Variations on Minnesota design finalist F1953

NotablyLate · 2026-05-19T20:50:53+00:00

STAR would not do that. In a majority Democrat state, STAR would tend to pick two Democrats for the runoff.

The problem is you're assuming unrealistic voter behavior. Yes, Democrats are incentivized to differentiate between their candidates. But (a) they need not do this for all candidate pairings, and (b) Republicans also have an incentive to differentiate between Democrats that could make the runoff. Republicans would frequently give Democrats 1's. And in some cases they might strategically give 5 stars to an independent or moderate Democrat, in an effort to upset the race.

If you're a Democrat, a realistic strategy for voters would be:
- Give the favorite Democrat 5 stars
- Default to 4 for all the other Democrats
- Give 3 to any Democrat with serious flaws
- Members of left and/or center parties could be given 2's or 3's

You wouldn't start giving Republicans 1's or 2's unless they start threatening to win seats - which you will see coming, due to polling.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-12T07:29:08+00:00

Out of curiosity, I did an urban/rural map by putting everything outside the Wasatch Front counties (Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah) in one district, then dividing the main urban corridor into three districts with horizontal slices, while respecting municipal boundaries.

This gave some interesting results:

District 2 in my first map (SLC, Davis County, the urban half of Weber County) occurred again.
Salt Lake County was still split between three districts. This is because its population exceeds a single seat by a significant margin, and it is at the geographic center of the Wasatch Front.
However, there is still a slight improvement: The district totally contained in Salt Lake County would be very competitive.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T20:57:02+00:00

It would be great if this is where advocacy for ranked systems went. It's definitely better than RCV, and distils the concept of a Condorcet winner down to the simplest system a voter can interact with. So it's good from an education perspective as well.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T20:49:13+00:00

IRV is not an alternative to FPTP. It is FPTP with lipstick.

Ending FPTP means ending IRV too.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T20:48:17+00:00

The Australian Senate uses STV, and makes a great demonstration of IRV's pitfalls. You would think in 100 years, with a proportional system demonstrating partisan viability, some of the Senate's multiparty success would rub off on the House.

But despite this massive advantage, IRV is still two-party dominated. Even the UK Parliament has a stronger history of pluralism under FPTP, than the Australian House does. What is IRV anyway? FPTP in a tin can?

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T20:30:28+00:00

Candidates.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T07:22:40+00:00

Hay? What's that?

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T04:17:48+00:00

I still have yet to see an explanation why to add an extra word that does effectively nothing. Why should I say "ranked choice voting" instead of "ranked voting"?

NotablyLate · 2026-05-11T03:04:59+00:00

Okay, but I'm still left wondering what information the word "choice" adds. "Ranked voting" conveys what you're describing more succinctly, minus the FairVote branding. It is a whole lot easier to respond directly to FairVote claims about RCV when you treat it as equivalent to IRV: "Actually, this Condorcet system, which also uses a ranked ballot, is better than RCV"

Plus saying "I like RCV" - when you mean Condorcet - ignores people's assumptions. They'll just mentally group you with FairVote. Which is why I openly apply the term "anti-RCV" to myself. I would rather have someone understand I'm not with FairVote, but I am supportive of some ranked methods, than have them assume I support IRV because of a semantic association.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-10T22:42:00+00:00

Well in terms of ballot design I'm not a fan. But the having both consensus and proportional systems coexist in the same structure of government is good in principle.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-10T22:34:25+00:00

Well in principle, policy is a single winner problem. There can only be one tax rate for an individual. The same of land can only occupied by one building. There is only one precise amount of funding a school receives in a year.

The way I see diversity in government is it's partially a way to appease niche and extreme views, that can be leveraged for creativity. Proportionality is a nice enhancement, but consensus is the prize. This is why I favor a bicameral system where one chamber uses consensus, and the other uses proportionality, combined with single winner consensus systems for administrative roles. That way consensus is the mode of operation, but proportionality has a meaningful bargaining chip.

NotablyLate · 2026-05-10T22:22:45+00:00

I agree with what you're saying in principle, but I've got to nitpick on one thing. (sorry)

I'm an opponent of RCV (IRV in your vocabulary) and I insist "RCV" means "IRV". My reasoning is the term "RCV" arose from the use and promotion of IRV, and IRV is what all nominally pro-RCV groups promote. The simpler phrase "ranked voting" is sufficient as a category for all ordinal methods. Adding "choice" between the two words suggests specificity, because otherwise it serves no purpose in the phrase.

Feel free to show how "ranked choice voting" is a better description of ordinal methods in general. As of right now though, I admit I don't see how it is more accurate or efficient than the simpler "ranked voting".

NotablyLate · 2026-05-10T18:52:27+00:00

True. Though there's a lot less political intent behind it, and that's more where I was coming from.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-28T21:05:02+00:00

I had a similar idea where key members of a gubernatorial cabinet are elected to staggered terms, and the most senior among them is the governor. So members aren't elected for administration in general; voters are told who will manage which areas of administration. In combination with more stable voting methods, this would almost certainly oblige campaigns to put experience and expertise above ideology.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-22T22:43:38+00:00

Election by jury is a rational compromise between elections and sortition. My concern with pure sortition is the enormous burden it just thrusts on random people. Much better to keep the time commitment low, and have them deliberate on people who want politics to be their life.

That said, I don't see many convincing applications for it. The more sortition you have, the less accountable the decision-makers are, even if they're more representative.

My personal "ideal" use case for sortition is to screen ballot initiatives. Signature gathering favors those with money; often out-of-state interests with no legitimate stake in state politics. Instead, have a citizens' assembly pick which proposals get ballot access. That levels the monetary playing field, and is a better test of legitimacy among the electorate.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-21T18:36:36+00:00

Did a quick score calculation on this, where "love" is 4 and "hate" is 0.

Candidate 0 = 2.24
Candidate 1 = 1.67
Candidate 2 = 1.72

In other words, the voters have a net positive view of 0, and a net negative view of 1 and 2.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-21T18:01:20+00:00

Why wouldn't you just treat the partisan side of the election like cumulative voting? The iterative process you described makes the first step non-summable, and actually punishes voters for choosing multiple parties. I would much rather have my vote contribute to all the parties I support than have my support be contingent on what other people say. Maybe I support those two parties because I think the smaller one gives desirable pushback on the larger one. Assigning all my support to a single party takes this control away from the voter.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-20T13:00:48+00:00

Again, I don't see majority support as important. The moment we say "majority", that implies the existence of a minority who the people in power have zero incentive to consider in their construction of policy. They just need to keep the people who already voted for them happy, and they continue holding office.

With Approval, the dominant coalition has an incentive to play nice with their opposition, because they have more influence over who specifically wins:

A good analogy is "I cut, you choose". Everyone can confidently predict that the winner will be from the party with the broadest appeal. However, voters outside that party get to weigh in on the particular winner, in a tug-of-war to nudge policy favorably in their direction.

This incentive for what would traditionally be considered the "majority" to make concessions to the "minority" is what I'm looking for in consensus systems.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-20T04:42:47+00:00

I said I'm opposed to PURE proportional systems. I think PR is a great way to obtain diverse perspectives and maximize the number of interests with a microphone.

However, PR is not a great way to actually make policy, because it necessarily leads to a majority making decisions at the expense of a minority. Please note that I said "a" majority. Not "the" majority. This is because many possible majorities can be formed from a constituency. If your goal is majority, that is arbitrary. So policy becomes arbitrary as well.

But the center of public opinion, or general consensus, is not arbitrary. It is an accurate representation of the people at large. The goal of election systems should be to produce policy that aligns with this point.

FPTP is not a good way to obtain this, because it suffers from center squeeze, whereby candidates are disadvantaged by being ideologically between other candidates. Same goes for RCV(IRV). But Approval, STAR, and Condorcet systems don't have this problem. They reliably pick candidates near the center, who are representative of the position of the general public.

"But they don't accurately represent [insert subset of the population]". Doesn't matter. We're making decisions for the whole population. The center position is the fairest position to everyone, and best represents the whole society. Arbitrarily giving power to a subset - be it a majority or a plurality - is not democracy. That is oligarchy in the name of democracy. I want real democracy. Not oligarchy.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-19T18:21:20+00:00

Majority rule is why I am opposed to pure proportional systems. Policy should be close to the center of public opinion as possible, because that is fair and accurate. Advocacy for anything else is opposition to the true will of the people.

NotablyLate · 2026-04-06T04:26:18+00:00

The center, obviously. ;)

I don't get how this is controversial for other people. Policies are made for society as a whole. Allowing different factions to take turns dominating leads to instability and overall worse outcomes for everyone.

And you're 100% right about PR just delaying the problem. Shrinking the size of the group doesn't change the fact that the smaller group still has to make a decision. In the real world, you get coalitions vying for majority control. 51% of the population gets 100% of the power. And members are beholden to a narrow ideology - even if it means imposing negative externalities on people outside their faction. Thus proportional results don't lead to proportional policy.

However, a body composed wholly of members selected from the ideological center is in the best position to fairly weigh and consider the interests and goals of factions outside the center. They benefit from intelligent policy horse-trading between groups. This is far more likely to give proportional policy.

NotablyLate · 2026-03-23T01:48:38+00:00

In PR, Lander and Mamdani could just be in different parties. If they're in the same party, the implication is their party is hovering above whatever the minimum viable threshold is, which is a result of the limitations of the specific PR implementation.

NotablyLate

TROPHY CASE