In Fort Collins elections with 3 candidates, 'majority' doesn't rule. Some want to change it

To help focus a recent conversation around a Fort Collins ballot measure asking if City Council members and the mayor should be elected using ranked choice voting, we asked a question that is central to the issue: Should a candidate be required to win a majority vote to hold office in Colorado?

In ranked choice voting, a candidate must get more than 50% of the vote to win the race. That's instead of winning via plurality, where the person with the most votes wins whether they do it with 80% or 28% of the vote. The latter scenario happened in Fort Collins' 1999 mayor's race, when five candidates split the votes. And City Council District 4's winner in the last election had 30% of the total vote.

To review, here's how ranked choice voting works:

Voters rank candidates by order of preference (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) rather than voting for just one.

• A candidate who gets more than 50% of first-choice votes wins outright.

• If no one gets a majority, the last-place candidate gets knocked out. The people who voted for the last-place finisher then have their votes redistributed to their second-choice picks.

• This process continues until one candidate has the majority of active ballots.

A guide to Fort Collins ballot issues: A guide to Fort Collins ballot issues: Council pay, ranked choice voting, election timing

A few states do require a candidate in some statewide or federal races to get more than 50% of votes to win: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Washington.

When that doesn't happen in a three-way race, a separate runoff election is conducted in the weeks that follow. If you remember, for example: Georgia held a vote just weeks after the November 2020 election to decide who would fill their two U.S. Senate seats because the November election didn't produce more than 50% of votes for a single candidate.

Proponents of ranked choice voting equate the method to those runoffs, only there isn't a separate election. Instead, RCV, as it's also known, accomplishes the runoff through "instant runoff voting."

Coloradoan Conversations participant John M. noted that in some of those aforementioned states, "military and overseas voters ... are sent a ranked choice ballot so that the wishes of those voters are honored should a runoff election be required." That's because international voters might not have enough time between elections to return another ballot.

Most states, of course, don't require this majority. But whether Fort Collins City Council races should be decided with less than majority support for a candidate is a consideration that might bring more clarity to voters still trying to decide how to vote on the ranked choice issue.

A ranked choice voting FAQ:How ranked choice voting works

City elections include 3 or more candidates 33% of the time

To get a sense of how often ranked choice voting would have the potential to change a race's outcome, take a look back at 25 years of City Council elections: One-third of all races had more than three candidates. And in those races, 61% of the time, a winning candidate did so with a plurality of votes, rather than a majority.

Back to the question we asked. There are multiple factors to consider when it comes to ranked choice voting, but this recap will focus on the idea of the majority vote.

Skeptics asked: Why is a majority needed, anyway? Their arguments are straightforward.

Edward H. noted that the plurality system has had a long history. "The person with the most votes should win. That's even more simple, and it's been America's way for centuries."

"Ranked voting is not necessary! It is just that simple," Jerry G. said.

All that is needed is for voters to turn out and pick their first choice, Wm_R said. "Ranked voting isn't required, nor is a 50%+1 majority."

For Mimi K., having a majority of votes is an indication that the "winner of an election has the support of a broad coalition of voters."

Also on the pro side of ranked choice voting are Linda and James_T., who believe there is a cost benefit of avoiding a separate election: "With RCV we have an instant runoff if there's no majority in the first vote without spending money on another later election."

It should be noted that there are more costs associated with conducting an election using RCV than without it. According to previous reporting in the Coloradoan, "it's difficult to predict how much more, according to city staff, and total costs would depend upon whether the election was conducted by the city clerk or in coordination with Larimer County. In a city-run municipal election, the greatest potential expense would be for tabulation equipment, which was estimated at about $35,000 per election, and other potential expenses could include staffing costs and voter education."

Because Fort Collins doesn't have runoffs, we don't know exactly how much a special election for one would cost.

Impacts of not ranking more than one candidate

Harry S. said: "Just because a candidate receives 50% of the vote after several rounds of RCV does not indicate he is supported by a majority of the voting public." This gets to some individuals' concerns that if some voters choose not to rank more than one person on their ballots, then the number of people voting for candidates becomes smaller than the original pool.

For example, say 100 people cast ballots in a race and 20 of them don't rank more than one candidate. If those 20 voters' first-choice candidate is eliminated in the first round, then the pool of votes affirming any candidate is now 80 instead of 100.

Some proponents of ranked choice voting say not ranking more than one candidate would be akin to not voting in a runoff election.

"If you choose not to rank your second and third, etc., choices, and your candidate is eliminated in runoff rounds, then your ballot is no longer active. Which is exactly what would happen if they staged a physical runoff (at great cost and lower turnout) and you didn't bother to show up to vote," Eric F. said.

"If you as a voter do not fill out a complete ballot, then you have also made your choice. If all the minority party voters only vote for their first choice, they are doing themselves a disservice," said one of two Steve M.'s participating in Coloradoan Conversations (the one in favor of RCV).

Viewed another way, these one-candidate voters are still affecting the end result by depriving candidates they don't find acceptable of a vote. So instead of giving their vote to someone they cannot support, they are instead reducing the number of votes they can receive.

The majority aspect is one sliver of a robust conversation about ranked choice voting. The considerations include:

• Is RCV is too complicated for voters to understand and will it lead to fewer voters or ballot errors?

• Will it lead to more "gaming" of the system, for example, by introduction of additional candidates to dilute votes?

• Will it result in more civil campaigns because candidates are aiming to be a voter's second choice if not their first?

• Does it give less power to outside interests with lots of money?

• If it encourages more candidates to run, is having more choice a benefit, or does it just create more work for voters trying to decide?

To explore some of the pros and cons of ranked choice voting, try using this interactive tool where you can indicate where you fall on the issue and explain why, and then upvote others who are sharing views that resonate with yours. Also, check out Coloradoan Conversations. If you have an open mind to understanding where others are coming from, and seeing the data or reasoning they are relying on, go check it out by following the link and clicking on the blue view comments button.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: If Fort Collins passes ranked choice voting, majority will always rule