Ranked-choice voting would ensure majority support
OCEAN CITY — Should a candidate have to secure a majority (more than half) of votes to win an election in New Jersey?
That’s the question advocates of rank-choice voting are asking as they push back against line voting, which they say favors particular candidates over others and can lead to victory with a simple plurality (more than anyone else) of votes.
A bill now before a state Senate committee (S1585), sponsored by state Sens. Andrew Zwicker (D-16), Linda Greenstein (D-14), Vin Gopal (D-11) and Shirley Turner (D-15), would establish ranked-choice voting procedure for elections for governor, state Senate, state general assembly, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and presidential primaries and general elections for electors for president and vice president.
It was introduced Jan. 9 in the Senate and referred to Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee.
The Ocean City and Upper Township Democratic clubs hosted Victoria Druding and Barry Bendar of VoterChoiceNJ.org on Feb. 7 at the Ocean City Free Public Library to discuss ranked-choice voting.
Druding said New Jersey’s ballot system is held up as among the worst on the national stage.
“To make ranked-choice voting relevant to our situation in New Jersey, you’ve got to understand New Jersey’s ballot and how we get candidates on that ballot,” Druding said.
The Garden State is the only one in the nation to use a county line on the ballot, usually column A and B for Democrats and Republicans, while the rest of the candidates are then list in columns to the right.
Druding said the people who get the county line have a 38 percent better chance of winning than those who do not. The problem, she said, it that line is chosen by a very small group of people and often one individual, the county party chair.
All other states use block voting in which all of the candidates are listed together in one block, with the order chosen at random.
“We want to see several changes with the ballots and we think the best way to get New Jersey to a better voting system is ranked-choice voting,” Druding said.
Under ranked-choice voting, voters rank as many candidates as they want in order of preference and ballots are counted in a series of rounds.
“Instead of voting for a candidate, you rank some or all of the candidates. To win the election, you have to have support of more than 50 percent of the people,” Bendar said.
To determine the winner, first all the first choices are counted. If any candidate has a majority (50% +1) of the votes, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and any votes cast for that candidate are transferred to the voter’s next preference (if the voter chose to rank more candidates).
If there is no candidate with more than half of the votes after the second round, another candidate is eliminated and there is another round of counting. The process is repeated as often as needed to ensure that one candidate has more than half of the votes. In that way, ranked-choice voting eliminates the “spoiler effect” and ensures that the winning candidate is preferred by more than half of the voters.
“The bottom line is, the people should always be the ones to decide who represents us,” Druding said.
She said under the current system, someone can win a seat with 30 percent of the vote, meaning 70 percent of the people wanted somebody else.
“Our current system, called plurality voting, is a major cause of toxic polarization,” Druding said.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff