They never seem to learn. It certainly is not that Ontario premier Doug Ford is any smarter. He is just being his own opinionated self. I think he said ‘no’ to ranked ballots is because his old foes at Toronto City Hall wanted them. The difference is when you have studied voting systems around the world, it is obvious that ranked ballots are a likely way to choose losers. You can get bad choices rising to the top. After all, when Doug Ford was not first choice in the ranked ballot vote for Ontario conservative leader, and if I was a conservative, I would never want to use ranked ballots again.
The trouble with ranked ballots, when there are a large number of candidates, is that the maybes rise to the top. Nobody seriously checks out ten or more candidates. You might have a second and even a third choice but after that it becomes name recognition at best. And there are people who conscientiously mark ten choices. They might as well be pinning a tail on the donkey.
In a field of four or five candidates, ranked ballots mostly work the same as first-past-the-post. It turns out that the candidate who came first often came second or third on others. In the case where the person who came first held on to the lead past the second or even third count to have more than 50 per cent of the vote. Again, the result is the same as first-past-the-post
But when you have 15 or more candidates, you have lost control. One of the key problems is that many of your ballots have run out of options before anyone passes the magic 50 per cent. You can end up with less that 50 per cent of your original votes cast making your decision. And what the heck is democratic about that?
If you believe in ranked ballots, you can carry on with your errors but I would much prefer run-off elections. At least some thought goes into the process. I expect we will have to wait until everyone trusts computers enough to use them for run-offs. I trust them now.
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Copyright 2023 © Peter Lowry
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