2 June 2016

A Montana election that makes the case for Instant Runoff voting

Montana awards elections to the candidate receiving the most votes. Only a plurality is required. That works well enough in elections that are effectively two-party contests, but in contests featuring three or more viable candidates, a conservative candidate might prevail because the liberal votes were split. Or vice versa.

That kind of peverse outcome could occur in Montana’s Public Service Commission’s district 3 election this fall. As noted at Montana Cowgirl in a guest column by Sam Hunthausen, Caron Cooper managed to qualify as an independent candidate for the office, joining Democrat Pat Noonan and incumbent Republican Roger Koopman on the ballot.

Cooper initially filed for the Democratic nomination, but chose to run as an independent after concluding she couldn’t beat Noonan in the primary.

Koopman could, of course, be re-elected by a majority even in a three-way contest.

But if Cooper and Noonan split the liberal vote, and the majority of the votes cast in the election were liberal, Koopman could win by a plurality despite espousing the political philosophy least popular with the voters.

There’s a way to avoid that. It’s called an Instant Runoff election, and employs what’s known as ranked choice voting. There’s a good description of the process at fairvote.org. It’s easily understood by the voters and easily administered using automated vote counting technology.

If Montana used Instant Runoff voting, Sam Hunthausen’s concerns would be of no practical significance.