Ranked Choice Voting. Yeah or Nay?

1. 76

   tsmogposted 19 months ago

   Seems more are becoming serious about RCV. There were:
   
   State legislatures considered more than double the number of bills related to ranked-choice voting (RCV) in 2023 than the previous year.
   
   Legislators considered 44 RCV related bills in 2022, compared to 113 this year. Seventy-nine of the 113 total bills introduced this year either allowed or required new uses of RCV. The number of measures prohibiting RCV has also doubled, from nine bans or repeals introduced in 2022 to 18 such bills this year.
   
   From Ballotpedia
   https://ballotpedia.org/Ballotpedia%27s … DBE536312D
   
   Ranked-choice voting (RCV) by Ballotpedia
   That articles explains it with three examples. The last one is interactive to vote on favorite desert.
   https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_v … DBE536312D
   
   Broadly speaking, the ranked-choice voting process unfolds as follows for single-winner elections:
   
   Voters rank the candidates for a given office by preference on their ballots.
   ** If a candidate wins an outright majority of first-preference votes (i.e., 50 percent plus one), he or she will be declared the winner.
   ** If, on the other hand, no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated.
   ** All first-preference votes for the failed candidate are eliminated, second-preference choices on these ballots are then elevated to first-preference.
   ** A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the adjusted voters.
      
   The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast

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   1. 87

      Nathanvilleposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      A big resounding Yeah from me:
      
      RCV comes under the umbrella of PR (Proportional Representation); in 2011 the UK Conservative Government, as part of their agreement with the Liberal Democrats, in exchange for the Liberal Democrats support to a minority Government, ran a PR Referendum:  But the ‘idiotic’ public voted 67.9% against PR.  Although it’s only a matter of time before another Referendum is held, and perhaps next time the British public will have more sense when voting?
      
      Scotland and Wales have PR for electing their Governments, and Northern Ireland has its own special complex (D'Hondt method) voting system to guarantee power sharing between the two sides.  The D'Hondt method was originally devised by Thomas Jefferson in 1792, and re-invented by Belgian mathematician Victor D'Hondt in 1878.
      
      We used to have PR (RCV) for Mayoral Elections and the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in England and Wales; but this year the Conservative Government changed that back to the simple (and undemocratic) first past the post system.

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      1. 76

         tsmogposted 19 months agoin reply to this

         Here in California our voting is the traditional ballot pretty much. There are exceptions for some cities using Ranked Choice Voting. Apparently our Governor - Gavin  Newsome, vetoed a measure to make RCV statewide four years ago. His main complaint was it is too confusing.
         
         I see it is currently used by two states - Alaska and Maine.
         
         There is a website - Fair Vote, that is packed with information about it. It even shared info where it is used internationally, private, and with universities.
         
         Ranked Choice Voting Information by Fair Vote
         https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked … -elections
         
         Another website that helped clarify things for me with pros and cons is RankedVote
         
         Understanding Ranked Choice Voting that is the landing page for pros and cons. It also has good explainers with real life examples. It clarified things for me.
         https://www.rankedvote.co/guides/unders … ons-of-rcv
         
         Overall, I like it.

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         1. 87

            Nathanvilleposted 19 months agoin reply to this

            It’s good to hear that there are some cities in California that uses RCV; it’s a shame that they are the exceptions.
            
            Thanks for the links; I note that the first link, although recently published (Nov 2023), was incomplete, and is already out of date e.g. listed under ‘International elections’ it states that the London Mayors are elected by RCV (in fact it was all Mayors and Police Commissioners across England), but at the beginning of this year the UK Government scrapped RCV for all Mayoral elections, and Police Commissioner elections anyway.
            
            The list of ‘Pro and Cons’ in your 2nd link was interesting.  The ‘Pros’ speak for themselves, but I think the argument for the ‘Cons’ is a bit OTT e.g. it’s not that complicated, nor that much more expensive, and it doesn’t delay the results by much; and although it’s not ‘one person, one vote’ it is democratic, and it does prevent a candidate winning on a minority vote because the opposition vote is split.
            
            That’s the main flaw of the ‘first past the post (one person, one vote) system for elections in Britain e.g. in the 2015 General Election in the UK (under the first past the post system) the Conservatives won 50.8% of the votes on just 36.8%% of the vote, while the Liberal Democrats won only 1.2% of the seats on 7.9% of the votes.  In other words the Conservatives won an overall majority of seats with just over a third of the voting population voting for them – or put another way, the Conservatives won the majority of seats, in spite of the fact that almost two thirds of the voting population voted against them!
            
            Yep, the one ‘Con’ listed in your 2nd link which (on reflection) I think is valid is that it only really helps the bigger parties; but RCV is just one form of PR (Proportional Representation); across the whole of the EU other forms of Proportional Representation voting systems are used, which are as equally fair to the small parties as they are to the large parties e.g. each party is awarded the number of seats to represent the number of votes they receive (which is ideal for a multi-party system).
            
            Which voting system is the best?  https://youtu.be/PaxVCsnox_4
            
            John Cleese: we need Proportional Representation to https://youtu.be/VkbAmRv3wrs
            
            Here is RCV in a real life election https://youtu.be/ChY4nooWgGs

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   2. 0

      savvydatingposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      In other words, ballots will be counted three times instead of once, quite needlessly. I am not surprised that our Liberal friends are so willing to embrace this foolishness. This method has been tried before. It always fails.

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   3. 72

      Ken Burgessposted 19 months agoin reply to this

      I think this would vastly help our process and our ability to get better representation.  Almost anything would improve the current process.
      
      Right now very little changes regardless of the party that has control at the federal level. 
      
      Both parties are aligned on domestic surveillance, on maintaining 900 military installations and remaining the 'Global Police', in fomenting wars overseas, on so many of the big issues and big dollar expenses.
      
      The frustration of the growing majority of Americans is that their government does not represent their interests... the government increasingly ignores the voter's needs to follow the guidelines of the UN or WB or wants of International Corporations and other powerful lobby groups.
      
      I doubt the majority of American citizens are OK with letting in millions of migrants a year and providing them with Welfare & Healthcare while our own Veterans and countless elderly are left going without.
      
      I doubt the majority of Americans are OK with our spending trillions of dollars waging wars overseas, that does nothing to benefit them, but does plenty to bring misery and destruction to countless millions the world over.
      
      No one can tell me the lives of those in Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Ukraine are better off today for our interceding in those nations.
      
      Since the original Iraq war, where we forced Iraq out of Kuwait, every military engagement or effort America has involved itself in has only caused the destruction of nations and ruination of millions of lives.

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2. 71

   Kathleen Cochranposted 19 months ago

   Let's pass the National Popular Vote first to ensure our president is actually the people's choice. Then I'll be in total favor of ranked choice for all other offices.

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