“A Way to Eliminate One Form of Russian Election Hacking”

John Porter and Rob Richie:

As revealed in February indictments by Robert Mueller, Russian operatives weaponized an antiquated rule of American democracy: the loophole that allows candidates to win all of a state’s electoral votes with less than 50 percent of the vote. Under our “plurality voting” laws, Donald Trump could win key battlegrounds if anti-Trump voters failed to consolidate behind Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted about Mueller’s indictments that a “big aspect of the Russian meddling was encouraging voting for a third-party candidate.” One Russian ad urged progressives to “choose peace” and vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein as “the only way to take our country back.” The ad declared, “Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.”

But for those with a preference between Trump and Clinton, it was due to our election method. Democratic consultant David Axelrod commented that “if Russians sought to redirect alienated HRC (Clinton) voters to third parties, as indictment alleges, it was a shrewd ploy.” Indeed, Stein ultimately won more votes than Trump’s victory margins in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which collectively had enough electoral votes to decide the presidency.

The Russians aren’t alone in manipulating this election method vulnerability. A ProPublica investigation revealed that allies of Democratic Senator Jon Tester in 2012 spent big money to boost a Libertarian as the “real conservative” in Montana. Tester ultimately won by 3.7 percent, with 6.6 percent going to the Libertarian. As Republicans take on Tester this year, a Republican activist has been exposed trying to secure the Green Party nomination to take votes away from Tester.

Such appalling tactics will remain “shrewd” as long as we maintain plurality voting. Fortunately, there’s a proven solution to the “plurality hack”: ranked choice voting. Voters rank their choice of candidates in order of preference, and ballots are counted in a series of “instant runoffs.” If a candidate wins a majority of first choices, that candidate wins, just like in any election. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their ballots go to the candidate ranked by the voter next on the ballot. This process continues until a candidate wins a majority.

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