"Preferential Ballots", published in 1914, listed the benefits of the Preferential Voting system, which is pretty much the Alternative Voting system that is used today in city elections in London, Ontario and New York City, and in election of members of the House of Representatives in Maine, and in elections in Alaska. Yukon territorial government looks set on adopting IRV in 2024.
(Today we use the term "Instant-runoff voting" for the old Alternative Voting system. It is a non-proportional election system so I do not support it.)
the list is followed by "Rebuttals of debating points against preferential ballots".)
[53 Benefits of Instant-Runoff Voting:]
1. The preferential ballot has proved a sifting process. Each successive choice acts as a sieve which eliminates the less worthy candidates.
2. To deprive a voter of any power he can legitimately use and needs to use at the polls is to partially disfranchise him. The preferential ballot gives the voter more power.
3. It is the regular practice for political rings to run pseudo-reformers to divide the vote of the true reformers, and under our present system the advocates of honest politics are helpless.
4. Good men have been defeated under the preferential ballot; but it has never been due to any defect of the system; it was the fault of the voters, which no system can cure or attempt to cure.
5. The convention system is completely discredited; the primary system is little better; the only other plan suggested is the preferential ballot, and it has succeeded wherever it has been tried.
6. The preferential ballot is in practice an instruction to those who count the ballots that if the voter’s first choice was lost, count his second; if that was lost also, count his third. Of course no vote can be counted twice.
7. The gist of the preferential ballot is that if a voter’s first choice is not elected, his vote is not lost — he still has his second choice; if that is lost also, he still has his third choice. So he has three chances to make his vote effective instead of one.
8. Under the present system a small minority may nominate. Under the preferential ballot each nominee would, in most cases, have a majority, and if not elected by a majority, he would at least be preferred by a majority to any other candidate.
9. It is very remarkable that the preferential ballot should have been successful to such an unusual degree from the very first. No serious defect has even yet developed. Even where it has been only partly introduced, it has proved infinitely superior to the present system (FPTP).
10. The preferential ballot would almost if not entirely do away with bribery of voters. If a corrupt candidate wished to bribe a voter he could only buy one choice, and that would not pay. The results would be so uncertain that bribery as now practiced would be impracticable.
11. There is universal complaint at the lack of interest in elections, especially primary elections. It is one of the gravest dangers which can threaten a free government. One reason for it is that even very intelligent men feel that their vote can affect the result so little that it is not worth the trouble.
12. [under FPTP] If a man vote for a candidate who gets more than a majority, his vote is not needed,—it does not affect the result. If he vote for a man who gets less than a majority, his vote is lost, “thrown away” as the common phrase has it.
Under the preferential ballot he has as many chances as he has [marked] choices.
13. It cannot be said that because a man votes for one candidate, he therefore forfeits all right to any voice whatever concerning the others. His convictions concerning them arc just as valid as those concerning his first choice and just as important to the public, and he has an equal right to express them.
14. The preferential ballot is certainly worth a trial. It could not well be worse than the present method [FPTP], and has proved far better wherever it has been tried.
Essentially the affirmative argument is that it should have a fair trial.
The essential issue is, “Do the arguments in favor of it justify giving it a trial?”
15. Mankind can only grope its way in political reforms. The present system MUST be improved in some way; all must admit this. The preferential ballot is the only new proposal before the public. Those who are opposed to the present primary system, then, must favor either the preferential ballot or a return to the convention system.
16. A good citizen is often in doubt which of two good candidates to support. Very often they are equally good in his estimation but he inclines to one because of personal reasons. The second choice of a corrupt voter is practically always a better man than his first choice. In such cases the second choice is an immense public advantage.
17. It is less and less common for any candidate to get a majority over all. This means, of course, that most officials are elected by a minority. This gives an immense advantage to corrupt rings and cliques which are held together by the hope of plunder. It would be impossible to conceive of a method more acceptable to the enemies of society.
18. Under the preferential ballot a VERY objectionable candidate cannot be elected. The successful candidate is the LEAST objectionable if he is objectionable at all. This is of itself an immense gain. Under our present system the very worst candidate has an equal chance of election, and often the best chance if his support is compact and undivided.
19. The preferential ballot would minimize the incentive for mud-slinging and vilification so characteristic of present-day campaigns. If a candidate could not get a voter’s first choice he might get his second choice, thus placing a premium on fairness, courtesy, and gentlemanliness, and upon frankness, candor, and moral earnestness, which we now seldom see.
20. Experience has demonstrated that with the preferential ballot it is not necessary to have either primary elections or conventions; after the people get accustomed to it one election will be entirely sufficient; thus saving an enormous expense both to the state and to the candidates, and at the same time expressing the public will far more fully and clearly than is now possible.
21. The whole object of an election is to get the choice of the people. But if there are six candidates and the voter can support but one, the election does not register the choice of the people at all, but only one-sixth of it. If we really wish to get the will of the people every voter should have the opportunity of expressing his will concerning every candidate, or as many of them as he wishes.
22. Any method which makes it easier to elect worthy men and harder to elect unworthy men commands serious attention; it cannot be put aside lightly. Nothing but the most cogent and convincing reasons would justify its rejection. No such reasons appear. Most of the so-called objections are either fears which have been completely disproved by actual experience; or mere quibbles entitled to little consideration.
23. The choice is not between the Preferential Ballot and an ideal, flawless system. The choice is between the Preferential Ballot and the most intolerable system in the world. Showing that some form of the Preferential Ballot has imperfections or that it is unable to meet all demands is not valid argument. The question is, “Is the Preferential system better than the plurality system now in common use in this country?”
24. The old convention system got so rotten that it is no longer endurable as a means of making nominations, and primary elections are substituted for it. But in the convention system each delegate had opportunity to vote for different candidates in the successive ballots taken. Under the present primary system the enemies of the public welfare are always united, and its friends almost always divided. Such a plan is as stupid as it is suicidal.
25. The ideal of Democracy is majority rule. This will be conceded by all without discussion. It follows, then, that where we cannot get a majority we should get the largest possible plurality. To demand that we should submit to pluralities of less than one-tenth of the vote is to be false to democratic ideals - and principles. Any policy or method which gives the largest possible plurality where majorities are not obtainable is self-evidently and axiomatically preferable.
26. The trend of public opinion is to give more and more power to the people. Everywhere the people are being given a greater voice in the control of their government. That the will of the people is the supreme law is no longer discussed; we are rather trying to find ways of realizing its truth and embodying it in the forms and procedures of our political life. Even if the will of the people is sometimes mistaken and wrong, the world has learned that there is nothing better.
27. Of course corrupt interests and their tools and dupes do not wish a full, free, and complete expression of the voters’ will at the polls; it would ruin their occupation entirely. A “machine” or a small selfish minority could never hope to dominate an election if the people had full opportunity to express their will at the polls. As it is, when the ballot proves to be futile the people must either submit or rebel with the minority in control of courts, police, and army. Such a condition is intolerable.
28. Under the present system multitudes are tempted to run for office because a man’s chances for election do not depend so much on how many votes he gets as upon how much the vote against him is divided. A man who can command one- tenth of the total vote has a chance of election if there are candidates enough. In the primary election in Oklahoma in 1914 the democratic nominee for governor received less than 27 per cent, of the total party vote, and the candidate for attorney general only a little over 23 per cent.
29. If six voters should vote for six candidates there would be no election. In a convention there would be successive ballotings giving opportunity for varying the choices; but we have seen that this is impossible in a primary election. At present, one additional vote for either candidate would elect him, and we would say that “the people elected him.” Could any farce be more evident? He might be utterly repugnant to the other four voters and yet they are charged with electing him because they took part in the election.
30. The preferential ballot will be especially advantageous to farmers. As a class they are too widely separated to get together either for consultation or cooperation. At present the most dangerous candidates are those supported by the criminal •classes in the cities or by corrupt interests. Though a few farmers might be deceived into supporting such under our present ballot it is inconceivable that they would vote two or three choices for such. By giving the farmers three choices their vote would be practically three times as influential as it now is.
31. Experience has abundantly proved that voters do not duplicate their first choices in their second. The order in which human nature usually responds to such a situation is: First choice, which man do I like best;
second choice, which will make the best official.
To the public the second choice has usually more value than the first, of which it is entirely deprived by our present system.
Actual tests where the preferential primary is in use show that an excellent candidate will receive a small first choice vote but an overwhelming second choice vote.
32. The object of elections is to ascertain the people’s will concerning candidates.
There are only four alternatives:
Muzzle the voters at the polls,
go back to the convention,
limit the number of candidates, or
the preferential ballot.
The first is unthinkable, the second has failed, the third is impossible, and the fourth has proved one of the most successful devices in political history. Even if the objections to a preferential ballot were a hundred-fold greater than they are, it would still be by far the best method known of dealing with the problem of nominations. It is right, just, and expedient.
33. The preferential vote is endorsed by all the leading statesmen in the United States and in foreign countries.
President Wilson is president of the Preferential Voting League of the United States.
Ex-President Roosevelt and ex-President Taft are among the leading members of the League.
It is opposed only by corrupt politicians and by those who profit by the present inefficient voting methods, by all those who seek to thwart a full and complete expression of the will of the people. The preferential ballot would put an end to the pernicious activities of the corrupt party boss.
34. The preferential ballot could dispense with one election, thus saving the state and the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars every two years. It will also save the expense of thousands of candidates in making their campaigns for nomination. This item will total millions of dollars for every election. And the people pay the bill. They pay not only the legitimate expenses of holding the election, printing ballots, rent for the polling places, salaries of judges of election and returning and canvassing officers, but in the long run they pay the campaign expenses of the candidates as well.
35. We must understand, then, that any effort to prevent a full expression of the people’s will is really an effort to limit the rule of the people. The people must speak their will before it can be made effective. It follows that any effort to muzzle the people at the ballot box is in reality an attack on popular government. To refuse to provide full and complete facilities for the expression of the people’s will is to deny the right of the people to express their will. The real question, then, is whether the Preferential Ballot will afford greater facilities for full and complete expression of the popular will.
36. Few delegates would attend a convention if only one ballot were taken; it would not pay. The same feeling will soon prevail concerning primary elections. Since successive ballots cannot be taken in a primary election, evidently the most just and expedient method is to allow each voter to express several choices. If then after counting it appears that the first choices give no one a majority, the second choices could be counted; if’ there were still no majority, the third choices could be counted, and so on. Experience proves that two or three choices are- sufficient to remedy the worst defects of the primary election.
37. It seldom happens in any primary election that there- are not two or more candidates for either of whom an elector would be willing to vote, but several for whom nothing could induce him to vote. By limiting his power to the expression of only one choice he can vote for one and must treat all the others exactly alike. It is perfectly evident that his ballot so limited does not express his will or his attitude towards the candidates, and so such an election would not show the real acceptability of the candidates, the very thing for which elections are supposed to be held. The method of voting should reveal the public opinion.
38. Under the present system a voter must often sacrifice his principles for the man. If he votes for a man who is not elected he fails to effectively support the principle for which he stood. If he has a second choice he can vote for another man holding the same principles and may help elect him. So that principles are safer under a preferential ballot than under the present system. It is common to see principles sacrificed to the ambition of candidates. A man will run for office when he knows full well that he will divide the support of his principles and elect a man holding the opposite. This is constantly happening.
39. In some cities and countries the plan has been adopted of requiring a second election when no candidate has a majority. This is not only an enormous expense but it fails to express the real will of the people. The candidates at the second election must necessarily be those who had the highest vote at the first election. But these are very likely to be the ones supported by the machines, and the voters at the second primary must choose between two candidates both of whom they repudiate. It looks more like a method of defeating the people’s will than a method of ascertaining it. It is but little if any better than the present system.
40. The only rule which conserves the public welfare is, as President Wilson says, the rule of right and reason. We believe in the rule of the people only because history shows that they are more likely to give us the rule of right and reason than any monarchy or oligarchy. Beyond all question the preferential ballot is an aid to the rule of the people, and so of right and reason. It makes it harder for an oligarchy of any kind to control or defeat the will of the majority. Its sole purpose is to make sure that the will of the majority is fully and clearly expressed. And experience is proving that it really does this, even where only partly tried.
41. They have had primary elections in Arkansas for a long time. The tactics of those who wished licensed saloons was to get one license man and several anti-license men to run for county judge. This would divide the temperance people and elect the license man by a plurality vote. This often happened when not one-fourth of the voters favored the successful candidate. We know that such things are done in every election: Our present method enables a determined faction however corrupt to keep itself in power indefinitely by the simple device of dividing its opponents. And the characteristic American hunger for office will continue this condition.
42. The abuses of our present system are already enormous and rapidly increasing. The voter is overwhelmed with candidates at every primary election. No one can possibly obtain a majority and nominations are by smaller and smaller minorities. No man who supports the present system can plead ignorance of the facts; and pretexts and excuses will no longer avail. All must admit that the present system must be improved or be abandoned. It is the best possible system for enabling a few selfish men to dominate the state for their own interests. There are objections to everything, but there are fewer valid objections to the preferential primary than to any similar proposal.
43. The most unanswerable argument for the preferential ballot is successful experience. It has already been introduced in Grand Junction, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, and Denver, Colorado; Spokane, Washington; Duluth, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Cleveland, Ohio. It is used for final elections in West Australia, Queensland, Victoria, and Tasmania; and for primary elections in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota; and has been partially introduced in Idaho, Washington, Nebraska, California, Oregon, New Jersey, and South Dakota. [Monto; It had also been adopted in Lethbridge, Alberta for city elections.]
Different methods are being tried but the universal testimony of all but the corrupt or ignorant is that any form is an infinite improvement.
44. Experience demonstrates that candidates for corrupt or selfish interests poll their full strength on the first choice ballot. Nobody else is interested in them so they get almost nothing on the second choice ballot. The experience is that the largest choice vote goes to the ablest and cleanest candidates, to the men of the highest character and reputation. Cases have occurred where a man receiving a small first choice vote was the almost unanimous second choice. That is to say, in the second choices the chances are in favor of the public and against its enemies. A voter prefers “A” as his first choice. Of the remaining candidates he thinks “B” is the safest, the least objectionable so he gives him his second choice.
45. The present system is absolutely intolerable. What¬ ever is done, this cannot continue. We are deceiving ourselves with mere forms when we are governed by the machine. The ballot box is the arbiter of all our political fortunes; we cannot afford to make it a farce. Experience proves that the preferential ballot reduces this evil to a minimum, as in Wisconsin. It shows that while first choices are influenced chiefly by personal or party reasons, the second choices are prevailingly for the ablest and best known and best trusted men. This is not mere theory; it actually happens. And when the machine finds that nothing is gained by dividing the anti-machine vote they quit trying, and the number of candidates diminish.
46. All arguments against the preferential ballot are absolutely negatived and discredited by the overwhelming success it has achieved wherever it has been tried. It is useless to argue that the preferential ballot will not work when it IS working, and working better than anything else that has ever been tried. While the first steamboat was crossing the Atlantic a learned engineer read a paper proving conclusively that it could not be done. When the electric light was first discovered experts at Madison, Wisconsin, proved to their own satisfaction that it was impossible. The opponents of the preferential ballot are equally mistaken. They are trying to prove that it will not work when it is working with complete and triumphant success.
47. Because a voter expresses his preference for one candidate is no possible reason why he should forfeit his right to express his preference among the other candidates. If there were a dozen candidates the voter has an equal right to indicate his opinion concerning each of them. Voting for one rejects the others as first choice of course but expresses no preference between them; he is powerless to prevent the worst one of the eleven from being elected. In other words he loses eleven- twelfths of his voting power; and if there were twenty candidates he would lose nineteen-twentieths, and so on. He could have his full power only when there were but two candidates. His ballot should enable him to indicate all the names most satisfactory to him.
48. Under our present system there is an increasing number of good citizens of all classes — farmers, preachers, teachers, businessmen, laborers who feel that it is not worthwhile to go to the polls on election day. They see that politics is manipulated by the professionals who make every effort to defeat the popular will. The effect of a single choice at the polls is so insignificant, so easily offset or annulled, their vote would not make much difference so they stay away. No democracy can survive the loss of such voters and for such a reason. When there is only one machine candidate who will get any considerable vote and a dozen anti-machine candidates, what is the use of voting? The inevitable result is just as certain before the voting as after the counting.
49. It is objected that an intelligent voter can use the preferential ballot more effectively than an ignorant, incapable voter can. No legislation can make ignorance equal to intelligence.
The state goes to enormous expense to give every voter an opportunity to become intelligent and capable; if he does not avail himself of it the fault is his own. If the intelligent citizen can use the ballot more effectively than the hobo or the ignoramus nobody is wronged and the state is the gainer. The primary object of the ballot is public service, not private gain, else a man could sell his vote. Incompetent service is barely service at all. A ballot which gives the advantage to intelligent citizenship and at the same time makes selfish, unsocial schemes almost impossible is as near the ideal as we can well hope for.
50. The theory and practice of free government centers at the ballot box. If the ballot fails rightly to express the will of the people we have a clear perversion of free government. It is notorious that the result of an election is often contrary to the wishes of a great majority of the people. These facts are becoming so well known that men can no longer hold up their heads among patriotic people and advocate the continuance of our present methods. The will of the people is so often defeated that many are losing confidence in free institutions and popular government; and the determination to introduce methods of voting which will give a fuller and freer expression of the popular will is rapidly becoming irresistible. The people can no longer be tricked by plausible arguments; they demand results.
51. In the practical working of the preferential ballot the voter indicates his first choice exactly as in the present ballot. If any candidates has a majority of the first choices he is duly elected and the election is over. If, however, no candidate has a majority of the first choices we. have to choose between the present method of declaring the one with the largest minority elected or permitting another choice. If it were not for the expense and delay of a second election that would be universally resorted to, as in Germany, and a second ballot as in conventions. But a second election is not necessary. A second choice can be indicated on the same ballot which indicates the first choice, and all the expense and delay of a second election reduced to merely a recount of the first ballot and adding in the second choices.
52. We all know that a multitude of candidates means that a minority is trying to nominate an unworthy man by dividing the opposition to him. Both theory and experience demonstrate that the preferential ballot makes it impossible for a small minority to triumph over an unorganized and divided majority. It involves no possible favoritism or injustice to any voter for all have exactly the same privilege. The essence of the remedy is in removing all restrictions from the voters at the polls and allowing them the fullest possible expression of their will. What honest objection can possibly be made to that? The delegate whom the voter sends to a convention may vary his choices in successive ballots as much as he pleases, but in the primary election the voter himself is allowed but one choice, however inadequate it may be as an expression of his will.
53. Suppose the issue in a city election is the granting of a corrupt franchise by the city council. Those who favor the franchise are in the minority but by nominating a single franchise man in each ward and concentrating on him, and getting a number of candidates to run who are opposed to the franchise they easily divide the opposition, elect their men and get their franchise when it may be that three-fourths of the people are opposed to it. This happens again and again. But with second choices all this is changed. The first choices would be divided exactly as now, but the best men would get the largest vote of the second choices while the franchise candidates could get no second choices for they have only one candidate in each ward. Now under the preferential ballot since the pro-franchise candidates did not get a majority the second choices must be counted. While the anti-franchise voters would divide on candidates they would all vote against the franchise. The result would be that the second ballot or choice would double the anti-franchise vote while the utmost strength of the franchise supporters was given in the first choice ballots and cannot possibly be increased, for in each ward they concentrated their strength on a single candidate and have no second choice. Under the preferential ballot, then, their case would have been absolutely hopeless from the first. Their only chance to win is to muzzle the voters at the polls so that there cannot be a full, free, fair expression of their will.
Rebuttals of debating points against preferential ballots
1. The official and authoritative counting of votes is not done at the voting precinct under our present system; but by county and state election boards exactly as it would be under the preferential system.
2. Our voters have as much intelligence as they have in Australia, where the most difficult form of the preferential ballot is in actual and successful operation, and where they do not have any trouble either in voting or counting the ballots.
3. It is objected that a voter’s second choice kills his first choice. His second choice is not counted until his first choice is defeated. If the voter has lost his first choice, the preferential ballot enables him still to have some influence in the result.
4. That the methods of the preferential ballot were developed by university professors instead of by ward-heelers and machine bosses should not make it less desirable. Most people prefer the suggestions originating with men of science and learning to those of ignorant and selfish schemers.
5. All objections are summed up in the old argument of the Aristocracy and the Oligarchy, — the people are not capable of government and should never be entrusted with anything more than the empty forms of government. The real power should be retained in the hands of the aristocrats and the intellectuals.
6. The only proper argument for the negative is to show by citing actual facts and experiences where the preferential ballot has worked as disastrously as they say it will. They charge that it will produce certain results when actual experience shows conclusively that it prevents the results which they profess to fear.
7. Those who oppose the preferential ballot are greatly distressed about the difficulty of counting the ballots. They never cease to prophesy of the dire calamities which must result. But who is having any trouble in counting the ballots? The system is in use in a score of places and there has never yet been a particle of trouble.
8 . Those who oppose the preferential ballot claim that it will discourage partisan voting. Suppose it does. What then? It is very certain that it will in the same degree encourage intelligent and conscientious voting, voting for principles, patriotic voting. A voter’s second choice candidate is always one who holds the same principles as the candidate of his first choice.
9. It is indeed true that men sometimes stake their last dollar on one horse in a race, and it may be that some choices in life are irrevocable. But would not all men prefer otherwise? Is it not the plain part of wisdom to provide ourselves with alternative courses of action wherever possible? One of the best arguments in favor of the preferential ballot is that it provides just such alternatives.
10. Why should the fact that we have a choice of three forms be counted a drawback?
It is, in fact, a real advantage.
Conditions are not the same in all states and in all countries. Each is at liberty to choose the type best adapted to its own peculiar conditions. No one advocates adopting more than one form at a time, and the poorest type has proved in actual practice infinitely superior to the present system. Objections that have weight against one type are groundless against another.
11. No casuistry can conceal the fact that the negative side of the debate advocates election by a minority, and is unwilling to do anything to prevent minority elections. The affirmative believe in majority elections, and will not consent to anything short of majority elections until every possible effort has been made to secure such elections. The present system will always enable an organized minority to defeat the will of the unorganized majority. If that is not advocating bad government and corrupt politics, what is it?
12. Objection is raised to the preferential ballot on the alleged ground that it is so complicated that the ordinary voter cannot vote it without mistakes. The fact is that it has never occasioned any trouble in this respect in the least.
The first time it was tried in Grand Junction, Colorado, there were fewer errors than were made in the preceding election under the present system.
At Spokane, Washington, at the first election held under the Preferential system, the women voted for the first time, yet there were very few errors. If women voting for the first time can use it without making mistakes, its difficulties should occasion no fear.
13. The Negative assumes that because the preferential ballot permits 2nd and 3rd choices therefore every voter would be compelled to vote them whether he wished to or not. This is utterly absurd, as is shown by the Spokane election, where nearly one-third voted for but one choice, exactly as they would with the present ballot. The Negative also assumes that with the preferential ballot there would be a preferential primary in August followed by the final election in November. This is a mere quibble.
A final election after nominations had been made by a primary would not and could not be preferential in any accepted sense. The application of “preferential” to such an election is utterly unwarranted; there is no usage whatever to support it.
Again, the question does not demand the exclusive adoption of the preferential ballot. Adopting it for primary elections would be adopting it. But the preferential ballot renders two elections absolutely unnecessary and contemplates the ultimate elimination of the second election.
From "Preferential Ballots", University of Oklahoma, Quarterly Bulletin, Sept. 1914 (available online)
Thanks for reading.
(See my blog "list of Montopedia blogs concerning electoral reform" to find other blogs on this important subject.)
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