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The case for the five in final five voting

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  • Katherine Gehl

    (Institute for Political Innovation)

Abstract

My central concern is not, which electoral system would elect the best winner, but rather: which electoral system would be most likely to elect a Congress that would deliver optimal democratic outcomes? I use a theory of politics as an industry, first presented in Gehl & Porter (2017), that analyzes incentives and behaviors through the lens of competition. I argue that the optimal system is Final Five Voting (FFV), which is the combination of an open top-five primary and instant runoff voting (IRV) in the general election. Open, non-partisan primaries that select two candidates exist in California and Washington, while Alaska elects four in its open primary. Here I explain why the optimal number of candidates to advance from the primary to the general election is five.

Suggested Citation

  • Katherine Gehl, 2023. "The case for the five in final five voting," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 286-296, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:34:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10602-022-09386-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-022-09386-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Martin J. Osborne, 1995. "Spatial Models of Political Competition under Plurality Rule: A Survey of Some Explanations of the Number of Candidates and the Positions They Take," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(2), pages 261-301, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Marcus Ogren, 2023. "Candidate Incentive Distributions: How voting methods shape electoral incentives," Papers 2306.07147, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Final Five Voting; Political system; Partisan gridlock; Election reform; Political innovation; Political parties; Healthy competition; Party primary; Instant Runoff Voting; Plurality Voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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