What is Preferential Voting?

Preferential Voting vs. Plurality Voting

Plurality voting, also known as “first-past-the-post,” is a voting method in which the candidate with the most votes wins, even if a majority of voters oppose them.

The deficiencies of plurality voting include:

• Depending on how many candidates run, winners may have substantially less than 50% of the vote, leading to minority rule.
• It is common for like-minded candidates to split the vote, allowing a candidate with minority views and minority support to win.
• There is implicit pressure on voters to vote strategically for candidates that pollsters deem to be close to the top, rather than their preferred candidate.
• In some jurisdictions, candidates have been known to recruit their own weak opponents to siphon off votes from stronger competitors.
• Since candidates need to win a plurality at any cost, negative campaigning becomes the norm instead of issues-based campaigning.
• Candidates win by turning out their base of supporters in any way they can without appealing to all voters.
• Studies show that plurality voting increases voter apathy, because voters feel the plurality system does not give them a say.

No election system is perfect, but ranked choice voting in primaries addresses and improves many of the flaws of plurality voting. It requires candidates to engage with more voters and to garner majority support from the party before moving on to face a general election.

There is a reason that states are called “the laboratories of democracy.” Our constitutional system unleashes states, individuals, and associations of individuals (like political parties) to innovate and improve. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have never been satisfied with “that’s the way it has always been done.”