Mel’s Musings – Should the majority decide?

How should we decide who wins elections? Should it be determined by who gets the most votes or by whichever candidate gets a majority of the votes cast? In “one on one” elections those two things, the candidate getting the most votes and the candidate who gets the majority of the votes, are the same thing. However in multi-candidate elections, like the current contest for School Board in the Mitchell 17-2 school district, there will be candidates with the most votes but probably no majority for the winners.

There are six citizens running for two spots on the Mitchell School Board; Terry Aslesen, Chris Foster, Dave Lambert, Tim Moon, Deb Olson and Jeff Sands. If the votes are split somewhat equally then the winning candidates may have as little as 17% of the total vote in a contest that is already a typically low turnout election. Given the controversies and challenges that school boards face, especially in recent years, shouldn’t winning candidates have more of a mandate? In fact, shouldn’t the winning candidates have a majority in order to be elected?

Rank order voting is a way to get a majority result in multi-candidate elections. In rank order voting the electorate votes for all the candidates in “rank order”. For example, in the Mitchell School Board election each voter would rank his or her preferences numerically from 1-6 for every candidate in the race. Once the election was over then only the first place votes would be counted. In the case of the current race for Mitchell School Board if two candidates, upon the initial counting of the ballots, had a majority of the votes then of course they would automatically be declared the winners and the process would be complete. However, in the more likely scenario that no one received a majority then the candidate that got the least first place votes would be dropped from consideration and that person who came in last would then have the second place votes listed on those ballots redistributed to the other candidates. For illustration purposes assume for a moment that I (Mel Olson) was running for school board and came in last. If I had 30 first place votes, those ballots would be scrutinized to see who was the second choice on those ballots. Say 15 people voted Mel Olson #1 and Candidate A #2 and 15 others voted Mel Olson#1 and Candidate B #2 then on the recount of the remaining candidates, after I was dropped from consideration, Candidates A and B would pick up another 15 votes each in the subsequent tabulation. If no one emerged with a majority in the recount after dropping the initial bottom vote getter then the next lowest candidate would be dropped, their votes redistributed etc. until two candidates with majority support emerged as the winners.

Maine uses rank order voting for all elections, including the presidential election in 2020. Believe it or not, 1212 candidates filed to run for president in the last election. Obviously not many of them made the cut but most voters had more choices for president than just Joe Biden or Donald Trump on their 2020 presidential ballot. Several municipalities use rank order voting as well including; Minneapolis and St. Paul, San Francisco, Santa Fe, New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts to mention a few. The rank order voting system ensures a majority vote for the winning candidate and while that candidate may not have been the first choice on all of the tabulated ballots they will be the preferred choice of the majority who voted in that election.

I have run in thirteen elections, winning eleven, over the span of four decades. In six of them there were multiple candidates where rank choice voting would have been appropriate. In five of the six (I lost the 2018 Mitchell mayoral race) I was the top vote getter but didn’t necessarily have the majority of the votes. I have always trusted the electorate and respected their judgment. From experience, I know that voters don’t always know what they want but they always do know what they don’t want. Rank order voting will produce a majority result and guarantee that folks aren’t stuck with an outcome inflicted on the electorate by just a tiny minority of voters. I think it’s time we gave it a try in Mitchell’s municipal and school elections.