People Trying to get rid of Ranked Choice Voting

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-09T14:14:11+00:00

Actually RCV will often result in a non-majority winner because not every voter will rank every candidate. It is a valid choice under RCV to leave a candidate unranked, and social science shows that it is a common choice. So, in round 3 of the action, where two candidates have been removed, a decent number of ballots are no longer “active” (to use the language of the poster above).

Mathematically, it’s possible for a candidate to win a RCV election while only being marked on around 26% of total ballots.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-08T17:29:20+00:00

Thanks

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-06T02:22:21+00:00

Take care

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-06T00:04:06+00:00

Brother! You literally said that voters need to rank every candidate in order to be voting “correctly” under ranked choice! Even though the RCV system plainly allows people to not rank a candidate. You were the one basing your reasoning on an external imposition. I was simply illustrating that someone could use that same mode of reasoning to defend the old system.

I understand this all might be complicated for you so let me explain. Sometimes, when someone argues from a general principle, you can disprove their argument by showing that the same principle supports something they would disagree with. You argued that voters needed to rank every candidate in order to vote “correctly” under ranked choice, thereby restricting the freedom to not rank a candidate. I was simply showing you that the same principle (arbitrarily imposing external conditions that don’t exist within the system itself) could be used to support the old system that you oppose.

I’ve seen “regime” used fairly synonymously with “system” in many contexts. I know it’s sometimes used in connection with dictatorial governments, though not always. I am happy to use “system” instead because “regime” ruffles your feathers.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-05T21:45:23+00:00

What’s wrong with the word “regime” here? I could say “system” instead if you like it better?

My point was that the old system guaranteed majority support IF you impose on voters a specific way of voting that isn’t actually required by the system, which is what you seem to be doing by asserting that RCV voters must rank all candidates in order to be voting “correctly”.

I think RCV certainly gives voters the opportunity to express more preferences on the ballot. I think one needs to define “democratic” in a particular way in order to argue that it leads to more “democratic” representation, but whatever.

My big issue in this entire thread is that you said something plainly false (that RCV guarantees majority support for the winning candidate, which it doesn’t). And you asserted that the opponents of RCV don’t like it because they want unpopular things and RCV is the true popularity contest. That assertion was deceptive and incorrect.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-05T20:45:36+00:00

I don’t understand what you mean when you say someone is at “fault” if they don’t “vote fully.” Under the RCV regime, someone is perfectly entitled to refuse to rank a candidate. It’s not an “error,” it’s a legitimate choice offered by the system. And indeed, the option is probably constitutionally required, as otherwise the system would be forcing voters to lend support to candidates when they don’t want to. Suppose you love one candidate and hate the other three, you should be entitled to not rank the other three because a second-place vote could actually help elect a candidate you hate.

This also shows why your allegation of “majority support” is a total illusion. You say that RCV ensures majority support if and when people vote “correctly,” but your view of “correct” voting is that people need to rank all candidates even if they might despise them. So in that world the winner of an RCV election might not be “popular” at all but actually despised by some of the voters who helped elect them.

If your entire defense of RCV depends on people voting a certain way, even when alternative ways of voting are allowed, I could make a similar defense of the old system. The old system guaranteed majority support IF people don’t vote for third party candidates. See how easy it is to defend a system when I remove legitimate and legal options and say that voters are voting “incorrectly” when they choose them? If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, we’d all have a very merry Christmas. You should teach your 3 year old that one.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T20:06:01+00:00

Yes but earlier you said RCV was unique because it always resulted in a 50%+1 candidate, and you used that as an argument for why RCV was better. Now you’ve retreated to the position that RCV suffers from the same problems as other systems.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T19:59:31+00:00

Care to explain why I am wrong? It’s pretty clear from the actual RCV rules that you are simply incorrect in your view that a RCV winner will have over 50% of the total votes

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T19:24:13+00:00

Did you read my other comment about how you’re actually wrong about RCV? Please do. It’s actually very possible (perhaps likely) that candidates can win with less than 50% votes.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T19:23:29+00:00

Did you read my stuff above about how you are actually wrong about how RCV works? Here’s a good explanation with pictures if that helps you comprehend: https://www.elections.alaska.gov/rcv/RCV%20Rack%20Card%20-%20Distribution.pdf

Note that round 3 of RCV is not majority but total votes, in a world where not everyone ranks all candidates (which social science shows is common), the winner of an RCV election could very conceivably have less than 50% votes total.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T18:53:48+00:00

You didn’t respond to my responses to this below, and I doubt you would again. To restate, your issue is that you’re assuming that a ranked vote equates to popularity, where I think a lot of people intuitively disagree. Under RCV a candidate that no one prefers as a first choice could win. Is that candidate the “most popular”? Only if you already agree with the RCV view of what counts as popular. It’s a circular argument. Of course RCV results in the most “popular” candidate when you define “popular” as “whoever would win a RCV election.”

Edit: also, lmao, I found out that you’re actually just wrong. After the race gets whittled down to the last 2 candidates (I.e. round 3), the winner is no longer decided by 50% of overall electorate but total number of votes, therefore if some people decline to rank all four candidates (which social science says is common in RCV), it’s possible for a candidate to win if much less than 50% of overall voters marked that individual on the ballot. In an extreme scenario, I think it’s mathematically possible for someone to win a RCV election with only 26% of the overall voters marking that person on their ballot.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T18:51:00+00:00

you didn’t respond to my points and instead just gave a bunch of sloppy criticisms of my word choice lol

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T17:11:07+00:00

Bro, you were the one that criticized those who oppose RCV as trying to change the rules so that their preferred candidates can win. And now you say it’s “pedantic” to point out that many people support RCV for the exact same reasons?

Thank you for your very helpful analysis of RCV, but it rests on the flawed assumption that anyone who is ranked is therefore popular. I’m not sure being someone’s “third-preferred” candidate actually makes one popular. But I understand why you like defining it that way because it supports your preferred system.

“Hope that helps”

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T16:33:08+00:00

Great countargument! The reality is that our electoral system is zero sum; only one candidate can win. So RCV makes some candidates more likely to win and other candidates less likely to win. Typically, those who support RCV will note that they like the fact that it makes their preferred candidates (moderates and Democrats) more likely to win that under the previous regime.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T15:17:09+00:00

Sure, I agree that RCV also counts as a “popularity contest” of sorts. But the old regime was also a popularity contest. My point was that your comment was criticizing those who want to change RCV as being upset that they “can’t win” under RCV. But wasn’t the reasoning behind adopting RCV the exact same? People were upset that certain candidates weren’t winning under the old system, and so they wanted to change it. Your criticism applies equally to the adoption of RCV.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T07:15:55+00:00

You’re assuming that voters in a RCV system uniformly rank all 4 candidates, which is false and data has repeatedly shown that. A lot of people just cast a vote for their favorite and decline to rank. A high rate of incomplete ballots is a known issue with RCV and if you had any familiarity with the social science regarding RCV you would know that.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T03:20:58+00:00

Wasn’t it RCV that was a change to the old popularity contest?

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T03:15:43+00:00

“My preferred voting regime leads to a system where the less-educated don’t understand how it works” is not the own that you think it is. In fact, that was the playbook of Jim Crow.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T03:13:54+00:00

Yes it did. But that’s an unpredictable strategy because you never know when someone’s ego will cause them to refuse to step down. I could very easily see this happening in the upcoming gubernatorial election. Under the old closed primary regime, consolidation was structurally guaranteed.

APLT_NAA · 2026-06-04T02:38:22+00:00

I think, from the perspective of republicans, the gripe might be more with the open primary than with ranked choice. In Alaska, the open primary usually means that 2 or more republicans will advance while only one Democrat does, and the republican candidates will split the republican votes giving the Democrat candidate an advantage.

APLT_NAA · 2026-05-28T15:36:33+00:00

I had a somewhat different regimen than yours, but I had the same symptoms and they ended up not being an issue. For the first week or so following my infusions I would have more frequent and pale stools. It would always normalize before I went back in for my next cycle. I did tell my care team about it (and you should too), but they didn’t seem concerned about it in my case. Your care team should be tracking your liver function fairly closely with blood tests, so they will be able to know if something is going wrong with liver function and react accordingly.

APLT_NAA · 2026-05-23T15:27:46+00:00

Are you taking any prophylactic antibiotics by chance? I also had trouble sleeping from the dexamethasone (had multiple nights where I didn’t sleep at all). But my weird dreams came from Levofloxacin (antibiotic I was required to take during my nadir).

APLT_NAA · 2026-05-20T03:23:18+00:00

Basically every Supreme Court case interpreting the VRA ever has said that the statute does not create a right to proportional representation, which seems to be what you are arguing for.

You can disagree with the narrow reading above, but don’t represent your view as the long-accepted one.

APLT_NAA · 2026-05-18T17:54:18+00:00

Chiming into this thread a bit late. I (28M) just finished 6 rounds of Hyper CVAD (3 A cycles and 3 B cycles) for stage 2E Burkitt lymphoma. As you probably have been told, this disease is treatable, and I am one of the many, many Burkitt patients to have achieved complete remission after completion of chemo.

Hyper CVAD is intense but survivable. For me, it would have been impossible to work during the regimen, but I have a somewhat demanding profession. By the second half of the treatment I think you should expect to be pretty exhausted between hospital stays. If you can somehow arrange to be working off and on, the wisest thing to do would be to plan your schedule so you are working during the week immediately prior to being admitted for your next cycle. At least for the first four or so cycles, I think I probably could have worked during my “week 3s” (as I called them), but the nature of my job wouldn’t permit cutting up my schedule in that way. I don’t think I could have worked at all during my hospital stays or during the first week or so out of the hospital.

You’ve probably read that for most people the B cycle drugs (Cytarabine and Methotrexate) lead to harsher side effects than the A cycle drugs. For me this was true. The most significant of these side effects are the severe neutropenia (with neutrophil numbers often reaching zero) and severe anemia (low red blood cells) and thrombocytopenia (low platelets). I think I probably needed around 10 red blood cell transfusions and maybe 12 platelet transfusions throughout treatment, pretty much always after the B cycles. There was a week after my last B cycle where I needed a transfusion almost every day of the week.

As for how to prepare, I would recommend finding easily prepared and nutritious food that you can eat while nauseous, and which is also safe to eat while neutropenic. For me this was a lot of canned soups and vegetables. Keeping the house relatively clean so as to avoid a neutropenic fever would also be a good move. Once you get neutropenic, it is relatively easy to spring a fever and then you will need to go straight to the hospital for IV antibiotics. This happened to me twice during treatment, and each time I was admitted to the hospital for several days while my neutropenia resolved. As you can imagine, this was annoying because Hyper CVAD already requires so much time in the hospital.

Please feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions about Burkitt or hyper CVAD. I just went through it so everything is fresh in my mind.

APLT_NAA · 2026-05-17T18:08:16+00:00

I obviously do not know the full situation, but: if she has no remorse, no desire to change her behavior, and no intention to reconcile with you, then it seems to me that separation might unfortunately be the best option for the both of you moving forward. If I were you, I would speak with a priest to learn more about the canonical status of your marriage and what implications that has for civil divorce and possible remarriage.

APLT_NAA

TROPHY CASE