Kudos to Philadelphia for electing a Black female mayor. That’s a first for the city. Cherelle Parker, a former councilwoman and state legislator, won decisively in last night’s Democratic primary, and, as we Philadelphians all know, that guarantees victory in the November election because there are more coins in your sofa cushions than there are Republicans in Philadelphia.
Alas, there are big caveats. I’m not trying to diminish Parker – I’d be writing this no matter who had won – but the sobering math is inescapable. There are 775,000 registered Democrats in Philadelphia. Roughly 235,000 bothered to vote. Parker topped the multi-candidate field with roughly 76,000 votes – which means that she won the mayoralty thanks to 10 percent of all registered Democrats…and just 29.5 percent of the Dems who did vote. In a city with a population of 1.5 million.
I suppose you can call that a mandate. I’ll call it a Philly thing.
If only we had ranked-choice voting! That might’ve coaxed more Dems to show up – and, most importantly, RCV politically strengthens a winner by demonstrating breadth of support.
You may not be familiar with this voting reform, which is now the law for all statewide elections in Maine and Alaska, in a number of big cities, and in democracies like Australia and New Zealand. A lot of Republicans hate it – Sarah Palin, who lost a congressional race because of RCV, calls it “a newfangled cockamamie system” – because they think it “confuses” the average voter. In truth, it’s confusing only to voters who are dumber than rocks.
Here’s how it works: You look at the ballot. You choose your preferred candidate. Then you choose your second-preferred candidate. Then you choose your third-preferred candidate. Then you’re done.
If a candidate wins a majority of the first-preference votes, it’s game over. But if (as in the Philly mayoral primary) nobody gets a majority, that’s when the second- and third-preference votes get tallied. The tallying process continues until a candidate wins a majority. By definition, the RCV winner can legitimately claim that he or she has support that’s broader than his or her base.
Last year, Palin ran for Congress in an RCV special election. Another Republican, Nick Begich, joined her on the ballot, along with Democrat Mary Peltola. Palin won only 31 percent, beating a Begich’s 28 percent; both finished behind Peltola’s 40 percent. Then the second-choice voters got tallied…and, lo and behold, a huge share of Begich Republicans named Democrat Peltola as their second choice. (Apparently they couldn’t stomach Palin.) The result: Peltola, blessed with that bipartisan support, cleared the 50 percent hurdle.
The voters in Maine said yes to RCV in a referendum seven years ago; apparently they were fed up with Gov. Paul LePage, who kept getting elected with a minority of the votes in multi-candidate races. LePage, who boasted that he was Trump before Trump, had repeatedly embarrassed the state with racist remarks, but the balloting issue had long predated LePage; in recent decades 9 of 11 gubernatorial winners had triumphed with a minority of the votes because the ballots were crowded with independents. RCV has worked smoothly statewide ever since.
Is there any chance that Pennsylvania’s lawmakers will pass voting reform and allow cities to use RCV? I’ll try not to laugh. Have you ever been to Harrisburg?
My best guess is that Philly plurality winner Cherelle Parker, having bested the Democratic mayoral field by a hefty margin, would’ve tallied a sufficient share of second-choice ballots to finish with a voting majority. That would’ve demonstrated breadth of support, strengthening her politically. And the message to apathetic citizens is clear:
With ranked-choice voting, your vote can still count even if your favorite candidate doesn’t win.
What could possibly be wrong with that?