Rob Richie and I have been arguing for the use of ranked choice ballots for overseas voters, and potentially all absentee voters, in the presidential primary process. Our concern is that candidates who have withdrawn from the race remain on those absentee ballots, and overseas voters in particular have to mail their ballots back without realizing that some candidates have withdrawn.

The recent Ohio primary provides only mixed support. While we don’t have information on when the absentee ballot were returned, it does appear that Perry and Huntsman received a larger percentage of their votes on absentee ballots. Still, there are obviously a lot of election day voters who cast a ballot for one of these two candidates.

It might be interesting to observe “non running” candidates as a measure of voter dissatisfaction with the current crop of candidates. Nice dissertation topic? I’ve never seen anyone do this analysis before.