By Cristian Velazquez Staff Writer
In Texas HB 117 and HB 740 concerning rank-choice voting will be addressed in the upcoming 2021 legislative session. Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting or preferential voting, has been an alternative way to hold elections. If the bills pass, we will no longer have to hold costly runoff elections. In November rank-choice reform passed in Alaska, two cities in California, two cities in Minnesota, and a city in Colorado. Along with those states, 17 others use ranked-choice voting in some capacity.
“Voters rank candidates in order of preference –first choice, second choice, and so on. If a candidate gets more than half of the first-choice votes, they win just as in any other election. If no candidate gets a majority of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest is eliminated and voters who picked that candidate as their first choice will have their votes count towards their second choice. This process is repeated until a candidate accumulates more than half of the votes, thus serving as an instant runoff while eliminating the additional costs and time associated with runoff elections,” according to Ranked Choice Voting for Texas.
Proponents have stated there are many benefits to implementing ranked-choice voting. One of the main ones is that ranked-choice voting dramatically reduces the spoiler effect, a situation since candidates who try to split votes will have their votes go to a different candidate when they lose. Another popular benefit of ranked-choice voting is that elections become less expensive and less tedious as governments don’t need to establish runoff elections. Another benefit is that since competing candidates will also be vying for 2nd, 3rd, etc. place votes, campaigns will shift their focus from maligning other candidates to expanding their voter base, making the political climate less toxic. Proponents of ranked-choice voting also cite the policy’s implementation in other developed countries such as Australia and Ireland.
Opponents argue that ranked-choice voting is overly complicated and can confuse voters, citing the repeal of ranked-choice voting in South Carolina, Burlington, Vermont, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Pierce County, Washington, and Aspen, Colorado. Another point opponents make is that when the candidate(s) a person has chosen loses, those votes become meaningless and disenfranchises voters.
On the national stage in the United States, ranked-choice voting has been gaining traction. 2020 Presidential candidates who support ranked-choice voting include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Howie Hawkins, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Bill Weld, and Andrew Yang.
Texas also has a recent history with ranked-choice voting. Since 1997, 12 bills in the Texas Legislature have tried to implement the reform in Texas (75(R) HB 2355, 76(R) HB 569, 76(R) HB 1765, 78(R) HB 135, 78(R) HB 1362, 79(R) HB 197, 79(R) HB 1790, 80(R) HB 2209, 86(R) HB 3514, 86(R) HB 2010, 87(R) HB 117, 87(R) HB 740). All of them have died in committee except for HB 117 and HB 740, which has been filed for the upcoming 2021 legislative session. In a policy workshop for ranked choice voting by Humanity Forward Texas, Rep. Terry Meza talked about how her bill, HB 2010, died in committee.
“We filed a bill for preferential voting… once all the bills are filled then the speaker assigns them to whatever committee he thinks… is the most appropriate committee for that subject matter. So, of course, this bill is assigned to the Elections Committee. And from there starts the effort to get your bill heard. You wouldn’t think it would be such an effort but it really is because there are so many bills filed that the committee chair has the power to decide whether or not a bill’s going to be heard. So in this particular case Stephanie Klick, Republican out of Tarrant County, was the Elections Committee Chair and with all 10 of my Election Committee bills, any time I’d to talk to her about any ways to make voting easier, her standard answer was ‘voter fraud’”.
During 2000 and 2001, An effort to get ranked-choice voting in Austin gained substantial momentum. The Austin Charter Revision Committee recommended the reform that year in January 2001 and a petition by Clean Campaigns for Austin gathered signatures to get ranked-choice voting on the ballot. However, a lot of progress was dismantled after Secretary of State Henry Cuellar penned an opinion in July 2001 saying the policy was illegal. Citing Texas Election Code Sec. 275.002 (To be elected to a city office, a candidate must receive a majority of the total number of votes received by all candidates for the office), Sec. Cuellar opined that “the meaning of the word ‘majority’, as the Texas Legislature has used it in the Code and as it has been interpreted by the courts, is the majority in the ‘classic’ or ‘traditional’ sense, i.e., [consisting] of more than half of the original votes, as cast and not re-assigned by the voter’s secondary or tertiary intent, and if no candidate receives more than half the votes, a runoff election is required”. Although the opinion isn’t legally binding, it has substantial persuasive authority. The Clean Campaigns for Austin petition was halted, The 3 city council members who had supported ranked-choice voting dropped their endorsements, and the policy was dropped from the recommendation of the Austin Charter Revision Committee in December. Later, in March 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dealt another blow to ranked-choice voting in Texas by concurring with Sec. Cuellar’s assessment of the issue in an opinion, saying “state law conflicts irreconcilably with, and thereby preempts, instant runoff voting”.
Ranked-choice voting has been implemented in Texas in certain areas. Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Houston, and Rice University use the method for their elections. The Texas Democratic Party also allows county or senate districts to use it to choose party officers and delegates.
In the summer of 2019, a nonprofit organization called Ranked Choice Voting for Texas was created
As the Overton Window shifts toward innovative solutions to problems with our government ranked-choice voting’s momentum shows no sign of stopping in the coming years. As the issue becomes more and more popular in the discussion, it is important that we think about whether this will be a good policy for the United States, for Texas, for Bexar County, and Helotes/Grey Forest/San Antonio area.