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In the general. But you also have to look at the primaries. For instance, this year we had 22 major candidates running for president in the two major parties. A

In the general. But you also have to look at the primaries. For instance, this year we had 22 major candidates running for president in the two major parties. And people like Trump and Sanders show that there is plenty of room for heterodox candidates to be successful.

losteric 10y ago
Primaries are part of the problem, not the solution. If I'm a member of party A, I can't voice a preference for the failed candidates of party B or A. I can only pick between the winners. For example, I've heard from a small but non-trivial number of swing supporters that they would have voted for Sanders, but instead voted for Trump. Ranked voting might have allowed them to vote Sanders > Trump > Hillary in 2016. Others may have preferred Rand Paul, or Gary Johnson, etc. FPTP is directly responsible for our dichotomous and increasingly unstable political system. We need more choice at the ballot box.
- mozumder 10y ago
  What everyone wants is Approval voting. Far simpler than Ranked-choice voting. Really, do people expect the public to be able to rank their candidates?
  - __david__ 10y ago
    Um… Yes? Why do you think no one would be able to do that?
- Chathamization 10y ago
  > For example, I've heard from a small but non-trivial number of swing supporters that they would have voted for Sanders, but instead voted for Trump. If there's a sizeable proportion of people like that, they'd be able to get their candidate in the primary. By and large you need far fewer votes to win the primary than to win the general. It always surprises me that there are people who don't bother to vote in the first round of voting, and then complain about the quality of candidates that made it to the second round. Well, yeah; you can't sit things out and hope that other people will pick the person you like. Only 28.5% of eligible voters voted in the presidential primary in 2016 (and non-presidential primaries often have lower turnout).
  - losteric 10y ago
    > If there's a sizeable proportion of people like that, they'd be able to get their candidate in the primary. This was the focus of my post, though I guess it wasn't clear... What you're suggesting doesn't work across party lines. The Democrat primaries don't care whether Republicans would have voted for Sanders over Trump, and the Republican primaries have a similar problem. Primary systems acts to amplify the passionate voices within each party at the cost of bipartisan preferences.

losteric 10y ago

Primaries are part of the problem, not the solution. If I'm a member of party A, I can't voice a preference for the failed candidates of party B or A. I can only pick between the winners. For example, I've heard from a small but non-trivial number of swing supporters that they would have voted for Sanders, but instead voted for Trump. Ranked voting might have allowed them to vote Sanders > Trump > Hillary in 2016. Others may have preferred Rand Paul, or Gary Johnson, etc. FPTP is directly responsible for our dichotomous and increasingly unstable political system. We need more choice at the ballot box.

mozumder 10y ago
What everyone wants is Approval voting. Far simpler than Ranked-choice voting. Really, do people expect the public to be able to rank their candidates?
- __david__ 10y ago
  Um… Yes? Why do you think no one would be able to do that?
Chathamization 10y ago
> For example, I've heard from a small but non-trivial number of swing supporters that they would have voted for Sanders, but instead voted for Trump. If there's a sizeable proportion of people like that, they'd be able to get their candidate in the primary. By and large you need far fewer votes to win the primary than to win the general. It always surprises me that there are people who don't bother to vote in the first round of voting, and then complain about the quality of candidates that made it to the second round. Well, yeah; you can't sit things out and hope that other people will pick the person you like. Only 28.5% of eligible voters voted in the presidential primary in 2016 (and non-presidential primaries often have lower turnout).
- losteric 10y ago
  > If there's a sizeable proportion of people like that, they'd be able to get their candidate in the primary. This was the focus of my post, though I guess it wasn't clear... What you're suggesting doesn't work across party lines. The Democrat primaries don't care whether Republicans would have voted for Sanders over Trump, and the Republican primaries have a similar problem. Primary systems acts to amplify the passionate voices within each party at the cost of bipartisan preferences.