Ranked choice voting: yes or no?

[nanana]

Greetings lads of raw is law:

at the risk of being accused of misquoting @BootmanLA for malicious rather than playful purposes, voting for anyone besides a democrat or republican has been characterized as jacking off in he voting booth. To me, a libertarian-minded independent, this smacks of another example of arrogating all the fun and privilege to the already-priviledged major parties (I’m pretty sure I got @BootmanLAexactly backward, but since I’m not mounting a polemic here, I hope this dyslexic analogy will cause no offense. How do folks feel about expanding the number of booth whacks (meaningful votes) by allowing voters to vote 1st-2nd-3rd choice? It would seem to solve the problems that the D/R uniparty has with the Jill Steins of the world by scooping up their vote when their party is eliminated and the next choice is redistributed. It would also seem to solve the problems of the little parties, which often are barred from the ballot unless they can meet certain criteria. What sayeth the great bareback ulamaa?

[viking8x6]

I'm a big proponent of ranked choice voting. It empowers people with fringe leanings to vote for their preferred choice, without losing their chance to effectively vote against the turd du jour.

Furthermore, it could discourage the dominant parties from fielding candidates that pander to the wing nuts therein, which gives the latter disproportionate power to demand the implementation of generally unpopular policies (as we have lately seen with both major parties).

[RobertBottomSlut]

It works in Alaska. It brought politics back to the center. The Parties hate it and fight it (it’s on the ballot for removal this election). If that isn’t a sign it’s working, I don’t know what is. 

[Erik62]

7 hours ago, nanana said:

Greetings lads of raw is law:

at the risk of being accused of misquoting @BootmanLA for malicious rather than playful purposes, voting for anyone besides a democrat or republican has been characterized as jacking off in he voting booth. To me, a libertarian-minded independent, this smacks of another example of arrogating all the fun and privilege to the already-priviledged major parties (I’m pretty sure I got @BootmanLAexactly backward, but since I’m not mounting a polemic here, I hope this dyslexic analogy will cause no offense. How do folks feel about expanding the number of booth whacks (meaningful votes) by allowing voters to vote 1st-2nd-3rd choice? It would seem to solve the problems that the D/R uniparty has with the Jill Steins of the world by scooping up their vote when their party is eliminated and the next choice is redistributed. It would also seem to solve the problems of the little parties, which often are barred from the ballot unless they can meet certain criteria. What sayeth the great bareback ulamaa?

NO, NO, NO!!! In Australia, both federal & state, elections are based on preferential voting. A total DISASTER. Federal elections require us to place upto 24+ selections in the order we want them. I barely know OR trust my first choice, let alone 23 other NOBODIES. The result being that majority governments are occurring less frequently & NOTHING gets done because all these SHITTY independent politicians are only there for self interest. I have recently voted in my local city elections & I had to place my choices from 1 - 10. I don't even know my first choice. Never met them & no one ever door knocked. Because of this my selections were done by "tossing a coin". Not a very good way to vote. FIRST PAST THE POST should be the only way. Preferences just cause massive issues & hog tie the biggest party in a coalition with FUCKED UP IDIOTS 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬. 

[TaKinGDeePanal]

9 hours ago, Erik62 said:

NO, NO, NO!!! In Australia, both federal & state, elections are based on preferential voting. A total DISASTER. Federal elections require us to place up to 24+ selections in the order we want them. I barely know OR trust my first choice, let alone 23 other NOBODIES. The result being that majority governments are occurring less frequently & NOTHING gets done because all these SHITTY independent politicians are only there for self interest. I have recently voted in my local city elections & I had to place my choices from 1 - 10. I don't even know my first choice. Never met them & no one ever door knocked. Because of this my selections were done by "tossing a coin". Not a very good way to vote. FIRST PAST THE POST should be the only way. Preferences just cause massive issues & hog tie the biggest party in a coalition with FUCKED UP IDIOTS 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬. 

You forgot those who hand out "How To Vote Cards" ...

10 candidates? Yikes. I only had to choose between 3.

[TaKinGDeePanal]

16 hours ago, RobertBottomSlut said:

It works in Alaska. It brought politics back to the center. The Parties hate it and fight it (it’s on the ballot for removal this election). If that isn’t a sign it’s working, I don’t know what is. 

Actually, it means a LOT of backroom deals before the official advisement from each candidate of preferences - not exactly a democratic process ...

[TaKinGDeePanal]

17 hours ago, viking8x6 said:

I'm a big proponent of ranked choice voting. It empowers people with fringe leanings to vote for their preferred choice, without losing their chance to effectively vote against the turd du jour.

Furthermore, it could discourage the dominant parties from fielding candidates that pander to the wing nuts therein, which gives the latter disproportionate power to demand the implementation of generally unpopular policies (as we have lately seen with both major parties).

One of our two major parties in Australia has pretty much gone full loony - and the other one has broken a slew of promises. However, RCV DEMANDS that you still give one of them a higher preference.

[viking8x6]

15 hours ago, Erik62 said:

Federal elections require us to place upto 24+ selections in the order we want them. I barely know OR trust my first choice, let alone 23 other NOBODIES. The result being that majority governments are occurring less frequently & NOTHING gets done because all these SHITTY independent politicians are only there for self interest...

Sounds more like an implementation problem than a conceptual one. If you're getting 24 people on the ballot, it maybe should be harder to get on it (though that obviously has other pitfalls), but certainly if one doesn't wish to vote for a candidate, one shouldn't be obliged to. However, all this is conjecture coming from someone who's been stuck in the USA for the last many decades, and not seen another system in operation.

[BootmanLA]

On 10/26/2024 at 8:37 AM, nanana said:

Greetings lads of raw is law:

at the risk of being accused of misquoting @BootmanLA for malicious rather than playful purposes, voting for anyone besides a democrat or republican has been characterized as jacking off in he voting booth. To me, a libertarian-minded independent, this smacks of another example of arrogating all the fun and privilege to the already-priviledged major parties (I’m pretty sure I got @BootmanLAexactly backward, but since I’m not mounting a polemic here, I hope this dyslexic analogy will cause no offense. How do folks feel about expanding the number of booth whacks (meaningful votes) by allowing voters to vote 1st-2nd-3rd choice? It would seem to solve the problems that the D/R uniparty has with the Jill Steins of the world by scooping up their vote when their party is eliminated and the next choice is redistributed. It would also seem to solve the problems of the little parties, which often are barred from the ballot unless they can meet certain criteria. What sayeth the great bareback ulamaa?

No offense caused, but you didn't get it exactly right as far as what I'm saying. To clarify: under the US system of elections, where (in most cases) there's no runoff election, if there are three or more candidates, voting for a third party (as opposed to Democratic or Republican) is mostly a waste of a vote. That's because in virtually all elections, only the candidates from those two major parties stands a chance of winning; if either candidate is worse than the other, then voting for someone else essentially makes it harder to defeat the worse one.

That's especially important in our presidential elections, given the power that the presidency here holds.

[nanana]

I think I had followed your original point but communicated it glibly. 
DC has ranked-choice voting on the ballot. I welcome any guidance.

[BootmanLA]

As for RCV itself, I'm very much in favor of it. With it, those people who know, say, Trump is a bigger disaster waiting to happen than Harris ever could be, could vote for Stein or Kennedy or whomever as their #1 choice, and when that waste of genetic material is eliminated, their second choice (or third, or however many times it takes for a winner to be reached) would count.

It would mean that the winner has the greatest approval rating overall, which would correct the situations like 2000 and 2016 where the plurality winner clearly was one person but their opponent won. Surely that - the person who is approved the most - ought to be kind of the guiding factor, no?

21 hours ago, Erik62 said:

NO, NO, NO!!! In Australia, both federal & state, elections are based on preferential voting. A total DISASTER. Federal elections require us to place upto 24+ selections in the order we want them. I barely know OR trust my first choice, let alone 23 other NOBODIES. The result being that majority governments are occurring less frequently & NOTHING gets done because all these SHITTY independent politicians are only there for self interest. I have recently voted in my local city elections & I had to place my choices from 1 - 10. I don't even know my first choice. Never met them & no one ever door knocked. Because of this my selections were done by "tossing a coin". Not a very good way to vote. FIRST PAST THE POST should be the only way. Preferences just cause massive issues & hog tie the biggest party in a coalition with FUCKED UP IDIOTS 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬. 

As others have said, 24+ candidates is ludicrous. But you do NOT have to assign a vote to all 24, in any case; if you only know something about, say, five of them, rank them 1-5 and leave the rest unvoted. And maybe the problem is voters not caring enough to learn even the basics about their candidates - surely there are newspapers and other forms of news about who's running for what?

And no, RCV doesn't mandate a coalition tying up the winner with compromises. RCV has nothing to do with assembling a parliamentary majority to choose a prime minister, which is the only case I can think of where a coalition gets to share power. 

[Erik62]

6 hours ago, viking8x6 said:

Sounds more like an implementation problem than a conceptual one. If you're getting 24 people on the ballot, it maybe should be harder to get on it (though that obviously has other pitfalls), but certainly if one doesn't wish to vote for a candidate, one shouldn't be obliged to. However, all this is conjecture coming from someone who's been stuck in the USA for the last many decades, and not seen another system in operation.

Oh Viking, I wish it was just faulty implementation 😥. 

"Most new political parties seeking registration are non-Parliamentary parties and need to prove that they have at least 1,500 members who are on the Electoral Roll. The party needs to lodge a membership list of between 1,500 and 1,650 members as paStatert of its application". Similar requirements in both Federal & State. For our last Fed election there was approx. 1,500 Independent nominees running for a parliamentary seat. You, in the US, have the iniquity of the Electoral College & Australia has the nightmare of PREFERENTIAL VOTING. BOTH systems are fucking useless & certainly NOT FAIR 🤬🤬🤬.

What do THE PEOPLE DO 🤔😱😱??? 

[BootmanLA]

11 minutes ago, Erik62 said:

BOTH systems are fucking useless & certainly NOT FAIR 🤬🤬🤬.

What do THE PEOPLE DO 🤔😱😱??? 

But your system IS fairer - you don't HAVE to rank every single candidate, right? You can rank the ones you know about, and ignore the rest. I don't see anything unfair about it at all.

With first past the post, you get one shot at it. If you vote third-party, and that person gets a low vote percentage, you've essentially thrown away your ability to affect the actual outcome (which, to me, is the whole fucking point of voting - to affect the outcome in a way favorable to your interests). 

But with RCV, if there are four candidates, and you find you like one of the minor ones best, you can rank her first, and the results will reflect that she was someone's first choice. But then once that person is eliminated, you can have your second-place vote count for the next best option - if nothing else, as a way of helping defeat the WORST candidate who's got a good chance of winning.

And RCV (generally speaking) makes sense to everyone - it's not hard to explain how to rank your first choice as #1, second choice as #2, and so forth.

(All of that, of course, is beside the point for the Electoral College, which is an anachronistic byproduct of pro-slavery forces during the writing of our constitution. Unfortunately, it's the only way our Republican party can win the presidency any more, even when a substantial plurality prefers someone else.)

[TaKinGDeePanal]

19 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

But your system IS fairer - you don't HAVE to rank every single candidate, right? You can rank the ones you know about, and ignore the rest. I don't see anything unfair about it at all.

With first past the post, you get one shot at it. If you vote third-party, and that person gets a low vote percentage, you've essentially thrown away your ability to affect the actual outcome (which, to me, is the whole fucking point of voting - to affect the outcome in a way favorable to your interests). 

But with RCV, if there are four candidates, and you find you like one of the minor ones best, you can rank her first, and the results will reflect that she was someone's first choice. But then once that person is eliminated, you can have your second-place vote count for the next best option - if nothing else, as a way of helping defeat the WORST candidate who's got a good chance of winning.

And RCV (generally speaking) makes sense to everyone - it's not hard to explain how to rank your first choice as #1, second choice as #2, and so forth.

(All of that, of course, is beside the point for the Electoral College, which is an anachronistic byproduct of pro-slavery forces during the writing of our constitution. Unfortunately, it's the only way our Republican party can win the presidency any more, even when a substantial plurality prefers someone else.)

You have to rank EVERYONE (apart from your last choice) on a House of Representatives Ballot in Australia. For the Senate, it's different, but I rank everyone as the Parties have decided IN SECRET where votes are directed if you don't rank everyone. For example, one Senator (Malcolm Roberts) won a seat with only 77 Primary Votes - however, due to aforesaid backroom Party deals, he won enough Ranked Choice votes to take office (and yes, he's pretty much the closest thing we have to a fascist in the Senate): [think before following links] https://www.tallyroom.com.au/29932; [think before following links] https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/one-nation-and-the-rise-of-fascism,10149

Ranked voting is a way for shit candidates to direct their votes to even more shit candidates.

For example, say Trump has 37%, Harris 47%, Green Party 2%, RFK (who is still on some ballot papers) 10%, West 4%. If Stein and Kennedy advise their voters to put Harris last (and we ALL know they would, plus generally their voters are as bad as they are) - and West puts out a 50-50 advisement (as some candidates do), that means that Trump picks up 14% (2+10+4/2), which puts him in the White House. You also would then have the spectacle of people handing out "How To Vote Cards", which in a country where people are being encouraged to attend polling stations with automatic weapons, could very well see things turn deadly on Election Day.

While it is compulsory for voters to attend a polling station and collect their ballot, it is actually NOT compulsory for them to cast a valid vote. Some people fill it out incorrectly. Some people drop a blank ballot into the box. Some people deface their ballot paper. It usually runs at 4-6% of the vote (I've scrutineered before).

Edited October 27 by TaKinGDeePanal

[Erik62]

1 hour ago, BootmanLA said:

As for RCV itself, I'm very much in favor of it. With it, those people who know, say, Trump is a bigger disaster waiting to happen than Harris ever could be, could vote for Stein or Kennedy or whomever as their #1 choice, and when that waste of genetic material is eliminated, their second choice (or third, or however many times it takes for a winner to be reached) would count.

It would mean that the winner has the greatest approval rating overall, which would correct the situations like 2000 and 2016 where the plurality winner clearly was one person but their opponent won. Surely that - the person who is approved the most - ought to be kind of the guiding factor, no?

As others have said, 24+ candidates is ludicrous. But you do NOT have to assign a vote to all 24, in any case; if you only know something about, say, five of them, rank them 1-5 and leave the rest unvoted. And maybe the problem is voters not caring enough to learn even the basics about their candidates - surely there are newspapers and other forms of news about who's running for what?

And no, RCV doesn't mandate a coalition tying up the winner with compromises. RCV has nothing to do with assembling a parliamentary majority to choose a prime minister, which is the only case I can think of where a coalition gets to share power. 

In Australia, you have 2 choices : 1) vote for one of the 3 MAIN PARTIES & ACCEPT their preferences & 2) if you don't like their preferred canditates you are required to number ALL of the Candidates, their is often 20 or 30 in one electorate. If you don't wish to number ALL, you MUST STILL CHOOSE at least 12.

Your second point: WE DON'T CARE, we do but none of the nominees ever door-knock, meet people in shopping centres or place campaign advertisements in local newspapers, IF LOCAL NEWSPAPERS ARE EVEN PRINTED.  

  I never said RCV mandates a coalition but I did say that this is how Australian elections operate. Our major parties are required to win a specific number of electoral seats, to govern in their own right. If that number of seats is not won, then major party with the most votes, say 39%, is forced to find support from minor parties or independents & form a MINORITY GOVERNMENT. In this case the independents can literally "blackmail" the major party for their own benefit when legislation is to be voted on & passed. As a result major legislation on health, housing, education, homelessness etc, fails to pass & things just get worse, eg: our current government wanted to pass legislation on housing. They wanted to build ex million houses. It failed because 1 of the 3 major parties refused because government wanted to spend TOO MUCH & the other party said it wasn't enough funding. Go figure because I can't 🙄😭😭. 

What would happen if both Dems & Reps only got 39% of the vote EACH??? 

NB: I mean no offence in any comments I have written, just exploring 2 TOTALLY DIFFERENT systems & their faults 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫.