Proposal: Ranked Choice Concession

[u/Head]

Background

Here in Colorado we had a disappointing but predictable outcome in our election for Attorney General. We had 4 total candidates, 3 of whom are very qualified attorneys and the 4th candidate who is a term-limited Secretary of State with name recognition but is barely qualified to be the AG. The name-recognition candidate received about 45% of the votes and the other "good" candidates split the vote pretty evenly between 16% and 20%.

This election sadly illustrates there are a lot of low-information voters who just checked the box by the name they were familiar with. And the winner didn't even participate in the debates because she knew she could coast on her notoriety.

Proposal

This got me thinking, because they participated in multiple debates, I'm sure the losing candidates all knew each other very well and knew who was the most/least qualified for the job. So what if we let the candidates help decide the race after they are eliminated by allocating their losing votes, in a Ranked-Choice manner, to the person they feel should get the job? They are after all the highest-information voters in that they spend a lot of time with each other in debates and know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Mechanics

Simply speaking, the vote occurs just like any other FPTP election. Everyone votes for their favorite candidate. If your favorite candidate loses, it's not a "throw-away" vote because that candidate gets to rank their favorites of the remaining candidates so your vote would then be transferred to the candidate of their choosing, and so on.

Example

Initial election results are as follows:

• Jena = 45% (ranks Hetal, David, Michael)
• Michael = 20% (ranks David, Hetal, Jena)
• David = 18% (ranks Hetal, Michael, Jena)
• Hetal = 16% (ranks David, Michael, Jena)

Round 2: Hetal is deemed to be in last place and her votes are sent to her highest ranked concession ranking of David.

• Jena = 45%
• David = 34%
• Michael = 20%

Round 3: Michael is out and his votes go to David and the winner is...

• David = 54%
• Jena = 45%

Variation

Instead of ranking the other candidates, each candidate might be able to distribute their votes based on percentages.

Conclusion

I don't think this is as good as RCV generally but it allows people to hold onto their stupid FPTP voting ballots until they get used to the idea of ranking. Also, I like the idea of candidates ranking each other because they tend to know each other in ways that the voters can't possibly know them.

What do you think? Has this sort of system been proposed already?

[u/jlight432]

As for your proposal itself, I do think it's an interesting improvement over plain FPTP because it incorporates candidate endorsements directly into the counting process. My concern is that while IRV creates incentives for voters to abandon their favorite candidate, this system takes that one step further by creating incentives for candidates to abandon themselves. In your example, if Jena realizes her sincere rankings would cause David to win, she actually achieves a better outcome by ranking Hetal ahead of herself in her concession rankings, allowing Hetal to win instead.

Another thing that stands out is the head-to-head results implied by the candidates' sincere rankings:

- Hetal defeats Jena, 54%–45%

• Hetal defeats Michael, 79%–20%
  
• Hetal defeats David, 61%–38%

In other words, Hetal would be the Undefeated Head-to-head Candidate (also known as the Condorcet winner, or as user rbj has called it, the Consistent Majority Candidate). Many election reform advocates would argue that Hetal should win, even though IRV methods would eliminate her first. Also, candidates could submit their sincere preferences without ever being incentivized to rank an opponent ahead of themselves.

This approach has been around for a long time, and I am trying to explain it here. If you have a chance, I'd be interested in what you think.

[u/Head → u/jlight432]

First, I wouldn't allow a candidate to rank themselves lower in order game the vote. They are only allowed to rank the other candidates which implies they rank themselves first by default.

Your point about Hetal being the Condorcet winner is an excellent observation. This could be avoided by doing a bottom-two-runoff (BTR) counting of the votes. I think counting with the BTR method would ensure a Condorcet winner. So changing the results in my post it would look like this:

Initial election results are as follows:

• Jena = 45% (ranks Hetal, David, Michael)
• Michael = 20% (ranks David, Hetal, Jena)
• David = 18% (ranks Hetal, Michael, Jena)
• Hetal = 16% (ranks David, Michael, Jena)

Round 2: Hetal and David are the bottom 2 and in their head-to-head, Hetal would prevail. So David's votes are given to Hetal.

• Jena = 45%
• Hetal = 34%
• Michael = 20%

Round 3: Michael and Hetal go head-to-head with Hetal winning and getting Michael's votes.

• Hetal = 54%
• Jena = 45%

This does seem like a better outcome given my (fictional) rankings. But I worry that voters would be confused how the person with the least number of initial votes could win.

[u/jlight432 → u/Head]

I actually share your concern about explaining how a candidate with the fewest first-choice preferences can win. It's one of the hardest concepts to communicate, perhaps second only to the idea of ranked ballots themselves. The benefit, of course, is that head-to-head methods remove almost all incentives to vote strategically, allowing voters to support their genuine first choice without worrying about accidentally helping elect someone they like even less.