Major Democratic Candidates for Philadelphia Mayor Endorse Ranked Choice Voting
Click here to vote in a mock RCV election of the 2023 Democratic Mayoral Primary for Philadelphia!
As I write this, it is April 11, 2023, and we have less than 5 weeks to go until the Democratic primary election for mayor of Philadelphia (May 16!). Despite there being a month and change to go, there are still ELEVEN candidates competing to be the ONE Democratic nominee who is all but guaranteed to win the general election in the fall and become the next mayor of Philadelphia. All of the major candidates for the Democratic nomination have endorsed Ranked Choice Voting (click here, open the video on the left under “Philadelphia Mayoral Race - Democratic Primary”, and go to 1:50 remaining). But all of them will be on an absurd winner-takes-all ballot that frustrates voters. Why is it absurd? Dear reader, let me tell you!
These eleven candidates, ranging from progressive Helen Gym to centrist Jeff Brown, represent many different factions of Philly Democrats. While most times in life, it’s nice to have nearly a dozen varied options to choose from, it is decidedly not nice with the way Pennsylvania elections currently work!
The problem is that, under our current system, the primary winner is whoever gets the most votes, even if they don’t get over 50%!
And with eleven candidates running, progressives will split their votes among candidates like Helen Gym and Rebecca Rynhart, and moderates among candidates like Allan Domb and Jeff Brown. The result is that the top vote-getter might not even crack 30%. It will be hard to say that that winner has a mandate from the people of Philadelphia!
The problem of vote splitting among similar candidates also encourages strategic voting: if you are a progressive, and two progressives and one centrist are running, you are incentivized to vote for the progressive you think has a better chance of winning, even if they're not your absolute favorite. If you don't vote for the more viable progressive, you might throw the election to the centrist (the spoiler effect). The problem is only further exacerbated in elections with more candidates, like our mayoral primary. Some progressives may like Helen Gym most of all, but vote for Rebecca Rynhart because they like her well enough and believe she’s a lot more likely to win than Gym (or vice versa!). Similar story if you’re more of a centrist – if you love Allan Domb but you think Jeff Brown is more likely to win, you’re incentivized to vote for Brown. So whatever your politics, under our current system, you’re encouraged to compromise your values when you choose who to vote for. And because of this, it’s hard to know what voter’s preferences actually were! A candidate might win with 30%, but that doesn't mean they are actually the favorite candidate of 30% of voters! This makes it harder for electeds and future candidates to know what voters actually want!
And don’t get us started on the mental gymnastics it takes to vote strategically! To figure out who is likely to win, you have to look at polls (and try to discern if they are accurate!) or otherwise figure out what other voters are thinking. Unfortunately, in the Philly Democratic mayoral primary, only two polls have been released – both by Jeff Brown, weeks ago – and it’s unclear how much the race has changed since then. What’s more, while you are trying to figure out what other voters are thinking, they’re all doing the same thing, so you have to think about what they are thinking about you! It’s a major headache to game out possible results; our election system should only require you to think about who you like! It’s a major headache to game out possible results; our election system should only require you to think about who you like!
Fortunately, there is a solution: ranked choice voting!
Click here to vote in a mock RCV election of the 2023 Democratic Mayoral Primary for Philadelphia!
This system has been used in many places in the country and around the world, including in the NYC Democratic Mayoral primary since 2021. In RCV, voters rank candidates on their ballots as their top choice, their second choice, third choice, etc. If no candidate wins a majority of top choices, then the candidate who received the fewest top choice votes is eliminated, and votes that had been cast for that candidate are instantly re-cast for their voters’ second choices. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority.
Learn more during our upcoming online event “What, why, how: Ranked Choice in Pennsylvania” on April 17.
RSVP here!
RCV solves the problems we described above. Whether the winner is Gym, Rynhart, Brown, Domb, or someone else entirely, RCV guarantees that in the final round, they have at least 50% of the vote! And if you are that progressive (centrist) voter, you can now safely vote for Helen Gym (Alan Domb) as your top choice and Rebecca Rynhart (Jeff Brown) as your second choice, without worrying about spoiling the election to someone you hate, or having to game out who is most likely to win. If Helen is eliminated before Rebecca, then your vote is still transferred to Rebecca and you still have a shot at helping elect someone you like! And those aren’t even the only benefits of RCV! Evidence suggests it also discourages toxic campaigning, increases voter engagement, and increases representation of women and people of color.
So if Philly Democrats generally agree RCV is so great, what’s stopping us from using RCV in our mayoral (primary) election? Well, the Pennsylvania legislature has to pass a law allowing Pennsylvania municipalities like Philly to use RCV. And that’s exactly what we at March on Harrisburg are working on right now!
If you want to learn more, you can join our upcoming online event “What, why, how: Ranked Choice in Pennsylvania” on April 17. And if you want to help us bring RCV to Pennsylvania, we are always looking for more volunteers. Click here to get involved!
– Russell Richie, MarchOnHarrisburg