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An Examination of Ranked Choice Voting in the United States, 2004-2022

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  • Adam Graham-Squire
  • David McCune

Abstract

From the perspective of social choice theory, ranked-choice voting (RCV) is known to have many flaws. RCV can fail to elect a Condorcet winner and is susceptible to monotonicity paradoxes and the spoiler effect, for example. We use a database of 182 American ranked-choice elections for political office from the years 2004-2022 to investigate empirically how frequently RCV's deficiencies manifest in practice. Our general finding is that RCV's weaknesses are rarely observed in real-world elections, with the exception that ballot exhaustion frequently causes majoritarian failures.

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  • Adam Graham-Squire & David McCune, 2023. "An Examination of Ranked Choice Voting in the United States, 2004-2022," Papers 2301.12075, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2301.12075
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. James Green-Armytage & T. Tideman & Rafael Cosman, 2016. "Statistical evaluation of voting rules," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 183-212, January.
    2. James Green-Armytage, 2014. "Strategic voting and nomination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(1), pages 111-138, January.
    3. Todd Donovan & Caroline Tolbert & Samuel Harper, 2022. "Demographic differences in understanding and utilization of ranked choice voting," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(7), pages 1539-1550, December.
    4. D. Marc Kilgour & Jean-Charles Grégoire & Angèle M. Foley, 2020. "The prevalence and consequences of ballot truncation in ranked-choice elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 197-218, July.
    5. Joseph Ornstein & Robert Norman, 2014. "Frequency of monotonicity failure under Instant Runoff Voting: estimates based on a spatial model of elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 1-9, October.
    6. Adam Graham-Squire & David McCune, 2022. "A Mathematical Analysis of the 2022 Alaska Special Election for US House," Papers 2209.04764, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    7. Nicholas R. Miller, 2017. "Closeness matters: monotonicity failure in IRV elections with three candidates," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(1), pages 91-108, October.
    8. Joseph A. Coll, 2021. "Demographic Disparities Using Ranked-Choice Voting? Ranking Difficulty, Under-Voting, and the 2020 Democratic Primary," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 293-305.
    9. David McCune & Lori McCune, 2021. "The Curious Case of the 2021 Minneapolis Ward 2 City Council Election," Papers 2111.09846, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2021.
    10. Darmann, Andreas & Grundner, Julia & Klamler, Christian, 2019. "Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 345-353.
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    Cited by:

    1. David McCune & Adam Graham-Squire, 2024. "Monotonicity anomalies in Scottish local government elections," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(1), pages 69-101, August.

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