cover image: Ranking Presidents: How Ranked-Choice Voting Can Improve Presidential Primaries - By better reflecting voter preferences, RCV could lead

20.500.12592/2ppczv

Ranking Presidents: How Ranked-Choice Voting Can Improve Presidential Primaries - By better reflecting voter preferences, RCV could lead

30 Nov 2022

New Hampshire, for example, used the threshold system in 2016, and delegates were awarded to any candidate who reached 10 percent of support.38 Only five of the 26 candidates met the 10 percent threshold to earn delegates, and these five candidates earned roughly 84 percent of the total votes in the primary.39 This means that 16 percent of the votes that were cast went to candidates who earned no. [...] The Republican presidential primary uses a variety of rules across the country to A recent study found that voters in assign delegates, but no matter the structure—winner-take-all, proportional or RCV states were able to effectively express their preferences and elevate threshold—RCV helps to better reflect the will of the voters. [...] However, in a crowded field, it is possible that only one candidate breaks the 15 percent threshold, and, in such a case, that person would receive all of the available delegates.41 In states or congressional districts that do not employ an RCV structure, the votes of the candidates that fail to reach the 15-percent requirement do not contribute to the proportional split of delegates. [...] The winner could be someone different from the plurality winner, but, for the vast majority of elections, the candidate in the lead after the first round of votes ultimately wins.47 In 2016, Trump himself boasted that he would likely be the second choice for many voters if their first-choice candidates dropped out of the race.48 Without RCV, candidates have to rely on hypotheticals to argue for th. [...] Over the last 60 years, states and parties have improved their primaries in an effort to be more responsive to voters.51 The implementation of RCV should be at the top of the list for future reforms to the presidential primary process.
Pages
9
Published in
United States of America