Extreme Vote Makeover : The Role of Ranked Choice Voting in the Oakland City Elections

This paper examines the effects that voting systems have on multicandidate elections. Using the ballot data collected from Alameda County, we have taken the votes from the recent mayoral election in Oakland City, CA, and recounted them using preference-base voting standards. After doing so we compared them to the original election outcome. The victor of this election flipped in three of the six counts these ballots underwent. This illustrates the need of the candidates of an election to understand how the differences in voting systems impact their campaign decisions. 1. Literature Review The great draw of democracy is the opportunity for a person to determine how their life is governed and exercise choice. When asking his students to provide the justification for rule by democratic majority, Dennis Mueller a prominent expert in public choice and decision making, is often met by responses centered on fairness, justice, and societal egalitarianism (Mueller, 2003, p. 128). These and similar answers, however, are often given based on a lack of information regarding the potential limits placed on individual choice through various election procedures. Different voting systems within the democratic tradition, as well as the formal rules that regulate them, have a far greater impact on determining election outcomes than is typically realized (Yonk, Simmons, & Johnson, 2010). The variety of voting systems that exist each ideally determine the will of the people. Aggregating individual preferences is believed to produce the greatest benefit for society as a whole. This point of view, however, fails to acknowledge the collective decision-making that occurs in an election. The fundamental nature of collective choice is that some choices are made not by individuals in isolation but jointly with others. In order to make joint choices, rules must be adopted to determine how those choices will be made, and because of these rules winners and losers are chosen. But with such rules, is the will of the people truly expressed in voting? Are elections truly built to find and implement general will? (Yonk, 2010). Marquis de Condorcet proposed the Jury Theorem as a means of selecting the best possible option in voting scenarios (Mueller, 2003, p. 129). This theorem is based on the assumption that “all citizens want the same things from their government or representative,” Condorcet created a formula to portray how the larger a group becomes the more likely it is to make the most publicly beneficial voting selection. Several factors must be met for the group selection to reach the maximum amount of benefit for society. First, all citizens participating in the selection must have a probability “greater than 0.5” in selecting the most efficient outcome. Second, these same individuals must cast their votes independently of one another (Mueller, 2003, pp. 29-30). If this were true, then voting systems would likely matter very little so long as the population was large. His formula however, is flawed in modern democratic states. Considering these two requirements modern elections often do not meet these requirements. Citizens are largely ignorant of policy options and candidate platforms, let alone where to actually cast their votes. This situation however, does not mean these individuals should be viewed negatively. When considering the high costs of gaining that knowledge (sacrificing their time and possibly resources), and comparing it with the benefits reaped from voting. Because their individual vote likely will not determine the outcome of an election the perception is www.ccsenet.org/jpl Journal of Politics and Law Vol. 7, No. 2; 2014 24 that these individuals are acting completely rationally. In acting rationally, however, citizens are failing to meet the requirements presented by Condorcet, bringing in to question his theory. Similar to Condorcet, Kenneth May proposed a formula in 1952 that specified provisions that must take place if majority rule is to be effectively implemented. Relying on conditions such as decisiveness, anonymity, neutrality, and positive responsiveness, May’s argument is also presented with several meaningful critiques that possibly question the formula’s legitimacy (Mueller, 2003, p. 134). One of the most prominent of which brings into question his notion of neutrality that is based on the assumption that any issue voted upon must be independent (Mueller, 2003, p. 134). In order for this solution to work and result in effective majority rule, issues must be non-intermingled with other issues, which is almost never the case in modern democratic decision-making. It is almost always the case that each option is truly independent of other exogenous or endogenous forces. The question can be posed Why do we even need different types of voting methods? It may seem that a simple majority is what would best represent the needs and wants of all peoples involved. That can be true when dealing with an election, which decides between two candidates, as one must take the majority. But when three or more are brought into the equation it becomes difficult to get a majority consensus amongst the constituents. In fact, a simple majority could be quite impossible to reach. It could also be argued that a plurality vote would then best be used to determine a winner. But if that is the deciding factor, a candidate in a race of multiple options could win with only a small portion of the population’s approval. In a democratic society should the minority really be expressing the needs of the entire populace, and determining solutions as well? In addition to that problem, plurality rules face the issue that the existence of a third option can change the relative ranking of the first two options. That is, choices can be influenced by whether or not there are more than two candidates. The result of having more than two options is shown by the 2002 French presidential election. The primary election consisted of three candidates: the Incumbent president Jacques Chirac, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Lionel Jospin. President Chirac was the highest vote getter in the primary with Le Pen as the next highest and Jospin as third. Chirac and Le Pen were then placed on a ballot against each other to select the president and Chirac won. Later it was determined through polling data that in a two-person race Jospin would have defeated Le Pen and could have also defeated Chirac afterward. Hence, Le Pen’s candidacy impacted the relative rankings of the candidates to the benefit of Chirac (Dasgupta & Maskin, 2008). From such an example we see that deciding who wins in a democratic election process is not simple. As C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Kenneth Arrow, the Marquis de Condorcet, Duncan Black and others have argued, majority rule faces difficulties. Not the least of these difficulties is that results can be arbitrary, especially when the choice is between more than two options. If three options are offered and voters are asked to rank the three, often none of the options will be ranked first by a majority of the voters. One possibility to overcome this is to consider the options in pairs, but then cycling can occur with each option defeating another and none of them winning. (Arrow, 1951) There are ways to end the cycling problem and legislative bodies have developed mechanism to avoid continuous cycling. (Cox & Shepsle, 2006) But the problem is more difficult to avoid in general elections, and may well result in that common conundrum, of cycling which Condorcet described, in which A can defeat B, B can defeat C, C can defeat A. Lastly, a problem with most voting schemes lies in their inability to effectively measure the intensity of preferences. For example, fifty-one percent of a population might have slight preferences for a candidate while forty-nine percent strongly oppose that same candidate. In this scenario the slight preferences defeat the strongly held ones. If the electoral system measured preference intensity a different candidate would be elected. Electoral rules and systems have the potential to greatly produce arbitrary results (see, e.g. Mueller, 2003, Chapters 6 and 7). The problem with an arbitrary outcome is the importance of majority rule. “Should a democracy accept a leader who is opposed by a majority of voters? Is there anything special about a fifty percent plus one rule? Why not require supermajorities? And what about intensely held minority preferences?” (Yonk, 2010) All of this suggests that individual preferences are distorted by the workings of the basic rules of democracy. To be equitable we must remind the reader that rules can be fair in the sense that if all voters preferred a to b, then a would be selected; no one voter could influence the outcome more than any other voter; and no outcome would receive special treatment. But, these rules produce winners and losers but cannot be defended as rationally reflecting voter preferences. Any set of rules will affect voting outcomes. Building on the work done in Trading Places, which tested these issues in the process for selecting a replacement for the Utah legislature, we undertake another test of the effects of voting rules on outcomes using

that these individuals are acting completely rationally.In acting rationally, however, citizens are failing to meet the requirements presented by Condorcet, bringing in to question his theory.
Similar to Condorcet, Kenneth May proposed a formula in 1952 that specified provisions that must take place if majority rule is to be effectively implemented.Relying on conditions such as decisiveness, anonymity, neutrality, and positive responsiveness, May's argument is also presented with several meaningful critiques that possibly question the formula's legitimacy (Mueller, 2003, p. 134).One of the most prominent of which brings into question his notion of neutrality that is based on the assumption that any issue voted upon must be independent (Mueller, 2003, p. 134).In order for this solution to work and result in effective majority rule, issues must be non-intermingled with other issues, which is almost never the case in modern democratic decision-making.It is almost always the case that each option is truly independent of other exogenous or endogenous forces.
The question can be posed -Why do we even need different types of voting methods?It may seem that a simple majority is what would best represent the needs and wants of all peoples involved.That can be true when dealing with an election, which decides between two candidates, as one must take the majority.But when three or more are brought into the equation it becomes difficult to get a majority consensus amongst the constituents.In fact, a simple majority could be quite impossible to reach.
It could also be argued that a plurality vote would then best be used to determine a winner.But if that is the deciding factor, a candidate in a race of multiple options could win with only a small portion of the population's approval.In a democratic society should the minority really be expressing the needs of the entire populace, and determining solutions as well?In addition to that problem, plurality rules face the issue that the existence of a third option can change the relative ranking of the first two options.That is, choices can be influenced by whether or not there are more than two candidates.
The result of having more than two options is shown by the 2002 French presidential election.The primary election consisted of three candidates: the Incumbent president Jacques Chirac, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Lionel Jospin.President Chirac was the highest vote getter in the primary with Le Pen as the next highest and Jospin as third.Chirac and Le Pen were then placed on a ballot against each other to select the president and Chirac won.Later it was determined through polling data that in a two-person race Jospin would have defeated Le Pen and could have also defeated Chirac afterward.Hence, Le Pen's candidacy impacted the relative rankings of the candidates to the benefit of Chirac (Dasgupta & Maskin, 2008).
From such an example we see that deciding who wins in a democratic election process is not simple.As C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Kenneth Arrow, the Marquis de Condorcet, Duncan Black and others have argued, majority rule faces difficulties.Not the least of these difficulties is that results can be arbitrary, especially when the choice is between more than two options.If three options are offered and voters are asked to rank the three, often none of the options will be ranked first by a majority of the voters.
One possibility to overcome this is to consider the options in pairs, but then cycling can occur with each option defeating another and none of them winning.(Arrow, 1951) There are ways to end the cycling problem and legislative bodies have developed mechanism to avoid continuous cycling.(Cox & Shepsle, 2006) But the problem is more difficult to avoid in general elections, and may well result in that common conundrum, of cycling which Condorcet described, in which A can defeat B, B can defeat C, C can defeat A.
Lastly, a problem with most voting schemes lies in their inability to effectively measure the intensity of preferences.For example, fifty-one percent of a population might have slight preferences for a candidate while forty-nine percent strongly oppose that same candidate.In this scenario the slight preferences defeat the strongly held ones.If the electoral system measured preference intensity a different candidate would be elected.
Electoral rules and systems have the potential to greatly produce arbitrary results (see, e.g.Mueller, 2003, Chapters 6 and 7).The problem with an arbitrary outcome is the importance of majority rule."Should a democracy accept a leader who is opposed by a majority of voters?Is there anything special about a fifty percent plus one rule?Why not require supermajorities?And what about intensely held minority preferences?"(Yonk, 2010) All of this suggests that individual preferences are distorted by the workings of the basic rules of democracy.To be equitable we must remind the reader that rules can be fair in the sense that if all voters preferred a to b, then a would be selected; no one voter could influence the outcome more than any other voter; and no outcome would receive special treatment.But, these rules produce winners and losers but cannot be defended as rationally reflecting voter preferences.Any set of rules will affect voting outcomes.
Building on the work done in Trading Places, which tested these issues in the process for selecting a replacement for the Utah legislature, we undertake another test of the effects of voting rules on outcomes using   to have access to.It was reported that Quan encouraged voters to put her first, but even if she wasn't their first choice that they should still have her down as their second.She also made an agreement with Rebecca Kaplan, who landed in 3 rd place overall.Their agreement was that they would encourage their supporters to put the other as the second choice on their ballots.(Callahan, 2010) Perata did have more people vote with him as their first choice.But Quan's agreement with Kaplan turned out to be the breaker in this election.When Rebecca Kaplan was eliminated in the tenth and final pass a great majority of her votes went to Quan.This propelled Quan to the Mayor's seat.
The findings from this case study are consistent with Trading Places and Brams, Hansen, and Olsen (2006)  In their case the Brams et al. were able to calculate a Condorcet, Plurality, Borda count, and IRV method.ability to do so stemmed from asking their voters to rank their voting choices.Though these rankings did not effect the placement of the candidates it provided the ranking data needed to run these ballots through the other four voting systems.Out of the five candidates running, there were two different winners depending on which of the four voting standards were used.It is interesting to note that none of them were the winner chosen in the original Approval Voting method.
In our case, the Oakland election was frankly dominated by the two main characters of Jean Quan and Don Perata.Quan was trailing by approximately 9 percent of the vote for nine passes.But when Rebecca Kaplan was eliminated in pass ten Quan received 18,864 of Kaplan's 32,719 votes.Perata received 6,407 of said votes.The remaining votes were exhausted and unusable.This dramatic influx of votes catapulted Quan forward and gave her 50.96percent of the votes with the amount of 53,897.By examining the data, it is not far off to say that the difference in the voting required for most of the other candidates to win instead is next to impossible.
Perata has a chance of winning.If 1,013 more votes had gone to him rather than Quan in the final pass then his margin of the vote would have been 52,885 and he would have one vote over 50 percent.It appears that pursuing additional second choice ranking would have been the most logical push for him to take.It is much more difficult to get first place choices over second.In addition, second choice has proven in this election to be the determining factor.Quan was launched forward nearly ten percent in a single pass because of it.
As expected with the changes made to this election there were those who were not happy with the new type of voting.Most of the vocal opposition to Ranked Choice voting came from those candidates who had lost.They complained that things were not set out clearly and that it was not run the way an election usually is.They were right.The change in vote system rules changed everything about this election.(PBS, 2010)

Conclusion
What was learned from the Oakland election?Did this vote truly reflect the will of the people?The object here is not to discredit the victory of Jean Quan, but to address the fact that voting systems matter.Oakland City's mayoral election and the way in which candidates trade places, indicates that they do.If the administrator of an election understands voter preferences an election can be presented in such a way, or such an order that the winner is not decided by the people's greater voice, but in reaction to the desires of said administrator.
As we have previously found in Trading Places "elections will be held even though theorists understand that the election results are structured by voting and counting rules.After all, democratic politics is about voters choosing between alternatives, not about discovering the "General Will." Figure 2. B who showed that different multicandidate preference voting systems result in varied outcomes.Brams et al. used their ballots from the 2006 Public Choice Society Presidential election.