Since publication of the Washington Post column describing the “Total Vote Runoff” variation on Ranked Choice Voting, questions have arisen about the relationship of this procedure to what is known in the electoral systems literature as Baldwin’s method. The two are very similar, and even mathematically equivalent, but they are not operationally identical. The operational distinctiveness of the “Total Vote Runoff” procedure is significant for purposes of both law and policy.

The Baldwin’s method is to calculate Borda scores for all candidates in an election and to eliminate the candidate with the lowest Borda score, then recalculate the Borda scores for the remaining candidates, to again eliminate the remaining candidate with the lowest Borda score, and to repeat this recalculation-and-elimination procedure until a single winner remains. A very useful online calculator describes and implements Baldwin’s method as one among many alternative ways to calculate the winner from a set of ranked-choice ballots.

The Total Vote Runoff (TVR) procedure is structured to be operationally identical to the “instant runoff” procedure used in Alaska (and elsewhere), except in one respect. Thus, TVR starts not by calculating Total Votes (equivalent to Borda scores). Instead, like the “instant runoff” method, TVR starts by asking whether any candidate has received more than 50% of first-place votes on all ranked-ballots cast. If so, that candidate is immediately declared the winner of the TVR election, without any need to calculate any Total Votes or to conduct any sequential elimination of candidates. In this respect, TVR is the same as Alaska’s “instant runoff” procedure and different from Baldwin’s method. If TVR were to be adopted into a state’s law, the rules would require the relevant election officials to start by conducting this initial inquiry into whether any candidate received more than 50% of first-place votes and, if so, declare that candidate the winner without further inquiry.

TVR is also the same as the “instant runoff” method insofar as it seeks to eliminate the weakest candidate if no candidate has 50% of first-place votes. The one difference that the TVR procedure has from the “instant runoff” method is that it identifies the weakest candidate to be eliminated, not be identifying the candidate with the fewest first-place votes (as the “instant runoff” method does), but instead by identifying the candidate with the fewest Total Votes. It is true that a candidate’s Total Votes is the same as a candidate’s Borda score–although there is an advantage in using the “Total Vote” terminology (and its explanation of how a candidate’s Total Votes is calculated) when most voters have never heard of a “Borda” score. It is also true that, at this stage of the TVR process, eliminating a candidate with the fewest Total Votes is equivalent to the Baldwin method’s elimination of a candidate with the lowest Borda score.

But once the candidate with the fewest Total Votes is eliminated, the operational procedure of the Total Vote Runoff differs from Baldwin’s method and instead resembles the “instant runoff” method. At this point, TVR–like instant runoff–again asks whether any of the remaining candidates has more than 50% of first-place votes (with previously second-place candidates moving into first-place on ballots that previously had the eliminated candidate in first place). If there is now a candidate with more than 50% first-place votes, that candidate is immediately declared the winner, just as with the “instant runoff” method, and there is no further calculation of the Total Votes among the remaining candidates. In this respect, TVR differs from Baldwin’s method, which without checking whether any candidate has more than 50% of first-place votes would immediately recalculate Borda scores for all remaining candidates and would continue to eliminate the candidate with the lowest Borda score.

To be sure, if there is still no candidate with more than 50% of first-place votes, then TVR would proceed to calculate new Total Votes for the remaining candidates, and would eliminate the candidate with the fewest Total Votes, and in this respect would resemble Baldwin’s method. Still, at each stage of the elimination process, TVR first checks to see whether any of the remaining candidates has more than 50% of first-place votes before proceeding to calculate new Total Votes as part of the next round of elimination. In this key detail, TVR is the same as “instant runoff” and different from Baldwin’s method.

The difference is important not only for the legal rules that would define the TVR procedure if adopted by legislation for the conduct of an election, but also to make a policy comparison between TVR and the “instant runoff” method. For any state that is contemplating the possibility of adopting the “instant runoff” version of Ranked Choice Vote, TVR offers a straightforward policy comparison by isolating one single difference for consideration. Everything about the two procedures is identical except the one detail of how to eliminate a candidate when no candidate has 50% of first-place votes. Is it better to eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-place votes? Or is it better to eliminate the candidate with the fewest Total Votes? Reasonable people can differ on this policy choice by weighing a variety of factors, like relative simplicity or complexity, or vulnerability to strategic manipulation, or consonance with philosophical conceptions of majority rule, or effectiveness in combatting polarization, or other factors. But by focusing the policy debate on this single variable in otherwise identical procedures, the decision on what electoral reform would be best for a state to adopt becomes more straightforward and manageable than if the reform debate is between alternative proposals that differ in multiple ways.

None of this is to say that the literature and historical evidence concerning Baldwin’s method is irrelevant in evaluating the merits or demerits of Total Vote Runoff compared to “instant runoff” as used in Alaska and elsewhere. It is only to say that TVR should be evaluated in comparison to “instant runoff” by understanding how TVR is defined operationally and how that definition relates to “instant runoff” itself, recognizing that TVR is methodologically similar but not identical to Baldwin’s method.