Popular Discontent, Recall Elections, and Ranked-Choice Voting

Abstract

Consider a scenario in which voters select a candidate through a two-stage process: an intra-party stage in which only party members vote, followed by an inter-party stage in which all voters participate. In such a setting, the elected candidate may not be a Condorcet winner, potentially leading to significant voter dissatisfaction. Recall elections, which allow the public to remove a politician from office before the end of her term, can serve as a partial remedy for this discontent. This study examines the effectiveness of recall elections in selecting a Condorcet winner as a replacement candidate using two voting methods: the current first-past-the-post (FPP) system and an alternative, ranked-choice voting (RCV). Our results indicate that RCV generally outperforms FPP in selecting the Condorcet winner, especially in ideologically polarized societies. While challenges remain when the Condorcet winner is a compromise candidate for a majority, slight modifications to RCV improve its performance over FPP.

Keywords: First-past-the-post, Polarization, Ranked-Choice Voting, Recall Election, Single-Peakedness

JEL Classification: D71, D72