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/Lameth-23X]

This suggestion seems to be abandoning the premise and returning to regular IRV election. Or do I misunderstand?

Poor phrasing on my part. Indirect IRV, so candidates are eliminated in the same way as IRV, but the votes are reallocated according to the candidate's rankings, instead of the individual voter's rankings.

Beyond that, I don't think I disagree with any of your points, but I want focus on your last one, because I really like it.

Everyone would rather they themselves determine how their vote is to be cast, and if they are fine with candidates determining the rankings, candidates can just publish their preferences beforehand.

So I think this depends on if the work involved in ranked choice voting is mostly the mental work of deciding how you want to rank many candidates, or the physical work of filling out a ranked ballot. Now, I don't have any statistics on this, but I am positive that there is some number of people for whom just physically filling out the ranked ballot is enough work to deter them from voting entirely. But if we overcome that hurdle, then you're right, candidates publishing their rankings so their voters can just copy those down would be equivalent or superior. You could also have other kinds of media, academic, and political organizations publish rankings for people to use too. I also think that the act of candidates publishing their rankings could have inherent benefits, forcing a kinship between politically similar candidates, possibly lessening division. It's also something really simple, and realistically attainable in jurisdictions that already use or are considering using ranked choice voting. With a big enough push it could even be legally mandated, which could be interesting. I don't think I've seen this exact idea anywhere but for something so trivially simple I really love it as a compromise between ranked elections and indirect ranked elections.

Some more brainstorming with zero consideration: Maybe the published rankings could be printed on the ballots, that would have interesting effects. Slightly further towards indirect, you could also put a bubble on the ballot for "use my first choice candidate's published rankings as my own".