Letter: Runoff elections are a good thing

Published 11:55 am Monday, September 19, 2022

In a hyper-partisan era, some politicians only see two kinds of elections. If some politicians didn’t win, they cry “fraud” in the vote-counting system.

So far, thankfully, there’s no evidence that U.S. election results are changed by the statistically minuscule amount of fraud that actually exists.

One recent partisan fundraiser criticizes Alaska’s “ranked choice” voting system, which uses the “instant runoff” form of ranked choice. Ranked-choice voting is well explained, with both sides’ arguments, at ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV).

The result of ranked-choice voting in one recent Alaska race was that, after two Republicans finished behind a Democrat in the first round of counting, the Democrat narrowly won the race in the end. (First-round and second-round counts are at www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-special-elections/alaska-house-results).

This wasn’t fraud at all! The winner was the candidate that voters preferred most and disliked least.

Runoff elections are generally a good thing. They give those in the middle of the political spectrum a somewhat better chance of being elected than they would have in a purely partisan system.

Elections with runoffs favor candidates who “stand for something,” at least enough to get a fair number of first-choice ballots, but who aren’t so extreme or antagonistic that they offend voters in the middle.

That’s the genius of Washington’s “top two” primaries. Party extremists in both parties hate the “top two” system, as they hate any other system that allows independent voters an equal voice in the results.

If the “top two” election system discourages extremism and rewards civility — even a little bit — it’s mostly good for us as a state and nation.

DAVE CUNDIFF

Ilwaco