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( – promoted by michael horan)

On February 26th, Suffolk University released their latest polling data [PDF] regarding the race for governor. This was the first poll to be conducted after Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein's announcement that she would be throwing her hat into the race for governor. Among the 500 voters they surveyed, 3% indicated that they would vote for Stein if the elections were held on the day they did their polling. The other candidates had higher figures, but no one breached the 50% mark.

Even more interesting, though, was the next question:

If it was apparent that your first choice could not win the election, which candidate (or party) would be your second choice? 

 

This question amounts to a roundabout way of asking “who is your second choice for governor”, and these were the results:

          Vote/Lean Patrick – Democrat ……………….  1           ( 1/124)    67  13% 

          Vote/Lean Mihos/Baker – Republican ………….  2                      118  24% 

          Vote/Lean Cahill – Independent ……………..  3                         146  29% 

          Vote/Lean Stein – Green ……………………  4                               32   6% 

          Undecided (DO NOT READ) ……………………  5                         137  27%

Here we see that support for Stein has doubled to 6%.

What we’re seeing here is a confirmation of long-held beliefs by proponents of instant runoff voting. That is, people may well have the desire to vote outside of the two party spectrum, but fear their vote is a waste because who they vote for won’t win. While I feel that a vote for the person you truly want to win makes a statement regardless of if they do win or not, it’s a valid fear that many members of the electorate have.

Yet as we have continually seen, with the growing formations of concerned citizen groups, support for the Democrat-Republican spectrum is waning. If there was ever a time to put an instant runoff voting mechanism into place, this is it. There is an obvious and real desire for voters to have more choices at the polls, to be given a chance to vote for a candidate who really stands for what they believe in, not just the “lesser of two evils”.

And there are people working right now to put this into place. I did some research and it seems that for the past year, Voter Choice MA has been working to gather signatures in order to get the question of an IRV system on the ballot. For more information on how they’re doing and more details on how IRV works, check out http://www.voterchoicema.org/

13 Comments

  1. michael horan

    I’m not certain how this reflects the idea that people  feel voting outside the 2-parties is a waste, since Cahill’s numbers are damned HIGH. In the first round, Stein gets 3%, Cahill, a surprising 23%, Baker 25%, and Patrick 33%. It does show that a quarter of the electorate is willing to entertain the idea of voting outside major party lines and that, with 18% undecided, it’s literally anyone’s race.

    But if IRV were in effect, it wouldn’t do any favors to the outliers. Stein would be out of the running immediately, and I’m guessing that her 3% would likely go to Patrick as the #2 on most Stein ballots. So now we’d have Patrick jumping to 36, with Baker holding at 25 and Cahill at 23. Or maybe a few Stein second choices are in fact undecided (since that jumps to a whopping 27%), so let’s score Patrick at 34.5.

    At this point,the real fun begins. With a margin-of-error at 4.4%, and only a 3 percentage-point difference between the two, we don’t know who gets eliminated–Baker or Cahill. In any case, the question, who gets the majority of votes from the eliminated candidate in the second-round is pretty easily resolved looking at second choices–it’s clear that Baker OR Cahill would pick up the most point–quite possibly enough to overcome the roughly 7-pt difference–especially Cahill, since Patrick is a very low 2nd choice, while Baker drops a point and Cahill picks up 3, suggesting he’s the preferred second choice.

    So the candidate (Baker/Cahill) who is NOT the preferred first-choice of the plurality of voters likely becomes governor. Hmmm. In fact, the THIRD preferred choice could pull it off based on these numbers.

    Of course, should the “undecideds” break largely for Patrick, he’d be able to withstand to second-choice onslaught and pull it off. That’s a large swath, and polls with that many undecided don’t lead too many conclusions of ANY sort–except that a lot of people aren’t thrilled with the three candidates they’ve heard of, and that a fourth, with less awareness in February but cohorts of hard-working campaigners, could be a different place come August…

    Question is: IF IRV were in effect when this question was asked, would Stein then have scored a higher percentage of first-round votes, since more voters would have been apt to name her as first-choice knowing that voting for her would not result in a GOP win? THAT’s why we need IRV.

    I find the recent Suffolk polls more interesting in regard to issues than candidates–largely because the Stein campaign has nowhere to go but up, and with increased awareness, her campaign could woo both that large bloc of undecideds, disaffected Patrick voters, and those picking Cahill as a protest vote.

    In re issues, the poll shows show slight support for cutting the sales tax to 3%, and VERY strong support for cutting the added alcohol sales tax and for casinos (worth keeping in mind, however, that, as another poll showed, 57% support casinos–but only 38% percent support having a casino in their town–which is a lot like, “I support the war, but I’m damned if I’m going to send my kid into combat.”)

    Would have liked to have seen a question about legalizing weed, since TAX AND REGULATE bills are popping up all over the country and gaining real momentum–but we don’t have that on the ballot yet. Next year?  


  2. A lot can happen in the nine months before election day.  Only a fraction of people care about any of this poll at this point.

    • thegreengrass

      “Question is: IF IRV were in effect when this question was asked, would Stein then have scored a higher percentage of first-round votes, since more voters would have been apt to name her as first-choice knowing that voting for her would not result in a GOP win? THAT’s why we need IRV.”

      That’s basically my point here. I didn’t mean Stein would pull an upset and win gloriously with an IRV system in place, but how many people did you know in 2000 who didn’t vote for Nader because they thought it was a waste, and effecttively a ? I just feel like it’s a huge first step to getting people comfortable with voting for 3rd party candidate.

      • Republican Ram Rod Radio

        BUT

        I can throw down a couple of mean verses of “I’m a Little Teapot”  

        But great post.  I may not agree with you about Jill Stein’s chances but I believe you are right on about everything else in your post.  

        You know anyone with a serious hard-on for Patrick, Cahill, or Baker?

        No, No I don’t …. good point.  

  3. Republican Ram Rod Radio

    So far the only person who has taken me up on this bet is Eli.  Who is next?  Only time will tell.  

  4. michael horan

    You’re really a Republican? How about I stand on Boston Common chanting “Mac is back!” for five minutes? No, better–I’ll sing that damn Toby Keith song, whatever it is. “Proud to be an American.” No, that’s not it. “Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue.” Yeah.

    I’m going to hell for even knowing who Lee Greenwood and Toby Keith even are.  

  5. daveschwab

    Good post, but I want to point out that the poll question isn’t the best for opening a conversation on instant runoff voting.

    “If it was apparent that your first choice could not win the election, which candidate (or party) would be your second choice? ”

    Americans are conditioned to believe that only Democrats and Republicans can win elections. I’m not saying they’re happy with it; but most who vote resign themselves to this idea, and the idea that by voting for a non-Republicrat candidate they agree with most, they will help the Republicrat candidate they agree with least. (I don’t consider Cahill an independent, as everyone knows he is a rebranded Democrat who owes his position to the two-party system).

    IRV allows voters to vote their sincere preferences without fear of “splitting the vote”. Even though this poll asks about second choices, both questions (the first implicitly, the second explicitly) are about strategic preferences (who will you vote for if enough others vote for them to give them a chance of winning?) not sincere preferences (who do you agree with most/who would you pick as our next governor?).

    If we wanted to measure the need for IRV, good questions to ask would be “what candidate are you most closely aligned with on the issues?” and “what candidate are you planning to vote for?” If the respondent’s sincere preference doesn’t match their strategic preference, they would probably be receptive to the idea of IRV.

    Many voters (likely a majority, judging by IRV referendum victories across the US) would be delighted to learn that there’s a voting system that would allow them to vote for the candidates they agree with most, without fear of helping the candidates they agree with least.

    I’d like Greens to develop a messaging campaign about instant runoff voting and proportional representation, based on the idea that every vote should count. This could be combined with clean elections public financing to make up the holy trinity of electoral reform. Thoughts?

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