I'm a bit skeptical of ranked choice voting- one of the key issues for the US that rarely gets discussed is that we can't use it to elect our President, due to the 12th Amendment, unless you're OK with the states selecting him/her instead. The 12th Amendment states that the Presidential winner has to have a majority of the Electoral College votes on the first round of voting- no multiple rounds- otherwise each state gets to cast one vote to pick who out of the top 3 candidates gets the job. (Yes it technically says 'the House' picks, but it's not the full House of Representatives- instead they give each state 1 vote).
I've presented this to various ranked choice voting enthusiasts, and have never heard a good response. Feel free to read the plain text of the 12th Amendment for yourself, it seems quite clear to me!
'The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.'
> one of the key issues for the US that rarely gets discussed is that we can't use it to elect our President, due to the 12th Amendment, unless you're OK with the states selecting him/her instead. The 12th Amendment states that the Presidential winner has to have a majority of the Electoral College votes on the first round of voting- no multiple rounds- otherwise each state gets to cast one vote to pick who out of the top 3 candidates gets the job
This sounds like it would preclude a nation-wide RCV implementation (without a constitutional amendment), but a per state implementation of RCV would still be an improvement over the current system in my opinion. I don't see how that would run afoul of the constitution, but I'm not a lawyer.
Well that's easy: you're mistaken. The 12th amendment manager the election by the electors, these are representatives. So someone needs a simple majority of the 538 electoral votes when those are tallied in January. How the states determine which electors to send is up to each state. New York could select it's electors based on a ranked choice ballot.
Sorry, I left a key part out- the issue is combining ranked choice voting AND a multiple party system. If you only had 2-3 parties, I agree with you. However I think what the RCV people are hoping for is a multiparty system, yes? So once you get above 4 parties, the odds of multiple states all having picked a different candidate increases, so that no one gets a majority.
Extremely simplified example- the South all chooses the Republican candidate, the West Coast all chooses the Democratic candidate, the Midwest all chooses the Populist candidate, the Northeast mostly chooses the Whig candidate. Alaska chooses the Alaska Independence Party candidate. Vermont and New Mexico chooses the Green Party candidate. See the problem now?
Couldn't states just develop complex rules for sending their delegations that knock losing candidates off the list and redistribute local votes based on national electoral gridlock? That sounds somewhat similar to the way the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is supposed to work.
I guess in theory. You'd need a bunch of states to cooperate together (so both red & blue), plus Congress has to bless it. Contrary to what the popular vote people seem to believe, the Compact Clause (Article I, Section 10, Clause 3) of the Constitution states that "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State"
that may be the case, but we might have better politics if our other elections were done with ranked choice. If it can reduce the power of the parties, that is a net win.
I've presented this to various ranked choice voting enthusiasts, and have never heard a good response. Feel free to read the plain text of the 12th Amendment for yourself, it seems quite clear to me!
'The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.'
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii