By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – October 17, 2024

Five states and D.C. may join the experiment. Yet Alaska is a warning.

The details differ, but the most grandiose proposals would end party primaries in favor of “jungle primaries.” Under Colorado’s Proposition 131, all candidates would appear on the same primary ballot. The top four would move on to the general election that would use ranked-choice rules. The way RCV typically works, voters are asked to mark their preferred candidates in order—say, one to four. If the tally of first choices doesn’t produce a majority winner, the bottom candidates are eliminated, one by one, and their votes reshuffled.

Idaho’s Proposition 1 would create a “top four” jungle primary, with an RCV general election. Not to be outdone, Nevada’s Question 3 would require a “top five” primary. Arizona’s Proposition 140 would let the Legislature decide how many candidates go to the general election, between two and five.

The theory of the reform is that the November ballot could feature a gaggle of mainstream figures (imagine two Republicans, a Democrat, and a Green), and the most congenial of them would emerge as the final RCV winner.

But Alaska, which adopted a “top four” RCV system in 2020, shows it doesn’t always work that way. Two years ago Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola narrowly won the state’s House race, thanks in part to infighting by the two Republicans sharing the ballot. A lesson was learned: After this year’s primary, two Republicans quit the race rather than appear on the November ballot and risk imperiling the GOP favorite, Nick Begich.

As a result, oddball figures who earned mere hundreds of primary votes have advanced to the general election. Along with Ms. Peltola and Mr. Begich, the November ballot features John Wayne Howe of the Alaskan Independence Party, who vows to “free the Nation State of Alaska.” The fourth option is Eric Hafner, also known as Inmate 00932-005 in a federal prison in New York.

Mr. Hafner is running as a Democrat, and that’s how the ballot will list him, after a lawsuit by the Alaska Democratic Party failed to disqualify him. The point is that “top four” systems are open to manipulation, with results that are no advertisement for democracy in action. Only four years after enshrining RCV, Alaskans will be asked next month whether to repeal it, and if the answer is yes on Nov. 5, no need to wonder why.

Oregon’s Measure 117 would bring RCV without abolishing party primaries. Ditto for Initiative 83 in Washington, D.C. Those measures at least are more modest efforts at reform, though voters still need to weigh whether RCV’s complexity and opacity are worth the purported benefits. In a California school-board race two years ago, an RCV goof meant that the wrong winner was announced. Mistakes happen, but what’s harder to wave away is that nobody noticed for nearly two months, until the error was flagged by an RCV advocacy group.

The true school-board winner was the candidate who supposedly placed third. RCV promises much more than it delivers as a solution to America’s polarized politics.

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Source: Ranked-Choice Voting on the Ballot – WSJ