Primary election season is far from over in North Carolina, with three Council of State and congressional primary races up for runoffs on May 14. Some experts say a different voting method — instant runoffs, also known as ranked-choice voting — could be a more efficient way to select party nominees.
While this voting method can seem more complex to voters who are unfamiliar with it, it would be more cost-effective than the second primary system currently used in the state.
“You wouldn’t have to have a whole second election where voter turnout is ridiculously low,” said Martha Kropf, a professor of political science and public administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “This takes care of it in one election.”
In this system of voting, voters rank candidates and ballots are initially counted for each voter’s highest-ranked choice. However, if no candidate receives the the majority of the vote, then candidates with fewest votes are eliminated and the votes are added to voters’ next choice in candidates until one candidate receives a majority.
Pros and cons of instant runoffs
In instant runoffs, voters go in to cast their vote once and vote for multiple people in order of preference, instead of going into a second primary where some voters may or may not go in to vote again.
Instant runoffs allow candidates to be elected when turnout is highest, instead of a second primary, where turnout can be lower, according to a Maryland-based nonprofit organization, FairVote.
The elimination of holding a second election also makes this a “less expensive” option, according to Christopher Cooper, a professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University.
“You’re running another election and it costs money,” said Cooper. “It definitely is my tax dollars, your tax dollars that are going to run a second primary.”
But implementing a new voting method like instant runoffs also “could drive down voter turnout,” Cooper said. People are used to voting a certain way and changing that could seem confusing and possibly decrease turnout, according to him.
“It’s going to be more cost efficient,” said Kropf, about instant runoffs. “You don’t have to have the polls open for a second primary.”
There could also be some challenges with implementing instant runoffs, such as having the right equipment to go back and recount based on the ranked-choice voting method and some counties may have to make some changes to be able to count the ballots, according to Kropf.
“You go through what seems like a complicated procedure and possibly very slow procedure to figure out how to reallocate votes after candidates have been knocked out,” she said. “It can be rather complicated and confusing to people.”
Mac McCorkle, a professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, isn’t sure whether there is a particular advantage to instant runoffs, he said.
But, according to him, “more and more places are moving to ranked-choice voting” because a higher turnout of voters have their votes counted to decide a nominee. “In a runoff election the universe of voters is small in the primary and gets even smaller in a runoff election,” he said, of second primaries.
The most efficient way to use ranked-choice voting is to still make a runoff optional, by letting the second-place finisher decide, he said. “It would be an unnecessary provision of public resources to just automatically have a runoff if the second-place finisher doesn’t want it.”
Are runoffs necessary at all?
Any change or solution to runoffs will likely be imperfect, according to McCorkle, and some say it is not necessary to have runoff elections at all.
The runoff election system was created in the late 19th century, when a one-party system prevailed across the South and white Democrats were in power.
“It’s sort of leftover from a bygone era in a lot of ways,” Cooper said.
It allowed the party to have more control over gubernatorial primaries.
“It was a way to maintain control among the elites of the party,” he said. “Now we have a two party competition.”
North Carolina is one of nine U.S. states, mostly Southern states, that employ this system and require a candidate to win a primary with a certain percentage of the votes cast.
Kropf said she isn’t sure that holding separate runoff elections serve any sort of higher purpose.
“It’s not necessary,” Cooper said of runoff elections. “It’s a choice we make as North Carolinians and that we have made as Southerners.”
Runoff elections don’t really exist in the rest of the country and it’s not necessary to employ them to run an election, according to him.
But any solution to runoff elections isn’t likely to go uncriticized.
“With people’s growing lack of trust in the system, in the process, you’re not going to be able to come up with a solution that is going to be without criticism,” McCorkle said.
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