-be-used-in-presidential-election/

I'd love to see other states follow suit (whether with ranked choice, approval, or whatever) but I'm concerned that most states wouldn't do it because they are likely to conclude that it is against the interests of the majority of the voters of the state.

I don't know if I have this right, so I am curious if others see a flaw in my logic.

If there are really only two main candidates in the general election, it shouldn't matter if it is FPTP or not. But let's say there is a third candidate that is popular and had wide appeal, drawing voters from each major party candidate. In other words, a candidate that could actually win under a "good" voting system.

The last I remember this happening was Ross Perot. In June before the election, he was the front runner, with 37% favorability compared to 24% for both Bill Clinton or Bush Sr. So a whole lot of people liked Perot most, but ultimately were discouraged from voting for him because they didn't think he'd be a front runner. Instead they strategically voted for either Bush or Clinton.

Perot got 19% of the votes, but of zero electoral votes since those 19% were spread pretty evenly across the country. In some states he came did come in second place, one of them actually being Maine, where he barely edged out Bush.

Now, imagine a state like Maine having RCV in that election. In that case, Perot might well have won Maine's electoral votes, if people ranked their choices sincerely. He would have a lot of first choice votes, but also have a lot more second choice votes than other candidates (since he was seen as more of a centrist). In fact, Perot got more votes than Bush in Maine under FPTP, so I'd say it is extremely likely he would have won under RCV.

But what that would do is result in Maine give their electoral votes to Perot, while the front runners nationwide were Bush and Clinton. Since the majority of Maine voters preferred Clinton to Bush, having RCV would have very likely caused their electoral votes to be wasted, rather than casting them for Maine's preference between the front runners.

Am I missing something here? And if I am right, is there any better way to implement a better voting system in a single state, when the rest of the country is using the old one?

cfrank

@rob I think you’re right, this is an unfortunate problem. Transitioning to a non vote-splitting system only locally does appear to be theoretically problematic in the context of the winner-take-all electoral college system.

I think this raises some important related issues and I’ve been trying to consider your point over the past few days or so. One thought that came to me was that if swing states accomplish a transition and simultaneously eliminate the winner-take-all aspect of their electoral points, then party platforms would be intelligent to take the interests of that state into account. I think it may introduce competition with “alternative” candidates and cause the large parties to adopt some of those alternative interests into their platform. If this logic is correct, then the strategy of transitioning to a non-vote-splitting system and eliminating bullet distributions of electoral points could actually be strategic and of direct political interest to the inhabitants of a swing state. I think this is also well-within the powers of most state constitutions.

I think if a state distributes its electoral points over the candidates according to a rank order system without vote splitting, for example, then voters would still be able to indicate their honest top choice without fearing that their vote will cause their less preferred large party candidate to win. I think those things should go hand in hand to mitigate the problem you addressed.

rob

@cfrank Well if I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that the state not be "winner take all."

The problem is that not being winner take all is also against the interests of the majority of the voters. If they were to distribute their electoral votes according to the ranking, it will dilute the state's influence.

Interestingly, Maine is one of two states that doesn't have winner take all currently, but distributes them according to congressional district. (I think I see a pattern.... Maine seems to be rather foolishly non-selfish )

But yeah there is the other perspective you mention that party platforms may consider the interests of the state when putting people on the ballot, and that may balance it out so it isn't really against their interests? I don't know.... it's a hard problem to analyze.

cfrank

@rob especially if the state is a swing state, making it more difficult for the large parties to secure voters for their platform I think would be a significant influence forcing large parties and their candidates to more scrutinizingly determine the real interests of voters in those states. It may dilute the interests of less competitive states, but since the competitive states are crucial to obtaining the presidency, the large parties will still have to invest strongly in the interests of voters in those states in order to compete with alternatives (and obviously each other) for the crucial swing points. This may lead to something like an arms race of concessions, which happened in New Zealand in 1996 and led to the national adoption of a PR system, according to Arend Lijphart. Obviously that's quite a leap for the U.S., but maybe a less extreme analogue is not so far-fetched.

Maine is one of the thirteen most competitive states for elections according to a 2016 analysis (Wikipedia: Swing state), so I’m not sure their recent establishment is actually strategically foolish, although it’s possible that it wasn’t fully thought through. I agree it isn't clear.

I think it will definitely be interesting to observe how the current political apparatus responds to Maine--and apparently, more recently, and strangely, Alaska:

https://news.yahoo.com/alaska-is-about-to-try-something-completely-new-in-the-fall-election-193615285.html

Since Alaska is far from competitive, I do think this transition was in fact foolish for the reasoning you stated, but it remains to be seen. If we saw a state like Florida transition to a system like Maine's, it would be very interesting to study the relative differences between federal treatments of Florida, Maine, and Alaska as a case study for how "swingy-ness" might influence the effect of such voting system transitions. If Maine experiences an increase in federal power, it would be a good case for the remaining swing states to make a similar transition. If that occurred, the swing states would become a platform foothold for alternative parties to grow.

Marylander

It's worth noting that Lisa Murkowski ran a write-in campaign when she was elected to the Senate in 2010 after losing the Republican primary, so despite the state being quite red they still can have the occasional competitive statewide election. IRV in that race would probably have helped Murkowski more since the Republican nominee was associated with the Tea Party and so the second preferences would've been from Democrats.

Marylander

@rob said in What are the strategic downsides of a state using a non-FPTP method for presidential elections?:

But what that would do is result in Maine give their electoral votes to Perot, while the front runners nationwide were Bush and Clinton. Since the majority of Maine voters preferred Clinton to Bush, having RCV would have very likely caused their electoral votes to be wasted, rather than casting them for Maine's preference between the front runners.

In theory if the Perot electors would matter and they are not legally required to vote for the candidate to whom they were pledged (or perhaps only legally required to if their candidate has a majority of the electoral vote), they could choose between Clinton and Bush. They might be able to negotiate some concessions from the next president, although unlike in a Parliamentary coalition, they'd have little recourse if the president didn't honor the agreement.

rob

@marylander said in What are the strategic downsides of a state using a non-FPTP method for presidential elections?:

if the Perot electors would matter and they are not legally required to vote for the candidate to whom they were pledged .... they could choose between Clinton and Bush

Yes, that is better than nothing. But it does get weird in that it is letting the electors, rather than the electorate, determine the outcome.

I'm curious if it would be possible to actually enshrine it into law what happens in that scenario. It would be fairly simple if it was only one state, but if there were multiple states doing it, it isn't so straightforward.

What if it were an interstate compact, in the same spirit as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) ? Say a few states joined it, and agreed to have the election using a ranked method. They agree to combine all the votes [1] determine an ordered ranking, then pick the highest ranking candidate that is one of the two front runners nationwide. [2]

I would suggest that doing it this way would very likely be in the interest of the states in almost any way of looking at it, and might well give those states outsized influence. Which would in turn cause other states to want to join.

possibly weighted according to their electoral college votes, so a state like Wyoming and California could both join without Wyoming losing its advantage due to its high electoral votes to population ratio
This would need to be carefully worded. It's possible that, considering only the "non-compact" states, Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton would be front runners, but that it was close enough that Perot (the compact states' choice) could still win. In that case the electoral votes of the compact states should go to Perot.

cfrank

@rob I like this concept, I was also trying to consider the prospect of interstate pacts. In the case of less competitive states, an alternative voting system pact might be set to go into effect only once a sufficiently "large" group of states enter into the agreement (maybe measured according to their electoral college points as you suggest), which could easily negate the difficulties of diminishing federal influence when competing with a large FPTP block.

I think electors tend to be mostly faithful to the interests of their states (at least as far as can be determined by the gerrymandered districts), especially I think since they have the pressure of public scrutiny to more-or-less rubber stamp the results as they come in, and hopefully they also have some humility in their own decision-making powers and confidence in the larger process. I do think it gets problematic because entrusting electors to distribute their votes according to a less black-and-white indication of state interests does give them significantly more political power and responsibility that they will also need to be held accountable for. Generally I don't mind the concept of electors/representative arbiters as long as the incentives are sorted out. The way I see it all we can hope for is a system that consistently gives results that are good enough for national success, and if such a system does the job that'd be just fine with me.

I also think it’s a good sign that we’re at the point of discussing potential issues with real large-scale implementation.