4 ms·

Hey, thanks so much for passing this, Maine! I'd love to start a group (or get involved with one if there is one) to bring this to my adopted state of Washingt

by Frondo 10y ago

Hey, thanks so much for passing this, Maine! I'd love to start a group (or get involved with one if there is one) to bring this to my adopted state of Washington. Though I often groan at the "laboratories of democracy" turn of phrase, it is kinda cool to see this stuff implemented somewhere. It means there's a model we can use to bring it to where we live.

ncallaway 10y ago
As another Washingtonian who donated to and followed the Maine initiative closely, let me know if you find an organization to work with (or if you start one). I'd be happy to volunteer, donate, etc.
pnathan 10y ago
I'd sign & vote for that initiative.
wang_li 10y ago
Washington uses what they call Top Two. Only the top two in the primaries will be on the ballot in the general election for the congressional, state legislative and state executive offices. They can be from the same party, e.g. the two candidates for state treasurer in 2016 were both republicans. (California does this as well and it has had interesting effects. California's 31st district voter registration favors the democratic party, but they ended up with only the choice between two republicans in the general election because there were four democratic candidates dividing up the vote in the primary.[1]) 1. https://ballotpedia.org/California's_31st_Congressional_District_elections,_2012 https://ballotpedia.org/California's_31st_Congressional_Dist...
- tunesmith 10y ago
  A starker thing happened in WA already. In the primary, there were five candidates for Treasurer. Three Democrats, two Republicans. No one knew much about any of them, and the vote was roughly split between all five. So the two Republicans advanced, even though almost 60% of the votes went to Democrats. (One of the Republicans won - the Democrats were prohibited from participating as write-ins due to a "Sore Loser" rule.) Regardless of your political leanings, this is a case where the vote was distorted, and where the winner was decided more by the voting system than the preferences of the electorate.
  - 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
    Yes the vote was distorted, but that is the fault of the democratic party for not organizing their candidates better. How can you make a law that prevents one political party from being disorganized? Isn't that kinda like trying to "fix stupid"? (I'm not trying to call the democratic party stupid here, it's just an example of something impossible to legislate against.) I think the more rules and regulations that get put into place that try to "fix" problems, which are really just symptoms of poor performance, not a root cause, the harder it makes it for upstart political parties to get involved! This is part of the reason we only have two viable parties, there are so many rules and regulations that make it so difficult and very expensive to participate, that the democratic and republican parties can strangle any competition out of the race.
    - tunesmith 10y ago
      The problem with that critique is that it can be applied towards any system that has messed up incentives. Regulations to prevent over-fishing is kinda like trying to fix stupid, too, but it's still necessary.
atotic 10y ago
fairvote.org is a national organization dedicated to voting reforms such as this. They were a big supporter of Maine initiative, and often have satellite state offices.
specialist 10y ago
Pierce County tried it. They quickly undid it. IRV confused the voters. The election administrators were dead set against it, so were only too happy to allow it to fail. Aside, on the election integrity front, IRV is difficult to tabulate and necessitates digital tabulation. I initially supported IRV, so many years ago, but its inherit complexity finally turned me off. I now support Approval Voting. More fair than IRV, trivial to tabulate, easy to explain.
- BenElgar 10y ago
  In my mind, the problem with Approval Voting is that it's harder to decide how one should vote. What's the cut-off? Do I vote for everyone I really believe in? Or everyone I don't loathe? And it's exactly that sort of question which leads to tactical voting. With IRV it's easy. Just order them until you're indifferent to the rest of the candidates.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    It seems to me that AV should lead to basically the same results regardless of people's individual cutoffs. I think it's more important to avoid the nonmonotonicity of IRV.
  - ClayShentrup 10y ago
    Wrong. http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html
- caf 10y ago
  IRV scrutiny has been successfully done by hand-counting for many decades before computer-assisted counting was available.

by Frondo 10y ago

ncallaway 10y ago

As another Washingtonian who donated to and followed the Maine initiative closely, let me know if you find an organization to work with (or if you start one). I'd be happy to volunteer, donate, etc.

pnathan 10y ago

I'd sign & vote for that initiative.

wang_li 10y ago

Washington uses what they call Top Two. Only the top two in the primaries will be on the ballot in the general election for the congressional, state legislative and state executive offices. They can be from the same party, e.g. the two candidates for state treasurer in 2016 were both republicans. (California does this as well and it has had interesting effects. California's 31st district voter registration favors the democratic party, but they ended up with only the choice between two republicans in the general election because there were four democratic candidates dividing up the vote in the primary.[1]) 1. https://ballotpedia.org/California's_31st_Congressional_District_elections,_2012 https://ballotpedia.org/California's_31st_Congressional_Dist...

tunesmith 10y ago
A starker thing happened in WA already. In the primary, there were five candidates for Treasurer. Three Democrats, two Republicans. No one knew much about any of them, and the vote was roughly split between all five. So the two Republicans advanced, even though almost 60% of the votes went to Democrats. (One of the Republicans won - the Democrats were prohibited from participating as write-ins due to a "Sore Loser" rule.) Regardless of your political leanings, this is a case where the vote was distorted, and where the winner was decided more by the voting system than the preferences of the electorate.
- 234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
  Yes the vote was distorted, but that is the fault of the democratic party for not organizing their candidates better. How can you make a law that prevents one political party from being disorganized? Isn't that kinda like trying to "fix stupid"? (I'm not trying to call the democratic party stupid here, it's just an example of something impossible to legislate against.) I think the more rules and regulations that get put into place that try to "fix" problems, which are really just symptoms of poor performance, not a root cause, the harder it makes it for upstart political parties to get involved! This is part of the reason we only have two viable parties, there are so many rules and regulations that make it so difficult and very expensive to participate, that the democratic and republican parties can strangle any competition out of the race.
  - tunesmith 10y ago
    The problem with that critique is that it can be applied towards any system that has messed up incentives. Regulations to prevent over-fishing is kinda like trying to fix stupid, too, but it's still necessary.

atotic 10y ago

fairvote.org is a national organization dedicated to voting reforms such as this. They were a big supporter of Maine initiative, and often have satellite state offices.

specialist 10y ago

Pierce County tried it. They quickly undid it. IRV confused the voters. The election administrators were dead set against it, so were only too happy to allow it to fail. Aside, on the election integrity front, IRV is difficult to tabulate and necessitates digital tabulation. I initially supported IRV, so many years ago, but its inherit complexity finally turned me off. I now support Approval Voting. More fair than IRV, trivial to tabulate, easy to explain.

BenElgar 10y ago
In my mind, the problem with Approval Voting is that it's harder to decide how one should vote. What's the cut-off? Do I vote for everyone I really believe in? Or everyone I don't loathe? And it's exactly that sort of question which leads to tactical voting. With IRV it's easy. Just order them until you're indifferent to the rest of the candidates.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  It seems to me that AV should lead to basically the same results regardless of people's individual cutoffs. I think it's more important to avoid the nonmonotonicity of IRV.
- ClayShentrup 10y ago
  Wrong. http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/RVstrat6.html http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html http://scorevoting.net/TarrIrv.html
caf 10y ago
IRV scrutiny has been successfully done by hand-counting for many decades before computer-assisted counting was available.