Have you ever heard of Ranked Choice, or Instant Runoff Voting?
this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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I was all-in for ranked choice voting (and even started working on an app for it) until I learned that a candidate who would have won can end up losing by becoming more popular, which is extremely counterintuitive, and a flaw that I don't think any voting system should have.
Nicky Case wrote a fantastic explanation about how that can happen, plus exploring many other voting methods: https://ncase.me/ballot/
I still think RCV (and really anything else) would be better than the US's first-past-the-post system, but I'd definitely prefer some type of approval, score, or STAR voting over it.
Yes. Often there are unintended results. I think another issue is that many people would have difficulty understanding the math behind it. It is not complex but it doesn't end up with concise results sometimes and distrust in the system can certainly jilt some people as we have witnessed enough.
That was a fantastic explanation, thanks for that
I have. What i want is an improved verison of Approval Voting
This is a form of score voting, and the specific form you discuss is the method used to elect the members of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee (although they call it "Support", "Neutral", and "Oppose" instead of "Upvote", "Abstain", and "Downvote").
Another day, another new found love for wikipedia. It looks like what I want is specifically called a Three-Point Score election which uses Combined Approval Voting and its used by Wikipedia and in the UN when voting for the secretary general. Amazing. Thanks for sharing!
Sounds very interesting, I wonder if there are more studies on this and its effectiveness.
There are lots of really cool voting systems that don’t have the same weaknesses that first-past-the-post does. Check out https://ncase.me/ballot/ if you want a fun interactive explanation of several.
CGP Grey has multiple videos explaining different voting systems as well. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqs5ohhass_RN57KWlJKLOc5xdD9_ktRg
I will always upvote that ncase ballot link, it's so well-written.
Lots of people here are arguing for Ranked Choice, but Nicky's write-up shows that even though it's still better than the US's first-past-the-post system, something like Approval or Score voting are much better options.
I’ve long thought Condorcet is at least very close to being the absolute best election method. Nice to see it validated here!
Nicky Case is amazing. I didn’t know she made a project on this. Thanks!
In the epilogue she says we haven't tested scoring methods.
But in my local county council elections we had something to that degree. Every candidate (multiple candidates per party and independents) had three boxes. And every elector had 12 or 20 or something crosses to distribute. So you could give 3, 2, 1 or 0 crosses to a candidate.
Maybe the difference is, that didn't yield a single winner but elected members of the council.
Which is also a much more glaring issue with fptp systems: not the race for president, but the fact that there are only 2 parties in parliament.
Approval voting is similar to this. Instead of voting for one candidate, you vote for every candidate who is acceptable to you. The winner is the candidate who is acceptable to the most voters.
Exactly, but I think Approval Voting needs a Downvote option as well, so exceptionally bad candidates can be disapproved of by a voter. So a candidate that doesn’t excite you doesn’t get the same “points” from you as a candidate that wants to be a dictator.
Approval voting has a special place in my heart because it is such an easy transition from first-past-the-post (what the U.S. uses). You literally just change the ballot from "select the candidate you like" to select the candidates (plural) you like" and you're done, and it's such a significant upgrade from FPTP.
Like ranked voting? Some states already do ranked voting.
We have ranked voting in Australia. It works pretty well.
Might I suggest range voting? Say there are 10 candidates on the ballot. You can give each a 1-10, 1 being most preferred. After giving 1 vote to your most preferred, you vote 2 on your second choice which gives them a half of a vote. 3rd choice is 1/3 of a vote, etc. You can also choose to not cast any fraction of a vote for a candidate. So say there's 10 candidates on a ballot, and one of them is an orange tinted fascist; you can completely withhold any part of your vote to that candidate.
Ranked choice voting.
Wait until you learn that's how real countries work! A Parliament gives you proportional representation based on your vote versus the proportion of the populace.
Ranked voting, as you describe, still works better but it is still a winner takes all scenario. Some cities, like NYC, already use it for their local elections because yes it makes sense.
Isn’t ranked voting a 1-5 option? I want a yes, no, abstain voting. Like how Lemmy we do up, down, no vote
This is a long read (skip to the "conclusion" part at the end to get the gist) but I think it belongs:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mark-bray-horizontalism
(if anyone has a more easy to digest introduction to horizontal governance, ideally to read rather than watch, I'd love a link!)
Cant you summarize it in your comment and apply it to the post in a way you think it belongs?
It's a form of governance, you either want to read even just the last paragraph for yourself, or you don't.. ¯\(ツ)/¯
That sort of ranked choice voting would be great in areas where there is truly a democratic option. In Utah, there is no other party except Republicans. They have gerrymandered every district so that only republicans can have their votes counted, and it is not possible to register as anything other than republican in Utah. That's one reason we're so in the pockets of big oil and gas industries here - it's all about how much money politicians can line their pocket with. But the point is - there is no way to downvote anyone. Most of us don't even get a chance to vote here.
A slight misconception in your comment, what OP is describing is much closer to a slightly limited version of Score. Or possibly an expanded Approval.
It's nothing like Ranked Choice.
To break things down, Ranked Choice is an Ordinal voting system. You rank candidates A then B then C.
The actual mechanics of the election are a series of First Past the Post elections all on a single ballot.
To contrast, Approval and Score are both Cardinal voting systems. You express preference for A, but that doesn't mean anything about your preference for B. The votes per candidate are counted independently of the votes for any other candidate. This means that Cardinal voting systems are 100% immune to the spoiler effect. They're also almost completely immune to clone candidates and other such attacks.
Ordinal systems will always fall victim to the spoiler effect, although the more complex ordinal voting systems like Ranked Choice mitigate it somewhat (while making things so much worse when it does crop up)
Sounds good thanks for clarifying.
Should be like figure skating judging.
We rank each canditate out of a possible ten points. Throw out the top 1% and the lowest 1% and then total.
Why would you throw out the top 1%?
In figure skating judging for the Olympics, they would throw out the top and bottom scores to eliminate any country-based biases against competitors.