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They have IRV in San Francisco for the mayoral race. What ends up happening is that a candidate who would not otherwise be in the majority can end up as mayor b

They have IRV in San Francisco for the mayoral race. What ends up happening is that a candidate who would not otherwise be in the majority can end up as mayor because he/she was everybody’s second choice. Additionally, candidates who think they might lose team up and start promoting each other. It’s bizarre and very difficult for voters to understand the implications of their actions.

clarkevans 8y ago
"What ends up happening is that a candidate who would not otherwise be in the majority can end up as mayor because he/she was everybody’s second choice." But, isn't that the whole point? ... that a compromise, perhaps centrist, candidate can emerge victorious?
- aidenn0 8y ago
  But the question is, is this a good thing? If 51% of the population want an extremist candidate, but also like a centrist candidate, then IRV incentivizes them to lie on their ballot and promote a candidate they don't like over the candidate they do like.
  - corysama 8y ago
    Compared to the common “first past the post” voting, yes it is a good thing. This is because the common voting system encourages a “two extremist parties” system where everyone is effectively voting “greater horrible evil vs lesser horrible evil”. https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
    - xvedejas 8y ago
      Here's the problem though; IRV doesn't really do the thing you want it to. It can actually make an extreme candidate win even when voter opinion is centered around a moderate candidate. It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png
      - ChristianBundy 8y ago
        > It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png Just a friendly note: this visualization means nothing without context, and is far from "obvious". Unfortunately, I'd place this in the category of "things that are obvious to people who already believe it". Is there a better way to go about explaining your idea?
        xvedejas 8y ago
        Sorry, I should have mentioned again the above link, which provides context: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim http://zesty.ca/voting/sim To paraphrase, this is a simulation which places candidates and voters on a two-parameter preference space. This is useful because two dimensions are easy to visualize, but the same intuitions apply to higher-dimensional spaces. Each point is colored to answer "which candidate wins when the popular opinion is normally distributed about this point?". That means the fractured visualization shows IRV's non-monotonicity, and how even when popular opinion is close to a centrist candidate (here in red) it might be that the voting system results in the election of an extreme candidate (green).
      - tree_of_item 8y ago
        What is obvious about that image?
    - baddox 8y ago
      I don’t think the problem with having only two viable parties is that they will both tend to be extreme (and that doesn’t strike me as empirically true at the US federal level). Rather, I think the problem is that parties have aggregate power, which means that individual policy preferences get bundled together in ways that may not match an individual voter’s preference. What if I prefer one policy that’s only part of the party X platform, and another that is only part of the party Y platform? Or, another way to think about this party aggregation: what if I prefer the candidate from party X for my local congressional district, but I can’t stand the thought of the likely Speaker of the House of party X?
- johnchristopher 8y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong but there are no guarantees this candidate is a compromise. He might be on a whole different political spectrum and agenda.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    What I often see in my local election is that 3rd-party candidates are often (not always, but often) very inexperienced, and might have platforms that don't make sense or aren't coherent. I've frequently got serious doubts about their ability to function competently - let alone effectively - in the position they're applying for. With IRV, though, I could see a situation where they are much more likely to win simply because, nowadays, Republicans' and Democrats' general level of mutual disdain is such that I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being common for people who identify with one major party to rank the candidate from the other major party below every other candidate more-or-less out of spite.
    - boomboomsubban 8y ago
      >What I often see in my local election is that 3rd-party candidates are often (not always, but often) very inexperienced, and might have platforms that don't make sense or aren't coherent This is a symptom of our current system. Anybody who has any ambition in politics will modify some of their positions to fit one of the major two parties. If running for another party wasn't a death sentence, you would see more competent candidates in those parties.
      - bunderbunder 8y ago
        Yep. Just trying to think through plausible practical scenarios where IRV might produce a bad outcome. Which is worth doing because, regardless of what the ideal situation is, if it's associated with a spectacularly bad outcome in one of the earlier elections that uses it, that's going to be a big impediment to wider adoption.
    - __d 8y ago
      Even in a sharply polarized contest, it's usually the case that most of the "third party" candidates receive fewer first-preference votes than those from the major parties. So the minor parties (and independents) are eliminated first, and their preferences are distributed. Which usually means than one of the major party candidates scrapes over 50%, reflecting the minor party voters' basic preference for one of the major parties over the other. In this (common) situation, I think IRV actually works really well. The major parties still end up in government, but they see the first-preference percentages for the minor parties, and understand what policy positions are important to the electorate.
deleted 8y ago
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gweinberg 8y ago
I don't see how that works. If we have say 3 candidates, a rightist, a leftist, and a centrist, and the centrist is almost nobody's first choice but almost everybody's second choice, the centrist is eliminated first, and either the rightist or leftist will win. I could see someone arguing the centrist should win, but given the rules as described he won't.
beetwenty 8y ago
This scenario happened not in San Francisco, but in Oakland with Jean Quan's election. Since then the second-tier candidates have done what you say about promoting each other: "vote for me and for X". If one loses, the other could win in the next round. IRV has a moderating influence on how candidates campaign. By making a bid for those later rounds viable, now everyone has an incentive to build strong coalitions before they even get into office. Would another system work better? Maybe, but I still count it as an improvement over FPTP.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  It happened in the SF 2018 mayoral election too. Mark Leno and Jane Kim (the two progressive candidates) teamed up against London Breed (a moderate liberal) and suggested each of them mark each other 1 & 2. As a result, after the first round of voting Mark Leno was in first place despite London Breed getting 50% more votes, and it was only after a recount and full tabulation of absentee ballots that London Breed was declared the winner. Now, arguably this is IRV functioning as designed, where the city's progressive wing could vote as a block without worrying about 2 candidates splitting the vote. It was very much non-intuitive, though, and a lot of London Breed supporters were quite pissed off. IRV allows you to "vote for a position" rather than "vote for a person", but many voters are still stuck in the "but....they got fewer votes!" mindset.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It happened in the SF 2018 mayoral election too. Mark Leno and Jane Kim (the two progressive candidates) teamed up against London Breed (a moderate liberal) and suggested each of them mark each other 1 & 2. As a result, after the first round of voting Mark Leno was in first place despite London Breed getting 50% more votes You meant after completing all the rounds of IRV, Mark Leno had more votes despite London Breed having more first place votes. Which, yeah, is the whole point of IRV (and, with slight variations, most ranked ballots methods): a plurality winner that doesn't have broader support but ends up at the bottom of ballots not ranking them first shouldn't generally win over someone who has broader appeal just because the broad appeal splits first place support with another candidate. > IRV allows you to "vote for a position" rather than "vote for a person", but many voters are still stuck in the "but....they got fewer votes!" mindset. No, it lets you vote for a person, and also specify, “if not Alice, then my vote goes to Bob”. The winner in IRV is always the candidate with the most votes at the end of the process; reporting only first place votes as votes for the candidate is just wrong reporting of IRV counts.
__d 8y ago
As a contrasting anecdote, Australia uses IRV for many of its elections, and I think it's fair to say that most people understand how it works and like it. Absolutely, it's more complex than a simple majority. But I think "bizarre" is unfair. In practice, I think it helps to provide a diversity of representatives that more closely reflect the diversity of views in the electorate.

clarkevans 8y ago

"What ends up happening is that a candidate who would not otherwise be in the majority can end up as mayor because he/she was everybody’s second choice." But, isn't that the whole point? ... that a compromise, perhaps centrist, candidate can emerge victorious?

aidenn0 8y ago
But the question is, is this a good thing? If 51% of the population want an extremist candidate, but also like a centrist candidate, then IRV incentivizes them to lie on their ballot and promote a candidate they don't like over the candidate they do like.
- corysama 8y ago
  Compared to the common “first past the post” voting, yes it is a good thing. This is because the common voting system encourages a “two extremist parties” system where everyone is effectively voting “greater horrible evil vs lesser horrible evil”. https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
  - xvedejas 8y ago
    Here's the problem though; IRV doesn't really do the thing you want it to. It can actually make an extreme candidate win even when voter opinion is centered around a moderate candidate. It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png
    - ChristianBundy 8y ago
      > It's very obvious in this visualization (from the site linked a few comments ago): http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/54,47_77,64_13,10_irv.png Just a friendly note: this visualization means nothing without context, and is far from "obvious". Unfortunately, I'd place this in the category of "things that are obvious to people who already believe it". Is there a better way to go about explaining your idea?
      - xvedejas 8y ago
        Sorry, I should have mentioned again the above link, which provides context: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim http://zesty.ca/voting/sim To paraphrase, this is a simulation which places candidates and voters on a two-parameter preference space. This is useful because two dimensions are easy to visualize, but the same intuitions apply to higher-dimensional spaces. Each point is colored to answer "which candidate wins when the popular opinion is normally distributed about this point?". That means the fractured visualization shows IRV's non-monotonicity, and how even when popular opinion is close to a centrist candidate (here in red) it might be that the voting system results in the election of an extreme candidate (green).
    - tree_of_item 8y ago
      What is obvious about that image?
  - baddox 8y ago
    I don’t think the problem with having only two viable parties is that they will both tend to be extreme (and that doesn’t strike me as empirically true at the US federal level). Rather, I think the problem is that parties have aggregate power, which means that individual policy preferences get bundled together in ways that may not match an individual voter’s preference. What if I prefer one policy that’s only part of the party X platform, and another that is only part of the party Y platform? Or, another way to think about this party aggregation: what if I prefer the candidate from party X for my local congressional district, but I can’t stand the thought of the likely Speaker of the House of party X?
johnchristopher 8y ago
Correct me if I am wrong but there are no guarantees this candidate is a compromise. He might be on a whole different political spectrum and agenda.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  What I often see in my local election is that 3rd-party candidates are often (not always, but often) very inexperienced, and might have platforms that don't make sense or aren't coherent. I've frequently got serious doubts about their ability to function competently - let alone effectively - in the position they're applying for. With IRV, though, I could see a situation where they are much more likely to win simply because, nowadays, Republicans' and Democrats' general level of mutual disdain is such that I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being common for people who identify with one major party to rank the candidate from the other major party below every other candidate more-or-less out of spite.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    >What I often see in my local election is that 3rd-party candidates are often (not always, but often) very inexperienced, and might have platforms that don't make sense or aren't coherent This is a symptom of our current system. Anybody who has any ambition in politics will modify some of their positions to fit one of the major two parties. If running for another party wasn't a death sentence, you would see more competent candidates in those parties.
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      Yep. Just trying to think through plausible practical scenarios where IRV might produce a bad outcome. Which is worth doing because, regardless of what the ideal situation is, if it's associated with a spectacularly bad outcome in one of the earlier elections that uses it, that's going to be a big impediment to wider adoption.
  - __d 8y ago
    Even in a sharply polarized contest, it's usually the case that most of the "third party" candidates receive fewer first-preference votes than those from the major parties. So the minor parties (and independents) are eliminated first, and their preferences are distributed. Which usually means than one of the major party candidates scrapes over 50%, reflecting the minor party voters' basic preference for one of the major parties over the other. In this (common) situation, I think IRV actually works really well. The major parties still end up in government, but they see the first-preference percentages for the minor parties, and understand what policy positions are important to the electorate.

deleted 8y ago

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gweinberg 8y ago

I don't see how that works. If we have say 3 candidates, a rightist, a leftist, and a centrist, and the centrist is almost nobody's first choice but almost everybody's second choice, the centrist is eliminated first, and either the rightist or leftist will win. I could see someone arguing the centrist should win, but given the rules as described he won't.

beetwenty 8y ago

This scenario happened not in San Francisco, but in Oakland with Jean Quan's election. Since then the second-tier candidates have done what you say about promoting each other: "vote for me and for X". If one loses, the other could win in the next round. IRV has a moderating influence on how candidates campaign. By making a bid for those later rounds viable, now everyone has an incentive to build strong coalitions before they even get into office. Would another system work better? Maybe, but I still count it as an improvement over FPTP.

nostrademons 8y ago
It happened in the SF 2018 mayoral election too. Mark Leno and Jane Kim (the two progressive candidates) teamed up against London Breed (a moderate liberal) and suggested each of them mark each other 1 & 2. As a result, after the first round of voting Mark Leno was in first place despite London Breed getting 50% more votes, and it was only after a recount and full tabulation of absentee ballots that London Breed was declared the winner. Now, arguably this is IRV functioning as designed, where the city's progressive wing could vote as a block without worrying about 2 candidates splitting the vote. It was very much non-intuitive, though, and a lot of London Breed supporters were quite pissed off. IRV allows you to "vote for a position" rather than "vote for a person", but many voters are still stuck in the "but....they got fewer votes!" mindset.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > It happened in the SF 2018 mayoral election too. Mark Leno and Jane Kim (the two progressive candidates) teamed up against London Breed (a moderate liberal) and suggested each of them mark each other 1 & 2. As a result, after the first round of voting Mark Leno was in first place despite London Breed getting 50% more votes You meant after completing all the rounds of IRV, Mark Leno had more votes despite London Breed having more first place votes. Which, yeah, is the whole point of IRV (and, with slight variations, most ranked ballots methods): a plurality winner that doesn't have broader support but ends up at the bottom of ballots not ranking them first shouldn't generally win over someone who has broader appeal just because the broad appeal splits first place support with another candidate. > IRV allows you to "vote for a position" rather than "vote for a person", but many voters are still stuck in the "but....they got fewer votes!" mindset. No, it lets you vote for a person, and also specify, “if not Alice, then my vote goes to Bob”. The winner in IRV is always the candidate with the most votes at the end of the process; reporting only first place votes as votes for the candidate is just wrong reporting of IRV counts.

__d 8y ago

As a contrasting anecdote, Australia uses IRV for many of its elections, and I think it's fair to say that most people understand how it works and like it. Absolutely, it's more complex than a simple majority. But I think "bizarre" is unfair. In practice, I think it helps to provide a diversity of representatives that more closely reflect the diversity of views in the electorate.