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There’s no such thing as fifth place

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Staff

Damon Seils and Brad Hammill

The resignation of Bill Strom from the Chapel Hill Town Council has touched off a discussion about the appropriate process for filling the vacancy. In the upcoming municipal elections, eight candidates are vying for four council seats. The town charter requires the additional fifth seat vacated by Strom to be filled by appointment. The charter offers little guidance on the appointment, stating only that the town council must accept applications for the position. It gives no instructions and no deadline for choosing among the applicants.

Perhaps the most seductive proposal is to appoint the so-called fifth-place finisher in the upcoming election. This option seems to offer a simple way for the council to make the appointment while respecting the will of the voters. At least two current council members have publicly supported this approach.

But this seemingly simple approach is the wrong one. There is no such thing as fifth place in a pick-four election.

Imagine a town council election in which candidates A, B and C are running for a single seat. Candidate A receives 4,000 votes, Candidate B receives 3,000 votes and Candidate C receives 6,000 votes. Candidate C wins the election.

Now imagine that a second seat became available during the campaign season because of a resignation and must be filled by appointment. Some people might argue that Candidate A should be appointed because she came in “second place.”

However, in a pick-one election, receiving the second highest number of votes is not the same as “second place.” Why? Because we don’t know how the 6,000 people who voted for Candidate C and the 3,000 people who voted for Candidate B would have voted in an election for two open seats.

What if we had known voters’ rank-ordered preferences for all the candidates on our imaginary ballot? It is possible the preferences would have looked like this: 4,000 votes for candidates A then B then C; 3,000 votes for B then C then A; and 6,000 votes for C then B then A. In this example, Candidate B is the most preferred, C is the second most preferred and A is the least preferred. It would make sense to appoint candidate B to the vacant second seat, because candidates B and C would have won a pick-two election.

This scenario could easily happen in an election in which two candidates (such as B and C) hold similar views and split the ballots of like-minded voters. In a pick-one election, voters would choose either candidate; in a pick-two election, they would choose both.

Our elections do not allow voters to indicate their rank-ordered preferences for all the candidates on the ballot. In our imaginary election, we would have no way of knowing who were the first and second most preferred candidates. In other words, there is no second place in a pick-one election.

Likewise, in Chapel Hill’s upcoming pick-four election, there will be no fifth place. We will have no information about who is the fifth most preferred candidate. We will simply end up with candidates who win first, second, third and fourth places — and everyone else.

A similar situation arose in Carrboro several years ago. Two sitting aldermen faced each other in the 2005 mayoral race. Whoever
won would leave a vacant seat on the Board of Aldermen. In the same election, six candidates ran for three other seats on the board.
When the time came to appoint someone to the new mayor’s unexpired term as alderman, some people argued that the candidate who received the fourth highest number of votes in the pick-three alderman race was entitled to the seat.

Given the dynamics of that pick-three race and the positions of the candidates, it is not at all clear that the candidate with the fourth highest number of votes was the fourth most preferred candidate in the eyes of the voters. As in our imaginary pick-one election, we had no information about the voters’ preferences for every candidate on the ballot. The board ultimately appointed another community member to serve the remainder of the unexpired term.

Members of the Chapel Hill Town Council will have a variety of ideas about what criteria they should use in selecting an applicant for Strom’s unexpired term. Some may insist on appointing the fifth- highest vote-getter. Others may attempt to identify an applicant they believe the broader community will prefer, or who will work well on the council, or who will share their own policy positions, and so on. In any case, it is worth remembering that the council members were elected to make these kinds of decisions on behalf of the community. Their best bet is to avoid the trap of looking for a fifth place that doesn’t exist.

Damon Seils lives in Carrboro. Brad Hammill lives near Chapel Hill.

4 thoughts on “There’s no such thing as fifth place”

  1. Nancy Stevens says:
    August 6, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    Good job explaining the counterintuitive nature of voting outcomes. I just hope your candidate does not come in 5th. :-)

  2. John Kramer PE says:
    August 7, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Blah Blah Blah. The bottom line is, the liberals in Chapel Hill are worried someone “not like them” will win 5th place. That is all.

    And, are you saying the two council members who endorse this approach are WRONG?? How dare you.

    It is amazing how nervouse the liberals get when there is a threat to their power structure. Pretty funny, really.
    Here’s hoping that Chapel Hill ignores such arguements and appoints the 5th place person to the spot. That would show more wisdom than Carrboro did last go-round.

  3. Elliot Baron says:
    August 11, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    It could easily be argued that “vote-for-four/pick-five” is far more democratic, in that it takes steps to minimize “the tyranny of the majority.”

    First of all, one has to admit that voting for four and getting five is a lot more different than voting for one and getting two.

    How powerful should a voting block be, when five out of seven seats are open on the council?

    Can the status quo tolerate the idea that even one member out of seven might get elected who is not in lock step with the rest?

    There are many ways of electing multiple members. One of the best methods involves “Bullet Voting,” where instead of assigning one vote to each of four candidates, an elector can assign four votes to one candidate.

    A progressive town like Chapel Hill ought to be looking at ways to INCREASE diversity of opinion and race on the commission, not impose limitations.

    Nothing could be more limiting than to allow the members of the seated country club select who can join their esteemed ranks.

    For more on various voting schemes and their abilities to increase diversity of representation, read Lani Guenier, the first tenured, female professor at Harvard Law School.

  4. John Kramer PE says:
    August 14, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    Interesting comment Mr. Baron….but “increase the diversity of opinion”?? In Chapel Hill?? Surely you jest. This may lead to other bad things like reducing crime and increasing parking. No way if things don’t “change”.

    One can always dream of course.

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