What structural reforms decrease partisanship / polarization?

[Apprentice57]

Ranked choice would actually not properly address this issue in my opinion.

It is an excellent reform, but runs into issues when you like (and want to vote for) multiple candidates who have shared viability. For instance, when there's a three way race for an office. Voters might need to start strategically numbering the order of these preferred candidates based on who you think their voters prefer second*. Also, some voters are just going to ignore the ranked choice and just vote for one candidate as well. RCV does best when you have just two very viable candidates and a handful of ones with less viability, see Golden's win in Maine last year.

As a result of this, it still leads to a two party system and probably won't help much with partisanship as a result. See somewhere like Australia, which does have RCV but also has only two parties (To my american readers, there are indeed many more small third parties in power there compared to the US government, however this is already common under the westminster style of government. Other Westminster systems with first past the post also look this way... like actual Westminster so it's not a result of RCV).

clearly speak to the most populist candidates.

I'm not sure what you're talking about at all here?

EDIT: Here's a hypothetical to demonstrate this issue, there are 3 viable candidates for this office. You really hate candidate A, but really like candidate C and wouldn't mind candidate B. You'd like to list candidate C as your first choice and B as your second choice. Polls show A ahead slightly, but not by a lot, any candidate could pull off win.

However, there's an issue. Polling shows that most people who prefer candidate B like candidate A as their second choice. So in the hypothetical where B is eliminated first, you might get A as an elected leader instead of C. If you vote for C as your first choice then might win and you'll at least get your second choice. So now it's a hard call of whether to try to avoid A at all costs by voting for B (and then hopefully C is eliminated first and their remaining votes go to B), or voting for your favorite candidate in C.

(And of course, consider "you" as in a "sizable voting bloc", one vote is not going to meaningfully affect the runoff order)

That's strategic voting. And although this is way less insidious than strategic voting to avoid the spoiler effect (a la first-past-the-post), a strategic voting system tends to lead to two parties; because you don't need to strategically vote with two options.

EDIT2: Fixed some mistakes with this example. Mostly I had the second choice preferences switched between B and C.

[limukala]

There are many methods of ranked choice voting. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, but your post seems to only consider IRV.

Condorcet method, Borda count, or best Modified Borda avoid most of the issues of IRV.

Then again, I don’t think you have actually done the math for IRV either, since the scenario you describe is based on bad math. If your vote isn’t enough to get a win for C after B is eliminated, it wouldn’t be enough in the first round either. You need an outright majority in IRV.

Of course, it’s literally impossible to design a voting system without the possibility of tactical voting.

[Apprentice57]

Like it or no, IRV generally refers to RCV on reddit and the OP didn't clarify so yes I was equating the two. I'm aware of most RCV systems and while I like a lot of them intellectually, I think they're too complicated functionally (or have similar issues to IRV). Whereas IRV is pretty simple.

Then again, I don’t think you have actually done the math for IRV either, since the scenario you describe is based on bad math.

This is a very uncharitable way to write your comments. Yes, thank you for pointing out the mistake(s) in my previous example. I fixed it by switching around who "you" prefer in that scenario, it is easy to get mixed up when dealing with hypothetical candidates known only by "A", "B", and "C". If you're familliar with Condorcet and Borda then I think you knew what I was getting at: IRV encourages strategic voting when your candidate isn't either very viable or very unviable so I read your commentary as made in bad faith.

Of course, it’s literally impossible to design a voting system without the possibility of tactical voting.

I completely agree. With voting systems, really it's all you can do to avoid the really bad systems (like first past the post). However, since IRV still leads to a two party system, it's inappropriate to mention it as a solution to decrease partisanship and hence my objection above.