Part of the Politics series |
Electoral systems |
---|
Politicsportal |
A top-four primary [1] or top-four ranked-choice voting [2] is an election method using a nonpartisan blanket primary where up to four candidates, those with the most votes, advance from a first round of FPTP voting, regardless of the political party. The round two (general) election, held some weeks later, uses instant-runoff voting (IRV, also known as ranked-choice voting, RCV) to confirm a winner among the top set of candidates. [3] [4]
Its first use was in 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election. It can be seen as a replacement to the blanket primary which advances only the top-two candidates. It was first advocated by FairVote in 2012 [5] [6] with a statutory model proposed in 2015. [7]
A top-four primary can be seen as a variation of a two-round system where the second round (general election) is always held, even if a candidate gains a majority in the first (primary) round. A candidate receiving 20% of the primary vote is logically guaranteed to pass a top-four primary. [8]
One variation, called Final Five Voting, allows five candidates to pass the open primary. [9]
The 2020 Alaska Measure 2 initiative in Alaska for top-four primary narrowly passed with 50.55% of the vote. [1] It will be used for all state and federal elections except for the president. The Alaskan Independence Party sued, declaring Ballot Measure 2 as unconstitutional. On January 19, 2022, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the measure was constitutional. [10]
The blanket primary is held using first past the post, with voters allowed one vote, and the four candidates with the most votes advancing to the general. The general election ballot allows candidates to be ranked, using Instant-runoff voting elimination to identify a majority winner. The first top-four primary election occurred on August 16, 2022. [11]
For Alaska's 2022 at-large congressional district special election, 48 candidates registered, while only 9 candidates were invited to a first panel discussion: 5 Republicans, 2 Democrats and 2 independents based on various criteria. [12] Despite 48 candidates, the Special election June primary resulted in the top-4 candidates gaining 68.8% of the vote: Sarah Palin 27.01%, Nick Begich, III 19.12%, Al Gross 12.63%, Mary Peltola 10.08%, with the 5th candidate Tara Sweeney at 5.92%. Al Gross withdrew after the primary, and suggested 5th place Sweeney be included in the final ballot, but this was not allowed. [13] [14]
In the general election, Republican votes were split between Palin and Peltola, [15] [16] [17] causing Begich to be eliminated first (despite being preferred by a majority of voters over both other candidates). [18] [19] [20] [21] Votes were then transferred to both Palin and Peltola, resulting in Peltola winning.
The Better Elections campaign of Missouri collected 300,000 signature for a Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting for local, state, and Federal Officials, needing 160,199 valid signatures. The initiative would have been voted on in November 2022. [22] [23] [2] However, the signatures needed to be distributed among six congressional districts to qualify, and the campaign did not collect enough in Missouri's 1st District, so the initiative was rejected. [24] [25] The ballot initiative will be attempted again. [26]
Petitions sponsored by Katherine M. Gehl and Institute for Political Innovation.
Nevada Voters First has a petition for a Top-Five Ranked-Choice Voting Initiative, if enough signatures will appear on the ballot on November 8, 2022. At least 135,561 valid signatures are required by June 21, 2022 for the initiative to make the ballot, with the group backing the voting overhaul announcing it has gathered more than 266,000 signatures. [27]
The initiative would amend the Nevada Constitution to establish open top-five primaries and instant-runoff voting for general elections. It would allow the 35% of voters who are not registered to a party to influence the candidates who advance to the general election. The change would apply to congressional, gubernatorial, state executive offices, and state legislative elections. Supportive legislation would be required for adopted by July 1, 2025. [28]
With a pick-one, top-four primary, advancing top-four candidates maintains a threat of vote splitting, same as a pick-one nonpartisan blanket primary top-two primary, just a little more generous with 4 candidates remaining. There may be multiple candidates eliminated below fourth place, while some could have advanced if fewer candidates had run and split their vote.
For illustration, a party with 48% could theoretically win all top-four if their four candidates each earned 12%, while a stronger 52% majority party might equally split their votes at 10.4% each and lose all five candidates. Vote-splitting will be experienced as threatening to parties who may lose all their candidates, compared to a closed primary where one candidate from each party always advances.
Likewise, the use of sequential-elimination ranked IRV in the primary also suffers from vote-splitting. [31] [32] [33] [34] [15] [16] [17] Candidates are eliminated based only on first-choice votes, which become split between similar candidates vying for them. The transfer of votes between candidates mitigates this effect somewhat (when two candidates have identical appeal to voters and their votes wholly transfer to each other) but does not eliminate it in the general case, as advocates claim. [35] [36] To avoid vote-splitting in the RCV general election, parties must still try to discourage too many candidates running under their label, and party voters need to be informed which candidates are most likely to advance to avoid wasting their vote.
An argument in favor of a pick-one top-four primary is that people's first rank choices are most important and the eventual winner of the election will most likely be among the top-four first-rank choices. A pick-one top-four primary can be considered a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system.
An argument in favor of using IRV sequential-elimination in the primary is that more voters help pick the top-four, and marginally more will be happy with supporting at least one in the general election.[ clarification needed ]
The uniting feature of all variations is to reduce the field of candidates in a primary round, and confirming a majority winner in the general election. Ranked ballots enables a majority winner among more than two candidates.
Pick-one | Ranked-choice | ||
---|---|---|---|
Simple | With floor threshold | Sequential elimination | With floor and consolidation thresholds |
Sequential | Top-two |
---|---|
All of these variations, including a traditional nonpartisan blanket primary, allow a majority to confirm the winner.
# | Round one (primary) | Round two (general) | Implementations |
---|---|---|---|
Pick-one, top-two advance | Pick-one | Traditional nonpartisan blanket primary | |
1 | Pick-one, top-four advance | Top-two IRV | |
2 | Pick-one, top-four advance | Ranked IRV, sequential-elimination | Alaska [10] |
3 | Ranked-choice, sequential-elimination until at most four remain | Ranked IRV, sequential-elimination | |
4 | Ranked-choice, sequential-elimination until at most four remain | Top-two IRV | |
5 | (Any top-four process) | Round-robin voting |
The two-round system (TRS), also known as runoff voting, second ballot, or ballotage, is a voting method used to elect a single candidate, where voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. It generally ensures a majoritarian result, not a simple-plurality result as under first past the post. Under the two-round election system, the election process usually proceeds to a second round only if in the first round no candidate received an absolute majority of votes cast, or some other lower prescribed percentage. Under the two-round system, usually only the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round, or only those candidates who received above a prescribed proportion of the votes, are candidates in the second round. Other candidates are excluded from the second round.
In social choice theory and politics, the spoiler effect refers to a situation where the entry of a losing (that is, irrelevant) candidate affects the results of an election. A voting system that is not affected by spoilers satisfies independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) or independence of spoilers.
A Condorcet method is an election method that elects the candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidates, whenever there is such a candidate. A candidate with this property, the pairwise champion or beats-all winner, is formally called the Condorcet winner. The head-to-head elections need not be done separately; a voter's choice within any given pair can be determined from the ranking.
The monotonicity criterion, also called positive response, is a principle of social choice theory that says voters should never have a negative effect on an election's results. In other words, increasing a winning candidate's grade should not cause them to lose.
The Borda count electoral system can be combined with an instant-runoff procedure to create hybrid election methods that are called Nanson method and Baldwin method. Both methods are designed to satisfy the Condorcet criterion, and allow for incomplete ballots and equal rankings.
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of the political party. Partisan elections are, on the other hand, segregated by political party. Nonpartisan blanket primaries are slightly different from most other elections systems with two rounds/a runoff, also known as "jungle primaries" , in a few ways. The first round of a nonpartisan blanket primary is officially the "primary." Round two is the "general election." Round two must be held, even if one candidate receives a majority in the first round.
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting method used in single-seat elections with more than two candidates. Instead of voting only for a single candidate, voters in IRV elections can rank the candidates in order of preference. Ballots are initially counted for each elector's top choice, losing candidates are eliminated, and ballots for losing candidates are redistributed until one candidate is the top remaining choice of a majority of the voters. When the field is reduced to two, it has become an "instant runoff" that allows a comparison of the top two candidates head-to-head.
Electoral reform in Alaska refers to efforts to change the voting laws in this U.S. state. U.S. Senator John McCain and other Republicans endorsed a referendum to implement Instant Runoff Voting, after the conservative vote split between the Republican candidate and the Alaskan Independence Party candidate, allowing a Democrat to win the governorship. However, the League of Women Voters opposed it, citing the principle of one man, one vote, and the measure was defeated. Another issue is whether Alaska will join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and designate its three electors to the candidate winning the nationwide popular vote, rather than the winner of the state's vote. SB 138, a bill to do just that, was introduced in 2007, but was not approved.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) can refer to one of several ranked voting methods used in some cities and states in the United States. The term is not strictly defined, but most often refers to instant-runoff voting (IRV) or single transferable vote (STV).
Mary Sattler Peltola is an American politician and former tribal judge serving as the U.S. representative from Alaska's at-large congressional district since September 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as a judge on the Orutsararmiut Native Council's tribal court, executive director of the Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Bethel city councilor and member of the Alaska House of Representatives.
Instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as plurality with elimination or plurality loser, is a ranked-choice voting system that modifies plurality by repeatedly eliminating the last-place winner until only one candidate is left. In the United Kingdom, it is generally called the alternative vote (AV). In the United States, IRV is often referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV), by way of conflation with ranked voting systems in general.
The 2009 Burlington mayoral election was held in March 2009 for the city of Burlington, Vermont. This was the second mayoral election since the city's 2005 change to instant-runoff voting (IRV), after the 2006 mayoral election. In the 2009 election, incumbent Burlington mayor won reelection as a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, defeating Kurt Wright in the final round with 48% of the vote. The election created a controversy over several election pathologies, after Kiss was declared winner as a result of 750 votes cast against his candidacy, over the objections of the 54% of Burlington voters who had preferred Andy Montroll.
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
The term ranked voting, also known as preferential voting or ranked-choice voting, pertains to any voting system where voters indicate a rank to order candidates or options—in a sequence from first, second, third, and onwards—on their ballots. Ranked voting systems vary based on the ballot marking process, how preferences are tabulated and counted, the number of seats available for election, and whether voters are allowed to rank candidates equally.
A unified primary is an electoral system for narrowing the field of candidates for a single-winner election, similar to a nonpartisan blanket primary, but using approval voting for the first round, advancing the top-two candidates, allowing voters to confirm the majority-supported candidate in the general election.
The 2022 Alaska gubernatorial election was held on Tuesday November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Alaska. Incumbent Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy won re-election to a second term, becoming the first Republican governor to be re-elected to a second term since Jay Hammond in 1978 and the first governor, regardless of political affiliation, to be re-elected to a second term since Tony Knowles in 1998.
The November 2022 United States House of Representatives election in Alaska was held on Tuesday, November 8, to elect a member of the United States House of Representatives to represent the state of Alaska. Democratic incumbent Mary Peltola won reelection to a full term in office, defeating Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III and Libertarian Chris Bye in the runoff count.
The 2022 Alaska Senate elections took place on November 8, 2022, with the primary elections being held on August 16, 2022. State senators serve four-year terms in the Alaska Senate, with half of the seats normally up for election every two years. However, because most districts were greatly changed in redistricting, elections were held for 19 of the 20 seats; the only exception is District T, represented by Democrat Donny Olson, which was mostly unchanged in redistricting and thus did not have an election. Some senators were elected to serve four-year terms, while others would serve shortened two-year terms.
The 2022 Alaska at-large congressional district special election was held on August 16 to fill the seat left vacant after the death of Republican incumbent Don Young. Mary Peltola defeated former governor Sarah Palin in the election, becoming the first Democrat to represent Alaska in the House since 1972, the first Alaska Native elected to Congress, and the first woman elected to represent Alaska in the House.
The 2022 Alaska state elections took place on November 8, 2022. The state also held Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA) elections on the first Tuesday in October.
Begich and Palin … split the Republican share of the vote in an August special election, allowing Peltola to come away with the victory
Peltola would have still won under traditional rules because she finished first while the two Republicans split the GOP vote share.
the Republican vote was split nearly equally between Palin and Nick Begich
Begich wins both of his head-to-head matchups against the other two candidates
the other Republican in the race, Nick Begich, would have defeated Rep.-elect Mary Peltola (D) if the race had boiled down to the two of them.
Palin and Begich split the Republican first-choice votes with 31.3 percent and 28.5 percent respectively … The FairVote analysis reveals that in any scenario except the one that played out, Begich would have won.
Better Elections did not have sufficient signatures in the 1st District, where tabulation is complete.
IRV is subject to something called the "center squeeze." A popular moderate can receive relatively few first-place votes through no fault of her own but because of vote splitting from candidates to the right and left.
RCV does not eliminate spoilers or vote-splitting, and studies show that they can occur in 1 in 5 competitive elections
On the surface, with all the ranking transfers that RCV does, it looks like RCV addresses the vote splitting issue. But it only does so a little bit.
There are four core arguments in favor of top-four primary systems: … (d) avoid "vote splitting."
It eliminates "vote splitting" or the idea of "throwing your vote away" in order to vote your conscience.