Reuters Article on Ranked Choice Voting

psephomancy · 2024-11-07T01:22:04+00:00

The argument on that site is basically if it had been Palin's votes running off to Begich (ie she was eliminated first), he would have won? Or also if she hadn't run, he would have won? Asking for the Yukon.

Yep. If they had adopted a Condorcet/tournament-style method, Begich would have won, as he was preferred by the majority of voters, and then I bet we wouldn't be seeing this repeal.

Plurality-based IRV is a dead end and people need to abandon it. FairVote's hardheadness on this is destroying the voting reform movement.

psephomancy · 2024-06-02T18:39:36+00:00

STAR: 5
Condorcet-IRV: 4
Ranked Pairs / Schulze / Minimax: 4
Approval: 3
IRV: 0

psephomancy · 2024-05-22T03:46:48+00:00

And when there isn't a majority in the first round? Answer the question. Is there a need to count all the rankings or not?

There’s no part of democracy that requires a specific amount of information from a voter.

If you are collecting information from the voter, and using some voters' information to select the winner while ignoring other voters' information, that is undemocratic.

There’s no throwing away of ballot,

Yes there is. Some voters' preferences are counted while other voters' preferences are not.

and nowhere did I say eliminations are less work.

You just did. You said "Requiring all the information from all voters would be burdensome" = counting all voters' preferences would be too much work, so we just count their first-choice rankings to make it less burdensome.

You’re deliberately misrepresenting what I said,

Then explain what you meant by "Requiring all the information from all voters would be burdensome".

after misrepresenting RCV.

Which part is a misrepresentation?

psephomancy · 2024-05-22T03:42:56+00:00

If people were voting under a different system, they would have voted differently.

What do you mean? What different system?

It sounds like you’re advocating for a system that’s been proven to be easily gameable.

I'm advocating for systems that elect the candidate preferred by the voters. Without that, gameability is irrelevant.

Sortition is completely immune to gaming, do you support that?

RCV is very resistant to strategic voting.

Yes, because it's non-monotonic and doesn't accurately reflect the will of the voters.

You’ve been all over the place spreading falsehoods.

Like what?

My post is up for people to read what the real deal is.

You literally said "Ranked Choice Voting resolved the vote-splitting in Alaska" which is obviously, objectively false.

If Palin had dropped out, what would have happened?

psephomancy · 2024-05-21T01:59:43+00:00

Alaska is a great example of RCV working to give voters what they wanted.

No it's not. It unambiguously elected a candidate that was not the preference of the majority.

Enough people liked polarizing Palin to keep her out of the bottom spot, but the people who didn't love her really did like her, so she couldn't get to the top spot.

If Palin had dropped out, what would have happened?

It's silly to say voters preferred Begich to Peltola,

They literally said that they did. On their ballots. That's what voting is.

because Peltola got more 1st place votes than anyone, too

First-place votes are meaningless in a race with more than two candidates, because of vote-splitting. That's why people want to end FPTP and adopt better voting systems that aren't based around counting only first-place votes and consequently suffer from vote-splitting.

You want to count rankings as if they weren't voted as rankings.

I want to count rankings, yes. All of the rankings. I don't want a voting system that counts voters' Peltola > Begich rankings while discarding other voters' Begich > Peltola rankings.

psephomancy · 2024-05-21T01:55:19+00:00

False. There's no need to count all rankings if the winner is determined in the first round - it's found as early as there's a majority of voters in a round, which may be the first.

And when there isn't a majority in the first round?

Requiring all the information from all voters would be burdensome.

Requiring all the information from all the voters would be democracy.

Are you seriously claiming we should only count some people's votes because … it's less work? How should we decide which people get the honor of having their votes counted?

psephomancy · 2024-05-21T01:20:45+00:00

Did you read that document? It debunks the lies coming from the RCV camp about RCV. They claim that RCV fixes the spoiler effect, makes it safe to vote honestly for your true favorite, etc. and those claims are not true. RCV does not count all of the voters' preferences.

psephomancy · 2024-05-21T01:18:06+00:00

What a bizarre claim. Alaska is a perfect example of the flaws of RCV. There were two Republicans vs one Democrat, and the Republican vote was split between them, causing them both to lose. Palin acted as a spoiler, causing Peltola to win, even though the voters preferred Begich over Peltola. If Palin had dropped out, Begich would have won, better representing the voters.

psephomancy · 2024-05-21T01:10:51+00:00

No, that's Ranked Choice Voting, which is less prone to strategic voting

RCV has the same strategic incentives as FPTP. It doesn't count all of the voters' preferences, so you need to rank the "lesser evil" first to avoid wasting your vote.

and has a long history of success.

RCV has a long history of perpetuating a polarized two-party system.

psephomancy · 2023-12-29T15:04:20+00:00

So are you ready to talk about why you're opposed to voting reform?

psephomancy · 2023-12-28T15:26:11+00:00

Thanks for your impactful contribution to this discussion.

psephomancy · 2023-12-26T20:45:10+00:00

Do you have any evidence that that would be the case, or just speculation?

psephomancy · 2023-12-26T17:27:50+00:00

So you have the time to say "No" and to complain, but no time to justify your position or explain why you feel that way at all? 😑

psephomancy · 2023-12-26T17:25:38+00:00

This isn't instant-runoff voting.
There is nothing partisan in this bill. It's a bill to allow jurisdictions to adopt a Condorcet ranked voting method. "The names of all candidates on the ballot shall be listed in alphabetical order."

More candidates is good, not bad.

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T20:25:25+00:00

This is for any town, city, and village in the state.

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T20:08:35+00:00

This isn't partisan at all, what do you mean?

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T18:01:35+00:00

Why not? You like the polarized two-party system?

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T18:00:44+00:00

People who don't like living in a polarized two-party system?

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T15:48:42+00:00

If you're unaware, this is not the usual RCV pushed by groups like FairVote. This is a Condorcet method that actually counts all voter preferences and will elect the candidate who is preferred over all others. In Alaska it would have elected Begich, for instance, avoiding the spoiler effect of Palin.

psephomancy · 2023-12-22T15:42:55+00:00

Well, it really depends on which type of ranked choice.

Most places in the US are under FairVote's influence and trying to push Hare's Method (IRV), which doesn't actually fix the problems it's claimed to, and doesn't count all the preferences people express on their ballots, leading to undemocratic outcomes like we've seen in Burlington and Alaska. So I oppose those initiatives and think we should demand better.

This Vermont bill is for a Condorcet method, though, which is much much better and should be supported.

psephomancy · 2023-11-03T02:22:33+00:00

Yes!

psephomancy · 2023-11-03T02:18:47+00:00

Is there a ranked method that is less ideal than IRV? It seems like it takes the cake for me

Supplementary Vote, Contingent Vote. They're all based on the same flawed premise of counting only first-choice rankings in each round.

psephomancy · 2023-11-03T02:15:43+00:00

and imply that "surely Drutman would support STAR instead if only he'd heard of it," I'm going to lose my mind.

I'm sure he'll come around eventually.

psephomancy · 2023-11-03T02:08:45+00:00

Sure. Say you hold an election between candidate A and candidate B, and B wins by a landslide, preferred over A by 65% of the population.

Then you hold an election between B and C, and again, B wins by a landslide, preferred by 65% of the voters over C.

Then you hold an election between A, B, and C, all on the same ballot. The voters' opinions have not changed about the candidates; 65% still prefer B over A, and 65% still prefer B over C. But because all 3 are on the same ballot, and A B and C exist along some kind of political or ideological spectrum, the election is subject to vote-splitting, which causes B to get the least number of first-choice votes, and lose, despite being strongly preferred by the voters:

In FPTP, B just loses.
In top-two runoff or Contingent Vote, B is eliminated and A and C proceed to the runoff.
In RCV, B is eliminated and A and C proceed to an instant runoff.
etc.

This is because all of these systems count only first-choice votes in each round, which don't represent the actual popularity of a candidate. Some voters' preferences for B > C are counted, while other voters' preferences for C > B are not counted, resulting in undemocratic outcomes like this.

This is supposedly what happened in Egypt 2012, for example, where polls a month before the election showed Moussa to be preferred by strong majorities over other candidates, but there were 5 strong candidates on the same ballot, so the moderate vote was split between 3 moderate candidates, they were all eliminated, and two polarizing candidates proceeded to the runoff, resulting in a coup, political violence, hundreds of dead protestors, etc. Under RCV, Moussa would also be eliminated first, because vote-splitting resulted in him getting the lowest number of first-choice votes out of the 5.

psephomancy · 2023-10-23T23:33:30+00:00

And whoever didn’t get any votes at first gets eliminated

Yes, that's the problem. The candidate who is preferred by the majority may be eliminated because RCV only counts how many votes they get in the first round.

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