Like Hollywood, U.S. Should Update Its Voting System

Once upon a time, Hollywood cinematographers, disenchanted with black-and-white movies, embraced color film to more faithfully represent what they saw through the lenses of their cameras. Now Hollywood has taken an equally innovative step to represent the preferences of those who make the movies.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced that their Best Picture award will be determined by a voting system known as instant runoff voting. Rather than voting for one picture, members of the Academy will rank their favorite pictures in order of preference. The Academy decided to use this voting method after expanding the number of Best Picture nominees from five to 10. With so many pictures vying for an Oscar, the Academy was concerned that a fragmentation of the vote would result in the winner being supported by a small fraction of voters.

Dump Winner-Take-All

Unlike the winner-take-all system of voting so widely used in this country, preferential voting encourages broad participation by candidates and meaningful choices by voters. With three or more candidates in a winner-take-all race, voting for your favorite candidate could result in your least favorite candidate winning. By contrast, with preference voting, your top choice might not win, but by considering voters' second preferences, this method, according to the Academy, provides for "the collective judgment of all voting members to be most accurately represented."

Preference voting is the way we make scores of daily decisions from the mundane to the monumental; we choose from a variety of options and consider them in order of preference. "What do you want for dinner?" is a question that usually invites consideration of a multitude of options. "To eat or not to eat" is not the question. High school seniors rank their college choices in order of preference. If they are not accepted by their first choice, they go with their second choice.

Balloting by Preference

Instant runoff voting eliminates "the spoiler effect" without unnecessarily limiting the number of eligible candidates. The Academy correctly assessed that their problem was not having too many films to consider, but having a voting system that would not allow for the conscientious expression of their members' preferences. We live in a country where you can find 31 flavors of ice cream and hundreds of channels of satellite television. The ballot box might be the only place where choices are so drastically limited.

Preference voting has found considerable support at the local level, where it can and has been used to replace runoff elections with a single election. San Francisco has been using this method since 2004 and several cities, including Oakland and Minneapolis, are poised to follow suit.

Some critics of preference voting have charged that it is unconstitutional and violates the "one person, one vote" principle. This claim has been repeatedly rejected, most recently by a unanimous decision of the Minnesota Supreme Court. In other instances, there have been campaigns to repeal the use of preference voting after its initial use for municipal elections. But these campaigns were usually initiated by losing candidates or their supporters.

America is rapidly changing. Creating public policy for a diverse electorate requires voting methods that invite extensive citizen involvement and allow thoughtful consideration of a wide range of views and options.

Winner-take-all elections have their place, just as black-and-white films do - as a part of history. Welcome to the Technicolor age of voting.