Votes Can Be Confidently Bought in Some Ranked Ballot Elections, and What to Do about It

Political Analysis, 0[10.1017/pan.2024.4]

23 Pages Posted: 18 Mar 2023

See all articles by Jack Williams

Jack Williams

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science

Samuel Baltz

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science

Charles Stewart III

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science

Date Written: March 13, 2023

Abstract

We show that, in some ranked ballot elections, it may be possible to violate the secret vote. There are so many ways to rank even a handful of candidates that many possible rankings might not be cast by any voter. So, a vote buyer could pay someone to rank the candidates a certain way and then use the announced election results to verify that the voter followed through. We examine the feasibility of this attack both theoretically and empirically, focusing on instant runoff voting (IRV). Although many IRV elections have few enough candidates that this scheme is not feasible, we use data from San Francisco and a proposed election rule change in Oakland to show that some important IRV elections can have large numbers of unused rankings. There is no evidence that this vote-buying scheme has ever been used. However, its existence has implications for the administration and security of IRV elections. This scheme is more feasible when more candidates can be ranked in the election and when the election results report all the ways that candidates were ranked.

Keywords: Instant Runoff Voting, Ranked-Choice Voting, Election Security, Vote Buying

Suggested Citation

Williams, Jack and Baltz, Samuel and Stewart III, Charles, Votes Can Be Confidently Bought in Some Ranked Ballot Elections, and What to Do about It (March 13, 2023). Political Analysis, 0[10.1017/pan.2024.4], Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4387782 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/pan.2024.4

Jack Williams

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science ( email )

30 Wadsworth Street (Rm 470)
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Samuel Baltz (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science ( email )

30 Wadsworth Street (Rm 470)
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Charles Stewart III

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Political Science ( email )

77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
United States

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