Our guest contributor is Steve Barratt, co-Founder of the Facebook group, Coalition For Citizen Initiative New Jersey. Thank you very much to Steve for the time and effort he put into this piece.
Why Do We Need Ranked Choice Voting?
Are we really a majority rule democracy?
Under the current system, the candidate with the most votes wins. This is known as “Plurality Voting.” As the number of candidates grows, the number of votes needed to win shrinks. In a four-way election, the winning candidate needs as little as 26% of the vote to win. Another way to look at this is that a candidate can win while 74% of voters preferred someone else.
Negative campaigning works in this plurality system.
A candidate with a strong base can win by tearing down the other candidates and winning with a minority of support. This encourages negative campaigning and enhances the effectiveness of anonymous money that comes in from outside the jurisdiction where the election is taking place.
Voters must vote strategically.
Our current election practices do two things to hurt democracy; they discourage more than two candidates from running and, when there is more than two candidates, they discourage voters from choosing their preferred candidate out of a fear that their vote will be “wasted” allowing the lesser candidate to win. This tendency to choose the “lesser of two evils” instead of the preferred third-party candidate skews the election outcome even before election day when polling inadvertently undercounts third party support.
Ranked Choice Voting IS Majority Rule.
Simply stated, Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is also known as “Instant Run-off.” Voters can mark their ballot for candidates in order of preference. If their first preference candidate cannot win, their vote will be cast for the candidate they marked as their second preference. If that candidate cannot win, their vote goes to their third preference. And so on. It’s just like when you go out to dinner: “I’d really like the Fish but if that’s not available, I’ll have the steak.”
Ranked Choice voting ensures that the candidate that is elected has the support of a majority of voters – over 50%. With the ability to easily accommodate more than two candidates, Ranked Choice Voting makes elections more competitive and forces candidates to run positive campaigns that can attract a greater variety of voters. Negative campaigning becomes a very risky proposition. RCV also reduces the effectiveness of outside dark money that is usually spent on negative campaigning.
Why do we need an Open-Primary Election?
Today, the primary elections are controlled by two major parties.
They have their preferred candidates and those candidates are placed in a favorable position on the primary ballot called the “County Line.” This position has been shown to afford that candidate a 35% point advantage over the other candidates. This is the reason that so many primary races are unopposed in New Jersey, particularly for incumbents. In fact, long serving incumbents have been known to drop out of their race for reelection when they have lost their position on the County Line.
There is little or no competition in our electoral system.
Competition for nomination is discouraged in the major parties. The line also makes incumbents more accountable to their party leadership for their position than to their voters. Candidates that lose in the primary are forbidden by law to run in the general election against their party. This is in the interest of “party unity.”
When was the last time a candidate for office approached you to ask for your vote? That’s right, they don’t have to. The party made them your only choice.
How do candidates get on the County Line? It differs by county. In some counties they are elected to the line by the county party committee. That’s a few hundred party faithful. In other counties, candidates are placed on the Line by the county party leader.
2.4 Million Voters are not welcomed to vote in primaries.
38 Percent of voters in New Jersey are not affiliated with a political party. They pay taxes just like major party members but they are not allowed to vote in a primary election unless they first join a party. The lack of competition described above provides little incentive to join a party to essentially rubber-stamp the choices made by party leadership. So thirty eight cents out of every dollar spent by the State to put on the primary elections comes from people who are not invited to the primaries.
An Open Primary would restore true competition to our electoral process.
A single open primary, open to all voters and all candidates, would make the process of candidate selection more democratic. The top four vote-getters in the primary election would be nominated to run in the general election. The general election would use RCV rules to select the candidate that is preferred by the majority.
Why do we need to reform Congressional Redistricting and Legislative Reapportionment?
Who draws the voting districts for Congress and the State in New Jersey?
According to the New Jersey State Constitution, the commissions that draw voting districts in New Jersey are made up of six members from each of the two parties that received the largest number of votes in the most recent gubernatorial election.
The redistricting process is open only to major party members.
Why only politicians? Why not community leaders that do not have a political party interest? The parties now represent less than 65% of voters in New Jersey. Who represents the rest of the voters in the process for grouping voters in the districts that will elect our political leaders?
The first key to party power is in the process of drawing voting districts.
This is referred to as Gerrymandering. In New Jersey, the parties work together to make sure incumbents’ districts are not dismantled or that incumbents are not disadvantaged when the decennial census is released triggering a redrawing of voting districts.
Look at the shape of many of the districts to get a hint at the level of manipulation. There are even stories of legislative leaders moving their residence in order to remain in power. Some communities are split between voting districts in order to provide enough voters to make an additional district friendly to RED or BLUE.
So when the party places a candidate on the County Line in a “friendly” district, they will win the primary and they will win the general election. No need to worry about voters!
Party politicians should have no influence in the drawing of districts. Their participation is a conflict of interest.
The process of redrawing districts is in the constitution.
Changing this corrupt system will require an amendment to the state constitution.