Theoretically I am all for ranked choice voting but like everything else in life, the concept has its pros and cons. The idea is that if your first choice is eliminated, your second-place candidate becomes your first choice and so it goes until a winner is declared. The problem, of course, is ignorance.
Most people have no real idea about the personalities and positions of the candidates. If you ask them, many people will tell you that they vote the person and not the party. However, that is generally not true. What do people really know about the people who are running? Do the people who are voting for Donald Trump know what he is actually all about?
If you were to ask a “suburban housewife” how important the dignity and political clout of women in this society is to them, she might tell you that it is very important. Then, out comes that famous “Access Hollywood” tape, showing us what Donald Trump really thinks about women. As my father used to quip, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.” The point is that most people are incredibly ignorant about what a candidate thinks and how he or she behaves. Right? So on what criteria do we base our rankings?
If we rank our choices based on almost no information, we will end up with a real crapshoot. That is actually true of voting in general. As Lucille Ball is often quoted (maybe apocryphally) as telling someone who wanted to make changes in a routine, “Listen, junior, don’t fool with success.” If we choose candidates based on party affiliation or looks or religion, we may end up with someone who is not really to our liking. Let’s put it this way: Suppose a candidate is a self-serving, chest-beating know-it-all, but you have no idea about that. You may end up listing that person as No. 2 or 3 on your list. The truth is, you probably didn’t know all that much about your No. 1 choice and you know even less about the people farther down your list.
The other problem with ranked choice voting is that inevitably, what may have looked like a good idea comes with what we might call “unforeseen consequences.” It will mean that we could well end up with someone that we really would rather not live with. Any time we adopt a reform that looks good on paper, there’s a possibility it might come with strange results.
Some of the best and brightest politicians in the Commonwealth, people like Deval Patrick, are in favor of this. It’s not hard to figure out why. In Blue State Massachusetts, the Democrats believe that ranked choice voting will mean that the likelihood of electing a Republican will be even more remote than it is now. Many people, including me, voted for Gov. Baker because he seemed OK. For most people he was an unknown, so if you were rank ordering, he might not have won. Let’s face it: Politics is all about winning. People who vote Democratic (I am one) will be for this so-called reform. Certainly, however, there will be problems, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
What will we do? The problem is that this reform is quite complicated. I must confess that, as a full professor who taught political science at the state university, I am filled with apprehension. But hey, sometimes in life you have to take chances on reforms and take the good with the bad. This may be one of those times.
