Ranked-Choice Voting and Democratic Attitudes

Gutiérrez, Manuel Conthe; Simmons, Alan J.; Transue, John E.

doi:10.1177/1532673x221109519

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Additional studies examine how ideology and values such as fairness may affect evaluations of electoral rules (e.g. Banducci and Karp 1999;Bowler et al, 2006), how an electoral system may affect how people perceive democracy (Gutierrez et al, 2022), and in terms of how dissatisfaction with democracy corresponds with support for adopting new rules (McCarthy and Santucci 2021). This paper follows this latter path.Our interest here is with what, other than supporting a candidate who lost a recent election, may make people perceive themselves as losing in electoral politics and how this perception may affect support for changing how elections are conducted.…”

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Considerations of American Democracy, Feeling Like a Loser, and Support for Changing the Rules

Donovan

Tolbert

Harper

2023

American Politics Research

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We test how perceptions of feeling like a loser in American politics may condition support for changes to how elections are conducted. We report a survey experiment that sheds some light on why people may feel like an electoral loser, then use this measure of losing to predict support for a range of proposals to change elections. The experiment prompted people to consider if they were satisfied with how democracy works and to think about the design and structure of American government. Respondents were then asked if they felt like they were on the winning or losing ‘side’ of politics. The prompt was associated with higher rates of respondents reporting they felt like they were on the losing side. Non-experimental estimates of support for a range of proposed changes to elections find a substantial relationship between this form of feeling like a loser, and supporting changing how elections are conducted. This relationship holds with controls for partisanship and other factors. One implication of this is that the more that some Americans are prompted to think about their government and democracy, the more likely they support changing how it works.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Considerations of American Democracy, Feeling Like a Loser, and Support for Changing the Rules

Donovan

Tolbert

Harper

2023

American Politics Research

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“…Indeed, in some U.S. cities, RCV has been used for more than a decade, and it is now RCV that enjoys status quo bias. As voters become familiar with RCV, the rule has been judged to deliver on its promise of the “legitimacy of majoritarianism.” For example, Gutiérrez and others (2022) found in a U.S. survey experiment that RCV improved voters' assessment of democracy—even when their preferred candidate lost. In addition, using Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data for 29 nations, Farrell and McAllister (2006) found that RCV (both single‐ and multi‐winner) increased voter satisfaction with democracy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Come‐from‐behind victories under ranked‐choice voting and runoff: The impact on voter satisfaction

Cerrone

McClintock

2023

Politics & Policy

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Both ranked‐choice voting (RCV) and runoff seek to prevent the election of candidates with only minority support by enabling more broadly approved rivals to win through come‐from‐behind victories (CFBVs). Although CFBVs are intrinsic to RCV and runoff, they have received little scholarly attention. This study suggests that, amid voters' status quo bias, CFBVs provoke dissatisfaction. In a survey experiment fielded on U.S. voters, CFBVs under RCV significantly reduced satisfaction, while there was a weaker negative effect under runoff. Similarly, RCV was repealed or faced a visible repeal attempt in the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions that experienced a CFBV in the first or second use of the rule. This was not the case for runoff. We encourage greater voter education, including regarding the rationale for and mechanics of CFBVs under RCV as well as consideration of runoff and other rules that encourage the election of candidates with majority support.Related ArticlesMcCarthy, Devin, and Jack Santucci. 2021. “Ranked Choice Voting as a Generational Issue in Modern American Politics.” Politics & Policy 49(1): 33–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12390.Nielson, Lindsay. 2017. “Ranked Choice Voting and Attitudes toward Democracy in the United States: Results from a Survey Experiment.” Politics & Policy 45(4): 535–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12212.Stiers, Dieter. 2019. “Static and Dynamic Models of Retrospective Voting: A Clarification and Application to the Individual Level.” Politics & Policy 47(5): 859–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12324.

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“…Given that efficacy seems to drive participation in plurality elections (Finkel 1985), we expect that in RCV elections political efficacy will translate to engagement with rankings. Gutiérrez, Simmons, and Transue (2022) demonstrate that RCV elections can impact how voters evaluate democracy, with voters showing an increase in support for both democracy and the winning candidate, even if the candidate that won was not included in that voter's rankings, lending tangential support for the idea political efficacy may increase ranking activity.…”

Section: What We Currently Know About Rcvmentioning

confidence: 99%

New or “normal” election? Understanding ranking activity in New York City's first ranked choice voting election

Wendland

Carman

2023

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective: Ranked choice voting [RCV] is currently seeing a spike in interest and is expanding in practice throughout the United States. However, the impacts and effects of RCV in the United States are not well understood and neither are the driving forces behind voters. engagement with it. This article explores what drives a voter's willingness to engage with ranking and to what extent. Methods: We use New York City exit poll data to analyze what increased the likelihood of voters to both participate in any ranking activity whatsoever as well as what drove voters to rank several candidates. Using both logistic and ordinal logistic regression we analyze how a voter's engagement with ranking is impacted by their socioeconomic background, their understanding of RCV, and campaign-centered variables.Results: Our results show that wealthier, better educated, white voters who perceived a more positive campaign environment were more likely to engage in ranking. Gender, education, income, campaign tone, and being asked to rank a candidate as second or third are shown to be predictors of a voter's propensity to rank several candidates. Conclusion: Voters engage with RCV when they are provided with information on how RCV works and the benefits that come with it. Voters who perceive a more positive campaign environment and are explicitly asked by candidates to include them in their rankings are more likely to maximize their ranking activity.

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Ranked-Choice Voting and Democratic Attitudes

Cited by 6 publications

References 20 publications

Considerations of American Democracy, Feeling Like a Loser, and Support for Changing the Rules

Considerations of American Democracy, Feeling Like a Loser, and Support for Changing the Rules

Come‐from‐behind victories under ranked‐choice voting and runoff: The impact on voter satisfaction

New or “normal” election? Understanding ranking activity in New York City's first ranked choice voting election

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