Candidates are scurrying around again filing to run for local offices, a sure sign that another election season is about to poke us in the face with rhetoric, organizing, television ads, direct mail, red, white and blue.
Fourteen Charleston County municipalities have general elections on the first Tuesday of November. In some places around the state, like North Charleston, the candidate who gets the most votes wins, meaning someone in a four-way race could win with just 30% of the vote. But in other towns and cities like Charleston, candidates have to get 50% plus one vote to win. And if no candidate gets above the required threshold? A runoff, two weeks later.
These runoffs can be expensive, what with more poll workers and a second election process. Tired candidates and campaign staff have to spend more money and time to lure voters back to polls.
To highlight the craziness inflicted by runoff voting, just turn to Georgia’s recent June Democratic primary in a special election for two seats on its Public Service Commission after a lawsuit delayed the election. In June, turnout was really low — with a paltry 207,954 voters of 7.4 million statewide casting ballots. The leading candidate for one seat got 46% of the vote, which sent the contest to a runoff. In the second election, turnout was even worse with just 114,572 people — 1.56% of the state’s registered voters in its 159 counties — casting ballots. According to one estimate, that runoff election cost $10 million.
Fortunately, there is a better way — instant runoff voting, also called ranked-choice voting. It costs virtually nothing. Here’s how it works: On election day, voters rank their choices for each candidate in a race. In other words, they choose candidates in the order that they prefer them. So if you really like Candidate A, you rank her first, but then you consider who you would rank second, third or fourth if Candidate A doesn’t win outright.
When election officials count the votes and if no candidate gets a majority, the candidate in last place is eliminated — and that bottom candidate’s votes are reassigned as ranked on each voter’s ballot to the remaining candidates. Then votes are tallied again. The process continues until one candidate wins a majority.
Ranked-choice voting has been working for a long time in Australia and other countries. More recently, New York City voters tapped a newcomer, Zohran Mamdani, to be the Democratic nominee in a city where many insiders thought former Gov. Andrew Cuomo would prevail. (In the original tally, Mamdani got 43.5% of the vote to Cuomo’s 36.4% but won the election after the tally of ranked-choice preferences.)
This instant runoff system has huge advantages because it promotes civility and less mudslinging. If a candidate is really nasty, for example, it’s likely he or she would get passed over for a second or third ranking. The ranked voting process also is shown to generate real conversations and bridge-building. And it saves money and time.
Contact your state legislators and encourage them to pass a law that would allow municipalities to adopt instant runoff voting. It would be better for us all.
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