Instant Runoff Voting: Good for Democracy and the Bottom Line

Thirteen million dollars!

Yes, the cash-strapped, snafu-prone New York City Board of Elections held a $13 million runoff that turned out fewer than 200,000 voters. The election was a 20-point rout by City Councilwoman Letitia James over state Sen. Dan Squadron for the little understood (and powerless) post of public advocate.

Is democracy served when only a tiny sliver of the electorate selects the officials who oversee a giant $70 billion government enterprise called the City of New York?

As a consequence of the city Republican Party’s inability to field a candidate for public advocate, Councilwoman James’ runoff victory guaranteed that she will be the next public advocate and first African- American woman to hold citywide office.

Again—despite James’ history-making election—it begs the question, is democracy served when only a small fraction of voters in one political party elects the stewards of our government and city treasury?

I can point to the low-turnout minority and one-party districts that are home to many of the grifters who have sullied politics and community service as examples of what happens when elections are not truly competitive.

Is there any one way to address this problem? No.

But there is one solution to holding costly runoff elections: instant runoff voting.

Instant runoff voting (IRV), or ranked-choice voting, offers voters the opportunity to rank the candidates on the ballot in order of their preference. It is the system already in use in Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and Minneapolis.

Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander sponsors Int. 106, which would establish IRV for all city positions. Manhattan Councilwoman and tech advocate Gale Brewer, who is the sponsor of an IRV pilot (Int. 1108), calls the system a common sense cost-saving solution that increases voter participation and moves NYC into the 21st century (although our election law dates back to the turn of the last century).

Not surprisingly, the city Board of Elections didn’t certify the results of the runoff until Oct. 15—two weeks after the contest was held. Had IRV been in place, the winner would have been known a full month earlier.

My friend and election-law wonk, Assemblyman Brian Kavanaugh, sponsors a similar IRV bill in the Legislature that also eliminates the costly runoff system and encourages greater voter participation.

By allowing voters to rank their choice of candidates on the primary ballot, IRV ensures that whoever wins has captured substantial support from the voters. If no candidate reaches the required 40 percent threshold to win the primary election outright, the ballots are recounted. The highest-ranked candidate on each ballot that is not eliminated from the contest receives the vote.

New York’s City Council can enact instant runoff voting without approval of the state Legislature. If it is adopted by the Council, the Legislature should stay out of the issue.

Instant runoff voting also passes muster under the Voting Rights Act because minority voter choice, participation and electoral success increases. In San Francisco, 16 of 18 officeholders elected using IRV are members of minority groups.

In a report supporting instant runoff voting, the good-government group Citizens Union noted that IRV increased the number of black and minority candidates elected to office. Like San Francisco, New York City’s high degree of racial/ethnic, social and cultural diversity makes it well suited to IRV.

After 40 years the time has come to retire the separate runoff election for citywide candidates. New Yorkers should get behind instant runoff voting because it’s an electoral change that increases voter choice and participation. Plus, IRV saves scarce budgetary resources than can be better used to fund public services.

Greater voter participation enhances the democratic process—and that really should be the bottom line.

Former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (@ SquarePeg_Dem on Twitter) represented the Bronx for eight years.