By Mark Bauer
We’re living in what might be called a “post-truth era,” where political wins come less from good ideas and more from bending reality to suit our agendas. And this isn’t a new phenomenon for the current occupant of the White House. The two-party system rewards tribal loyalty over intellectual honesty which results in both parties spinning the truth in ways that suit their goals.
So if people aren’t necessarily voting based on facts, why does democracy reform even matter? Isn’t trying to improve voting mechanisms through Ranked Choice Voting kind of like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? That kind of fatalistic view is understandable in a topsy turvy political landscape. Fortunately, political systems don’t just reflect culture, they help shape it, and how the system is set up can have a profound influence over how politicians and campaigns are currently incentivized to behave.
Rules Shape Behavior
We tend to think reform follows culture, but the rules of the game have a profound influence on how the players act.
Our current system rewards outrage and dishonesty because those tactics work in a binary contest. You don’t have to persuade a majority of Americans, you just have to get a large enough swath of your team activated, and that usually happens by agitating their anger against a common enemy. And if the other side in this two-party system is “the enemy,” you focus everything you have on that one target, playing fast and loose with the facts because there’s no viable third option to hold anyone in check.
That’s why misinformation spreads so easily: if this untruth hurts the other team, what reason is there for not amplifying it? This results in a sort of Post-Truth arms race, with each side ratcheting up the rhetoric in order to score electoral points.
How RCV Changes the Incentives
With RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If your top choice doesn’t have enough support, your vote transfers to your next choice until someone gets a majority. That small shift makes it harder to win by merely inflaming your base. To build a majority, candidates need broader appeal.
That changes the cost-benefit of political attacks. If a certain segment of supporters are turned off by inflammatory rhetoric, candidates have a reason to tone down their hostility.
The post-truth problem is also exacerbated by locking us into echo chambers. Our current system makes that worse by framing politics as zero-sum: your side wins only if the other side loses completely.
RCV disrupts that frame. By giving voters more viable options and reducing the spoiler effect, it loosens the two-party stranglehold. That can open space for more pragmatic, less tribal candidates, and over time, erodes the “us vs. them” mentality that causes politics to run amok.
Not a Silver Bullet, but a Better Game
The truth is, no voting system will stop people from believing falsehoods. We’re all susceptible to it to some degree. But the point of reforms like RCV isn’t to perfect democracy, it’s to improve the incentives. As it stands, dishonest and inflammatory statements are often the shortest and easiest paths to power. A healthier system would make lying riskier and truth-telling more appealing.
In a post-truth era, giving ourselves better rules isn’t rearranging the deck chairs, it’s trying to help keep the ship afloat.
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Mark Bauer is a producer, entrepreneur, day trader and former Independent candidate for Congress in Texas. Previously he spent 10 years as a legal journalist covering the legal market in Texas and regulatory issues in Washington DC.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Rank the Vote, its members, supporters, funders, or affiliates.
