The Moral Obligation of IRV

State Sen. Chip Maxwell (R-NE)

This past week, in Nebraska, news sprung from the second congressional district that could severely change the course of the race in November.  Rep. Lee Terry (R), an eight-term backbencher whose most noted achievement in office may have been when he complained about giving up his salary during the government shutdown, on May 13th won a stunningly tight primary despite outspending his opponent by 20-1.  This news left the political world snickering, but as a whole it was the sort of thing you think about for a moment, and then keep in mind two years from now when he is running again that a more serious primary challenger may emerge.

However, that came crashing down this week when State Sen. Chip Maxwell, a very conservative member of the Nebraska Legislature, decided to challenge Terry from his right as a third party candidate.  Suddenly, this seat became a whole lot more interesting.  The reason for this isn't just that Terry will now have to stave off a challenge from the right, but that this is a district with a solid Democratic challenger against Terry (State Sen. Brad Ashford, who is one of the luckier men of the cycle).  The seat, as well, is one of the more competitive districts in the country.  Including a large portion of Omaha, the district actually voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and only gave Mitt Romney 53% of the vote in 2012 (it has a PVI of R+4, a completely manageable number given the right set of circumstances).  Perhaps most damning is that in 2012, despite absolutely no money coming in from national Democrats, John Ewing came within two points of beating Terry despite being outspent four-to-one.  This is not a seat that the Republicans, who are counting hard on making gains in the House this year, can afford to have a conservative primary challenge, and yet here it is.

All of this, you would think, would make me fairly happy.  After all, this is a dream-come-true for the Democrats, who now have a shot at a seat that we may not have been able to take otherwise, and could offset assumed House losses in North Carolina and Utah.  However, while I'm happy in theory (I do love to win), there's a larger issue here, particularly if neither Terry nor Ashford gains 50% of the vote-the majority of the voters didn't cast their ballots for the man who will represent them in Congress.

That doesn't seem fair to me, and both sides of the political spectrum have had to deal with this so frequently that I'm surprised that no one has made the jump to try and prevent something like this happening.  Democrats will frequently cite Ralph Nader when it comes to spoilers (Nader's name is still the equivalent of a swear word when you're in a blue crowd), but one could make the equally likely argument that George H.W. Bush would have been a two-term president were it not for Ross Perot.  Currently, 21 members of the U.S. Congress (10 in the House and 11 in the Senate) are serving with a majority of the people of their district voting against them.  That seems wholly against the foundation of democracy, in my opinion.  

Governors' races in particular have seen extremes in this regard.  Paul LePage in 2010 won the Maine gubernatorial race with 62% of the state voting for a more progressive candidate.  Many people can recall Jesse Ventura winning the Minnesota gubernatorial election in 1998 in a stunning upset, but few remember that 63% of the state voted against Ventura in that election (Minnesota has an oddly long history of third party spoilers, as arguably the gubernatorial elections of 1998, 2002, and 2006 all would have gone to the Democrats had there been IRV (Instant Runoff-Voting), so this is an issue that hits particularly close to home for me).  

The only real way to solve this, in my opinion, seems to be some sort of change in the way that we conduct elections by using some version of IRV.  Several states have attempted to correct this problem, with various results.  California has now introduced an open primary system, where all candidates compete against each other but only the top two candidates advance.  In theory this works-it ensures that in November that one candidate will win the majority of the votes, as there are only two candidates on the ballot.  It does, however, present a significant problem in that vote-splitting could cause one party to fracture its vote enough to cause the other party to take advantage.  We saw that in 2012 in the 31st district, where, despite receiving 48.51% of the votes cast, the Democratic Party didn't have a candidate on the ballot for the general election in November since that 48% of the vote was spread amongst four candidates (this was in a district that President Obama got 57% of the vote in, meaning that a Democrat who made it through almost assuredly would have won the seat).  Louisiana does a similar sort of system, but poses the same set of risks.

Another system was utilized in Minneapolis last year, where a ranked choice voting style was employed (the candidates ranked their choices, rather than just voting for one particular candidate).  While there's definitely a level of democracy at play here that few would deny, the race itself proved how ridiculous this could become: 35 candidates ran for the office, making the entire campaign feel more like a carnival act than a race for a major political office.  This may have been easier to solve if they had had a higher bar to get onto the ballot (clearly, that needs to be discussed), but this is another option.

My personal favorite, therefore, is what happens in Georgia.  A runoff is required for both the primary and the general election if no candidate reaches 50%.  This still gives both parties their current structure to make it to the general election (so no instances like CA-31), but also requires that ultimately, a candidate must reach 50% of the electorate in order to win, and must have 50% of their party's support in order to compete.  This isn't a perfect system (it does disenfranchise to a certain extent third, or more accurately fourth parties, as there is still a risk that you could cast a vote for a Green causing the Democrat to lose to a Libertarian to get a runoff spot, for example), but as a whole it presents the best possible compromise in my opinion.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  What do you think is the fairest way to elect our public officials?  Do you think that spoilers will factor into races like Nebraska this November?  Share in the comments!