Bill would limit voting methods
I am writing about the recent article about state Sen. Julie Daniels’ bill to prohibit ranked choice voting in any Oklahoma elections. As a university mathematics professor, I would like to offer some helpful insight into what mathematics has to say about voting methods.
Mathematicians have been studying voting methods for at least the past three centuries. In that time, several voting methods have been proposed. They all attempt to deal with the difficulties presented by an election with three or more candidates. For an election with two candidates, it can be shown that majority rule produces an undisputed winner. However, with three or more candidates, it is possible for no candidate to earn a majority of votes. What can be done in that case?
In Oklahoma primary and statewide elections, we sometimes have runoff elections that pit the top two candidates against each other. This system has desirable properties, but it has flaws, too. In fact, no voting method is perfect. This is essentially what Kenneth Arrow proved in 1950. What is now known as Arrow’s Theorem says that for an election with three or more candidates, no voting method has all of the desirable properties that one would want a voting method to possess.
The way that I (and many others) prefer to interpret Arrow’s Theorem is that one should choose a voting method based on one’s value judgment about the properties that are most desirable for a voting method to possess. This is dependent on the context. As both its supporters and critics admit, ranked choice voting has both strengths and weaknesses. However, its strengths may make it superior to other voting methods for elections in some jurisdictions.
If Sen. Daniels’ bill becomes a law, then voters in those jurisdictions will not be able to use a voting method that is best for their elections. That would be a decidedly undemocratic outcome.
— Nicholas Zoller, Oklahoma City For additional letters to the editor, go to www.Oklahoman.com/opinion/