Ranked-Choice Voting

Guest: Jason McDaniel, PhD, Political Science Professor at San Francisco State University  Picking your first, second and third choice of something feels natural when it’s a lunch order or the office costume contest. It’s not so natural – and maybe even unhelpful – when you’re asked to do it in an election. A few dozen cities, including San Francisco, have been experimenting with the system called “ranked-choice voting,” to avoid the need for a run-off election if the first round of results are too close. But analysis recently published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, suggests the strategy makes things worse for voters, not better.