Can a New Voting System in the U.S. Save Moderates in Congress?

In the two years since President Joe Biden called on the country to come together during his inaugural address, it appears that the nation has only become further divided, and it's costing the jobs of members of Congress in the middle of the political spectrum.

A Reuters analysis released Wednesday found that moderate members of the House are leaving office at twice the rate of their colleagues on the left and the right—a figure that hasn't been seen in three decades. But experts believe ranked choice voting (RCV), a system where voters are asked to rank candidates rather than select only one, could help turn the tide toward moderates, as it often favors centrist candidates in elections with competition scattered across the political spectrum.

Under the framework, if no candidate wins a simple majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their supporters' votes are redistributed to the second-choice candidates. The process continues until a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote.

Andy Eggers, a political scientist focused on electoral systems, explained to Newsweek that under the current U.S. voting system, primary elections are usually dominated by ideological voters. Because of this, candidates who are more moderate, and who might represent a larger majority of general election voters, are at a disadvantage among primary voters who are more likely to cast their ballot for a more partisan candidate.

Under this assumption, "you're going to have this phenomenon with a lot of centrists losing in the primaries," Eggers said. That phenomenon is exactly what has happened in several races this midterm season, specifically in a number of closely watched Republican primaries where a Trump-backed candidate has successfully ousted their more moderate GOP opponent.

"If you have everybody kind of running against each other, then yes, these centrists are going to do better than they would in a case where they have to first deal with the more extremist candidate in a partisan primary," Eggers said. "Centrists in Congress are better off in a ranked-choice-voting election."

James Thurber, the founder and former director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, agreed that RCV is "helpful for those who are in the middle ideologically, rather than the far right or far left." Alexander Hirsch, a political science professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, also said that moderate candidates could increase their chances of winning by embracing RCV.

But while some candidates could benefit under the election system, many have been hesitant to embrace RCV, and it has even drawn opposition at times.

Most recently, the voting system, which was tested for the first time in Alaska last month, drew widespread backlash among Republicans after GOP candidate Sarah Palin lost to Democrat Mary Peltola in a political upset during the special election to replace the vacancy left by the late Representative Don Young.

In response to Palin's special election loss, Senator Tom Cotton called RCV a "scam," while the Republican National Committee's national press secretary alleged that the system "disenfranchised voters."

The news out of Alaska was also a rare situation where Trump's endorsement didn't hold. Polling suggests that if the second most popular GOP candidate, Nick Begich, beats out Palin in the November general election, he'd have a better chance than Palin at defeating Peltola. These predictions are consistent with what experts say: Trump's primary picks would not have fared as well as they have if their names appeared on an RCV ballot instead of in a partisan primary.

It's not only Republicans who oppose RCV. Top Democrats in Nevada, including Governor Steve Sisolak and both of the state's senators—Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen—also spoke out against the system earlier this year, saying it would make voting more confusing and that it would "disproportionately impact communities of color."

But experts say the benefits of embracing RCV are not partisan.

"It may be tempting to both parties to gradually advocate that we move more toward this system of ranked choice voting or similar systems that, in their own way, rid the parties of these extremist candidates on both left and right that seem to be causing their caucuses so many problems," Republican strategist Jay Townsend told Newsweek.

Proponents of RCV say that the system improves the fairness of elections by giving the broader electorate more options while curbing the sway that partisan voters, who often select the primary winners, typically have over the general election.

Eggers noted that the counterpoint to RCV is the concept of the "center squeeze"—a scenario in which when there are three candidates, the centrist is eliminated first. But he also pointed out that the idea of a squeeze happens "when the left and right options are pretty centrist."

"The center squeeze is less relevant when left and right are way out there," he said, referring to the political landscape of the U.S.

The one major caveat to RCV is that it could potentially change the fundamental nature of America's two-party system because it could open up the system to multiple parties. By essentially eradicating the need for primary elections, the entire voting system could be different.

"Moderates might indeed prevail with ranked choice ballots nationwide, but the candidates who win may not be either Democrats or Republicans," Ian Ostrander, an associate political science professor at Michigan State, told Newsweek.

Ostrander added that if RCV were already in place, there may not be routine waves of retirements from Congress. Districts could also be entirely different since the practice of gerrymandering doesn't work under the RCV structure, he said.

Update 9/19/22, 2:08 p.m. ET: This story was updated to better reflect the definition of ranked choice voting.