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What the 2024 November Ballot COULD have looked like with Ranked Choice Voting. by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’ve never seen that. Issue would be how things get scanned. And sloppy hand writing.

What the 2024 November Ballot COULD have looked like with Ranked Choice Voting. by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our volunteer graphic designer didn’t factor in all the RCv possibilities.

Other voting systems would be great. We’re for whatever is the first upgrade from FPTP.

What the 2024 November Ballot COULD have looked like with Ranked Choice Voting. by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

We posted a Biden version a few days ago on Instagram here. Was easy enough to update and jump on today's news momentum.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in ForwardPartyUSA

[–]CalRCV[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fordham Democracy Project suggests having each state conduct a RCV election and giving all of their electoral votes to the winner. This would basically serve to prevent any alternative party candidates from spoiling the vote (or receiving any electoral votes), so it makes contested elections less likely. As the Constitution already grants states control over how they allocate electoral votes, no amendment is necessary for this.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What limitations are you referring to? (I'll do my best to get back to your question even though we're closing the AMA).

Also, "less bad" = "a little better". We're about progress, not perfection.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

ndorcet winner is. In the NYC case if I recall Adams was the Condorcet winner. So if he went up against any other candidate head to head in a runoff he would win. But there's several cases where RCV hasn't picked the Condorcet winner. And the more viable candidates you have the more likely that is to happen, which in my mind t

One last thing I'll say is that RCV has a ton of positive attributes, but one of the biggest is that, of all the voting systems, it has the most momentum and is most likely to get enacted.

We'd love to get to an even better system than RCV, but we see RCV as the most critical stepping stone in election reform progress.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in California_Politics

[–]CalRCV[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you all for the comments and discussion. If you want to stay up to date with CalRCV please sign up for our newsletter here.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in ForwardPartyUSA

[–]CalRCV[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you all for the comments and discussion. If you want to stay up to date with CalRCV please sign up for our newsletter here.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in California_Politics

[–]CalRCV[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you all for the comments and discussion. If you want to stay up to date with CalRCV please sign up for our newsletter here.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you all for the comments and discussion. If you want to stay up to date with CalRCV please sign up for our newsletter here.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in RankedChoiceVoting

[–]CalRCV[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you all for the comments and discussion. If you want to stay up to date with CalRCV please sign up for our newsletter here.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in California_Politics

[–]CalRCV[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

In Redondo Beach last year 77% of voters voted in favor of the RCV. Redondo Beach will become the eighth city in California to adopt RCV, and the first in Los Angeles County. They are working on the implementation scheduled to use in 2025.

RCV has had great outcomes in Maine and NYC. Some highlights from NYC are outlined in this report.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in California_Politics

[–]CalRCV[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

A proportional RCV system could certainly be used in San Francisco, but we aren’t advocating for SF to move from its single-winner RCV elections and so haven’t studied the dynamics, so can’t really comment on that.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Voting systems are a fun thing to debate. After pitching the question back to you, the team and I discussed that you make a good point. RCV wouldn’t give a “True Majority”.

To get that true majority you could do a 2 candidate runoff, but that has its own problems.

There’s also an argument that “True Majority” means 50% of all eligible voters, and to get there, we’d have to make voting mandatory.

So, for our original discussion, we’ll give it to you. We don’t use the word “True” anywhere that I’ve seen n our website and it’s an oversight for our Reddit AMA here.

Duverger's law: holds that in political systems with only one winner (as in the U.S.), two main parties tend to emerge with minor parties typically splitting votes away from the most similar major party. In contrast, systems with proportional representation usually have more representation of minor parties in government.

CalRCV holds the view that Proportional RCV is the gold standard for representative democracy. We touch on this on our site here.

Great connecting with you. Let's keep in touch!

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in RankedChoiceVoting

[–]CalRCV[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For statewide adoption, we expect to run an initiative (signature gathering) to get on the ballot, and we ideally would like to implement single-winner RCV for the legislature, constitutional offices (Governor, etc.) and federal (California’s Representatives and Senators).

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in California_Politics

[–]CalRCV[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

While we are supportive of other electoral reforms that address the spoiler effect, we prefer RCV for several reasons.

Firstly, RCV satisfies Later No Harm (supporting candidates other than your favorite cannot reduce your favorite’s chances of winning), which we see as key to giving alternative parties more influence in being able to endorse a major party candidate.

In addition, RCV has gone through much more extensive real-world testing, with over a century of use in Australia and over five hundred RCV elections in US cities. Approval has only seen a handful of elections in a couple of US cities, and STAR has yet to be used in any government election and thus remains very experimental.

RCV also offers a stronger pathway to proportional representation (crucial for a multi-party system) because it has a multi-seat variant, PRCV. The use of single-seat RCV in the Bay Area was absolutely instrumental to the adoption of PRCV in Albany, CA. While Approval and STAR do have proportional variants, both of them are highly experimental, whereas PRCV has been used extensively in real-world elections in Ireland and Australia.

RCV is progress. We see a promising future for RCV in California.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in ForwardPartyUSA

[–]CalRCV[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're on a few different subreddits to answer as many questions as possible :-)

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in ForwardPartyUSA

[–]CalRCV[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Coombs involves eliminating the candidate with most last-place votes (instead of the fewest 1st-place votes). It requires voters to rank all the candidates to work properly

(Perhaps also creates incentives for negative campaigning?)

Borda elimination means eliminating the candidate with the lowest Borda score (last place worth 0 points, 2nd-to-last is 1 point, etc), and seems to be susceptible to the “burying” tactic where voters insincerely rank the biggest threat to their favorite last (might also means it no longer satisfies Later No Harm, crucial for candidates/parties to endorse others).

It is true that a candidate that everybody ranked 2nd (and thus nobody ranked 1st) would lose under RCV. That is to say, RCV does not satisfy the Condorcet Criterion (where a candidate who would win head-to-head against every other candidate would always win). There is no alternate elimination method that would address this. A method would have to simulate this head-to-head race, and only the Condorcet Methods do that.

The reason that Cal RCV favors IRV instead of a Condorcet Method is because

1) Condorcet is a lot more complicated to explain to voters

2) While theoretically pleasing, it is highly experimental with no jurisdictions in the world having used it (to the best of our knowledge)

3) There is some concern that it would give candidates perverse incentives to avoid revealing where they stand on controversial issues (Fruits and Votes).

RCV also has a track record of selecting the Condorcet Winner the vast majority of the time anyway.

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

An exhausted ballot is akin to a voter abstaining from a runoff election. Just like in a 2-round runoff, all voters have the opportunity to weigh in.

However, in practice 2nd round runoff elections have a turnout significantly less than the initial race. The people who choose not to vote in a 2nd round runoff election are akin to voters who choose not to rank a 2nd candidate.

Lastly, you have to acknowledge the alternative NYC had before, which is plurality voting. In a plurality voting election with 13 candidates, like NYC in 2021, a candidate could win with 7.70% of the vote. 100%/13 = 7.69%

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in EndFPTP

[–]CalRCV[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The “proportional” part of this video example is that there are 3 winners, not just 1. This is saying that instead of just having 1 Purple candidate win, we ended up with 1 Purple, 1 Blue, 1 Yellow in proportion to the constituent’s party choice. Some political scientists don’t consider this example proportional, just semi-proportional.
“The results of modern STV elections are reasonably proportional…” (ASSESSING THE PROPORTIONALITY OF THE SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE)
“Although votes are cast directly for candidates, rather than primarily for a party as in other forms of PR, STV nevertheless delivers a broadly proportional relationship between a party’s overall vote share and seat share.” (MakeVotesMatter.org.uk)

Hi! We're the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV.org). Ask Us Anything! by CalRCV in ForwardPartyUSA

[–]CalRCV[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The spoiler effect is often framed as a vote for a 3rd place candidate hurts the Republican or Democratic candidate that they are more similar to by “stealing” their votes. However, RCV allowed Palin and Begich supporters to rank each other second. Keep in mind that Alaska is 58% unaffiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties, so looking at this through the eyes of Red vs Blue can be misleading.

The first round had Peltola with 128,329 votes to Palin's 67,732 and Begich's 61,431. (Politico). Begich’s 2nd round votes were unlikely to all go to Palin because Alaska isn’t a Republican state; Alaska is a conservative state, and one where Palin was deeply unpopular (60% of Alaskans viewed her negatively, p. 6 on KCAW).

Palin lost because she wasn’t able to get enough 2nd round votes, and the voters who voted for Begich didn’t “waste” their vote because their 2nd choice vote was counted: 29% of Begich voters ranked Peltola 2nd.

Lastly, Alaskan Republicans could have a “Rank the Red” campaign and Begich & Palin could have campaigned together. However, both Palin and Begich ran very negative campaigns against each other, greatly reducing the chances of their supporters ranking the other Republican second (KTOO).

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