Week 4: Ranked Choice Voting and Coombs Rule vs. Hare Method vs. Plurality Survey

Welcome to Week 4 of the election theory course! This week, I continued to conduct research on the instant runoff/Hare method, and specifically the role it plays in places such as Cambridge, MA and Maine, which utilize ranked choice voting (RCV) in their elections. I was interested in seeing how members of my school community felt about various voting methods, so over the weekend I created a survey that provides preference profiles of hypothetical elections and asks users to compare Coombs rule and Hare method, as well as RCV and plurality. See the link for the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScTy9obiL4AUmV8982NsgU5jbum3Zv5MSqWgz9KUN1Nx6oAhw/viewform?usp=sf_link. So far, I have 19 responses, but hopefully I will receive more, as I plan on using a part of this data for my paper that is due on Monday.

I also created a series of questions for Cambridge/Maine voters, asking them about their experiences with utilizing this system and the general sentiment around RCV in their respective areas. Here is the list of questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQz0C6q7GLq33EsG0h4ehhvJEJ9Huswdu_nxTWe-WX-50P7TCTrSFOrBJTiZGDLJMQZErtQWhwEOIWg/pub. I reached out to several faculty members this past week, and once again I hope to receive some answers that I can use for my project!

As I mentioned before, I am currently working on a paper, due on Monday, on instant runoff and ranked choice voting. Essentially, I will first go into the historical context of instant runoff (who proposed it, when was it invented, why was it created). Then, I will go into its flaws and benefits compared to plurality, refer to the results of my survey, and finally I will cover an in-depth study of how RCV operates in both Cambridge and Maine. There are other places in the United States and the world that utilize RCV, but Cambridge and Maine are the closest to my current school community. I will go into more detail of the material covered in my paper next week and will also publish the paper on this blog.

In the meantime, because it is currently midterms, I wanted to reflect on my progress on the project so far. I am certainly proud that I was able to learn so much material and write a four and a half page paper on plurality. Everything I've worked on and read has been so fascinating, and I'm glad that I am able to make myself more politically informed along the way. I talked with my mentor, though, about making my work a little more mathematical in the future--this is a math independent project, after all. I will incorporate more hypothetical examples and data into my papers and work, so look out for that!

Also, look at this article I came across today on lowering the voting age by 2020: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/04/17/washington-d-c-may-allow-16-year-olds-vote-president-2020-election/523301002/. Should 16-year-olds be allowed to vote? This is definitely a question I'll be thinking about this week!