The Ranked Ballot system is designed to improve on the first past the post system where a voter is only given a single vote when choosing from multiple candidates. A dilemma faced by a voter with a single vote is how to use the vote when statistically his/her preferred candidate has almost no chance of winning. A common solution a voter employs is to abandon the preferred candidate and to cast the single vote for a major party candidate, and this is known as strategic voting. Strategic voting is biased against independent and minor party candidates and as a result the statistics are biased in favor of the major parties. Ranked ballots can be utilized whenever it is necessary to elect an individual from a list of candidates but it does not imply any particular political system. To his credit Prime Minister Trudeau advocated for ranked ballots but unfortunately also stated his opposition to proportional representation. Ranked ballot systems should be considered separately from proportional representation. If a ranked ballot system is introduced first meaningful statistics (by excluding strategic votes) could affect the requirement for the latter.
This proposal differs slightly from the standard Ranked Ballot system in how the votes are counted and is designed to enable voters to choose their ranked candidates without losing the strength of their strategic votes (see above) .
The standard voting system counts the top ranked candidate of each voter then eliminates the candidate with the minimum votes on each pass (the last pass is when a candidate reaches a majority 50% +1). A simple example of where this fails is to consider 3 parties split A 36%, B 34% and C 30% on the first vote count pass. Party C is eliminated on the first pass from all the voters. If it had not been eliminated it would have only taken 21% of the voters to choose Party C as a second choice for the party to win on a second pass.
To avoid the sub-optimal results produced by the standard ranked ballot system in cases like the one described above, I propose voters being given the ability to rank up to 3 candidates (the first choice is required) or one less than the number of candidates if there are less than 4. The proposal is for the count to include the previous ranks with the next rank in the next pass (the last pass is when a candidate reaches a majority 50% +1). This means each voter can get 2 votes (different candidates) in the second pass and 3 votes in the third and last pass. If nobody reaches 50% +1 on the last pass (the one including all the votes) the candidate who has the most votes wins.
A voter is likely confronted with the following types of choice –
A respected independent candidate that has similar political leanings. This candidate will be totally free from party pressure to represent the riding and could be the first choice
The preferred political party candidate. This will be the second ranked choice if there is a preferred independent candidate otherwise it will be the first ranked. As this is the highest ranked political party vote it should be used to contribute to the collection of party statistics.
A lower ranked political party candidate. This will be the last ranked choice. This is a strategic choice the voter makes in case one of his/her higher ranked choice(s) doesn’t win. In some cases the higher ranked choices have little prospect of winning the election and could be considered “throw away” votes. Unfortunately the current first past the post system encourages the use of strategic voting which biases the statistics in favor of the major parties which, at the next election, further encourages strategic voting (self perpetuating).
Although it may seem like voters’ first choices should be given more weight, there is an important reason why all votes must be counted equally. If a voter that did not choose a major party as a first choice was asked which of his/her choices should be eliminated if there was one less that could be chosen, it is most likely to be the first (but honestly preferred) because there was little likelihood of that candidate winning (throw away vote). The same argument can be made for the second choice to be eliminated if it was not for a major party. This would suggest the third choice (strategic) should be given equal weight to the others and also demonstrates the underlying problem with the current first past the post system.
If all votes are given equal weights it makes no sense for all voters to rank all candidates. All candidates would receive 100% on the last pass if all votes were to be counted. Voters should only be allowed to rank three candidates, or – when there are less than four candidates – 1 less than the total number of candidates. More choices would most likely invite a thoughtless exercise as voters fill in the rest of the blanks.