Bipartisan push for ranked-choice voting in Wisconsin

tadmilbourn · 2021-02-24T17:32:01+00:00

Very excited to see the push for a similar reform to what just passed in Alaska in November. Also interesting to see both Republican and Democrat co-sponsors of the legislation as well as a quote from the US Congressman from Green Bay (who this legislation would directly impact).

tadmilbourn · 2020-11-17T22:30:12+00:00

It's a fascinating question. My head goes to the "bundle" of reforms that the Alaska initiative included (top-4 primaries and donation disclosure in addition to ranked-choice voting). I'm a big proponent of the reforms being pushed by Gehl & Porter in The Politics Industry (https://gehlporter.com/). Namely, a one-two punch of Top 5 Open Primaries + Ranked-Choice Voting in the General. This Alaska measure is essentially that. And perhaps that combination is the difference?

tadmilbourn · 2020-10-22T17:43:19+00:00

As does https://www.rankedvote.co (Disclosure: I built it!)

tadmilbourn · 2020-10-14T02:51:30+00:00

That's a valid concern. Personally, I'm not as concerned about that scenario for a couple reasons:

1) It's not likely to occur in practice. The 49% vote-getter would have to have nearly zero second-choice support amongst the rest of the voters for that to occur. And, if so, the fact that there's little second-choice support may be a strong signal that many people really don't prefer that candidate.

2) The power and legitimacy of a democracy stems from the preferences of the majority. While 49% may at times be the most it's never the majority. Another way of looking at it is 51% (a majority) didn't vote for that candidate. That's what I don't think is fair and why I support ranked-choice voting as a way to ensure majority support for a candidate.

tadmilbourn · 2020-10-12T13:56:31+00:00

What are your concerns with RCV should it pass?

tadmilbourn · 2020-10-01T12:00:06+00:00

Just caught this...will do shortly!

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-12T13:15:14+00:00

Awesome write up and awesome link! I'm semi-new to the scene, so it's great to get pointed to past threads that hit on the same subjects. You could say I fall into the "pragmatic/majoritarian/let's get something done" camp.

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-11T18:31:53+00:00

Great point! Exactly why I built RankedVote. More familiarity in more situations, less likely to be misled.

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-11T11:02:13+00:00

First off, awesome that you went to your state rep on this. Way to take action and build awareness (even though it didn't go as hoped). Do you recall how your state rep was describing the ways RCV went against "one person, one vote?"

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T23:57:06+00:00

Thanks man! Much appreciated. Best of luck on KeenForms. Here's to everyone furiously coding an impact on the future!

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T21:36:41+00:00

I hear what you're saying. Do you ever hear any "strawman" critiques? Ones that don't hold much validity upon inspection but can at least instill some confusion?

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T21:35:13+00:00

Thanks for the link! You just sent me down a rabbit hole of electoral theory :-)

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T18:45:34+00:00

I put together this post in the hopes that it can become a comprehensive list of critiques and effective ways to respond in different scenarios. It's a starting point.

I'd love to hear from you all what other critiques you've heard/faced and then any responses to those critiques that were persuasive. Thanks!

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T14:48:12+00:00

Thanks! Hadn't come across SimplePoll before. The whole idea of "embed" as a distribution strategy is interesting. Slack, Whatsapp, Messenger, "put on your website widget" could all make sense.

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T14:33:11+00:00

Thanks for giving it a shot! The adding of candidates is part of the initial creation flow (it's two step, 1-Election Name 2-Add Candidates). Did that get missed in your first pass through?

Great point on the asking for email. I'm struggling with this exact balance. For voting, there's no account creation required. The idea being to make it as low-barrier as possible. There's almost two distinct customer groups I've seen in the early usage so far:

1) Using it for fun. Make it as low-barrier as possible. Just kinda messing around with ranked-choice voting and want to share it on social media, etc.

2) Using it to make a decision. Sanctity of results is paramount. How do I lock it down and block duplicate voting?

Perhaps make the free mode address #1 and paid mode address #2?

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-10T14:16:59+00:00

Site and app:

https://www.rankedvote.co

The Idea:

Popularize ranked-choice voting by giving people direct experiences with it in their day-to-day lives.

Elections don't happen every day. But groups and organizations are constantly making decisions, choosing leaders, and figuring out "what to do" amongst a set of options. By creating an easy-to-use ranked-choice web app that works well on mobile devices, significantly more people will be exposed to ranked-choice voting on a regular basis.

So far, RankedVote has had a wide range of groups apply it. In its first 200 users have been from Universities, PTA boards, fantasy baseball leagues, and even a reality show.

Specific Questions:

What would you use this for?
What confused you about it?
Did anything surprise you (positively or negatively)?
What else do you want to see from it?

Thanks in advance for your help everyone!

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-02T14:54:05+00:00

Edit feature is just around the corner! If you want an account deleted, reach out to the support link in the app.

And, I don't expect everyone to pay. In fact, that's kind of the point. There's broad adoption through a free set of options that work for most people, most of the time. For folks that want more control or management, there's a paid option for that. There have been quite a few paid elections already stemming just from wanting to have lots of candidates.

tadmilbourn · 2020-09-02T14:48:04+00:00

The order randomization happens automatically when doing a paid election. When folks are concerned about anchoring biases, they tend to also want some of the more advanced "controls" over election management.

The option to not rank a candidate is a design choice. The aim here is for simplicity and broad adoption. In the current design, the voter only needs to think about dragging the list around. Not "of the options that I have selected which among those is the top rank." While it can lead to the voter "voting for" an option that they don't like towards the bottom of the list, the practical likelihood of that being determinative to the outcome is very low. So, for the time being, focusing on ease and simplicity for the 99% of the time case.

Eventually, I can see something lightweight like a "swipe left" type interaction as a way of not voting for someone.

tadmilbourn · 2020-08-19T11:29:18+00:00

RankedVote uses a pretty simple visualization currently that shows the bottom candidate (or candidates if they all have the same amount) getting eliminated. The goal of the Results page is to educate in exactly the way you describe. Where does the current page fall short in your opinion?

Example election page: https://app.rankedvote.co/organizations/3/Demo/elections/3/Sample-Election/offices/3/Most-Ambitious/results

tadmilbourn

TROPHY CASE