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But also it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. Big game changer and will fundamentally

But also it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. Big game changer and will fundamentally affect everything about the vote. Big vision here is that it also shifts the discussion to how can we make the voting system better, just by implementing _something_ better. I agree with you hugely that "it's a start, and I'm grateful for that alone". And we need to push this across the finish line, even though it isn't _perfect_. We just need _better_ right now, we need momentum.

jefftk 7y ago
> But also it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. You already have the option to vote for who you want to vote for in "first past the post", you just might get an outcome you don't like very much... IRV and every other voting system is the same way: you can vote your heart, but you'll get an outcome you prefer more often if you vote tactically. There's even a theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard–Satterthwaite_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard–Satterthwaite_theorem For the specific case of IRV, consider an election like: * 32% of people: Clinton, Sanders, Trump * 33% of people: Sanders, Trump, Clinton * 35% of people: Trump, Clinton, Sanders Now, this is a terrible election and there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Under traditional voting Trump wins, while under IRV Clinton is eliminated and Sanders wins. But if a few people preferring Trump > Clinton > Sanders had instead voted just Clinton > Trump > Sanders we could have had: * 32% of people: Clinton, Sanders, Trump * 33% of people: Sanders, Trump, Clinton * 32% of people: Trump, Clinton, Sanders * 3% of people: Clinton, Trump, Sanders Then Trump would have been eliminated first, with only 32% of the first place votes, and his second place votes would have gone to Clinton, making her win. So by voting for a candidate they liked less, these voters got an outcome they liked more.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Every single voting system has some element of fault. Very few voting systems are close to "perfect representation" and they tend to be more math heavy, in a way that would lead to distrust from the average voter. IRV might have some corner cases, such as the one you listed, where strategic voting is beneficial for some. IRV reduces that element drastically, and encourages positive voting and true representation to a much larger degree. Essentially, everything the NYT article says.
- keerthiko 7y ago
  Yep, it is flawed and, conversely, can be gamed with unintuitive choices. Yet, it is an improvement nonetheless just because fewer people get an outcome they liked less.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > There's even a theorem Calling it the "same" is missing the point. It's a corner case in instant runoff, while in first past the post it's just normal voting.
  - jquery 7y ago
    IRV failing to capture voter preferences is not a "corner case". It is absolutely unclear that IRV is better at all than FPTP. See a set of voting simulations with candidates and distributions here for different voting methods: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ Alarmingly, IRV is the worst voting system of all just by eyeballing these simulations. The charts it produces are bizarre, and it tends to select for extremists and/or candidates that do not capture the voter's preferences! It's not just of theoretical interest either, IRV famously spoiled the 2009 Burlington mayoral election, resulting in its repeal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_electi... The only good takeaway from IRV picking up steam is that maybe it puts us on the path towards something like approval voting, which is much harder to game, and is much easier for voters to understand (I doubt more than 1 out of 10 people could explain how IRV works).
    - JAlexoid 7y ago
      There should be a rule - no majority = no win. Let alone - anything is better, than a simple plurality based system.
      - einpoklum 7y ago
        Very often when there are more than two candidates, none of them have a majority of supporters. In fact, sometimes that's true even with two or even one candidate...
      - birdyrooster 7y ago
        What do you do when votes lead to a plurality?
      - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
- JAlexoid 7y ago
  Dude... In the two cases you list the least objectionable candidate won. What is your problem? Do you not understand how you rank your options?
  - jefftk 7y ago
    Could you clarify? I'm not sure what you're objecting to.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  One thing to consider is that because gaming the vote is harder to understand, it may have less of an impact. People can easily understand that voting for 3rd party candidate is not voting for a candidate that actually has a chance. Fewer people will be able to understand the second example you give, meaning it will have less impact on people gaming their votes.
  - jakemal 7y ago
    But you also have to consider that most people don't understand it because it's currently not relevant to them. If the system was put in place, I would imagine people who hear a lot more about that strategy.
    - magduf 7y ago
      This is a good point I think. If this system were adopted, all it would take is a small number of activist people to understand how to game the system, then post a bunch of YouTube videos explaining to all their acolytes how they can join in and game the system.
      - caf 7y ago
        The lived experience of IRV is that this does not happen. There are probably a few reasons for this. Firstly, the situations where tactical voting can be of benefit tend to arise only rarely. Secondly, when these situations do arise, it is not usually apparent in advance of the election. Thirdly, even when such a situation arises and it is reasonably forseeable in advance of the election, it is easy for the tactical voting to backfire and hinder the candidates chances rather than helping them, if the vote shares/exclusion order aren't as predicted.
        magduf 7y ago
        >The lived experience of IRV is that this does not happen. What "lived experience"? IRV has never been used in American elections at least, unless you count some towns.
- JoshTriplett 7y ago
  The fundamental reason for this: IRV doesn't care what your preferences are other than your top choice, until your top choice is eliminated. Until choice A is eliminated, votes for A>B>C and votes for A>C>B are treated identically, and neither one will affect whether B or C gets eliminated first. Better systems take all preferences into account from the beginning.
- theptip 7y ago
  > there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Is there evidence around how often such cycles actually occur in practice? Seems like a convoluted example, intuitively speaking.
  - pizza 7y ago
    For groups of individuals, it is quite possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox
    - theptip 7y ago
      It's obvious that these cycles can exist when the things referred to have labels like "A, B, C" or "carrot, potato, lettuce", but how often do they occur for political candidates like the ones described above? I'm willing to buy that IRV is objectively not suitable for picking meals, but that in practice it is suitable for picking presidential candidates -- or that it's always inferior. Seems like an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
      - ikiris 7y ago
        Thankfully lots of smart people have written papers about how that's incorrect. They just use generic terms like "A,B,C"
      - amalcon 7y ago
        The wikipedia page includes a cite of such an empirical analysis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_...
        theptip 7y ago
        Thanks! I'm just going to quote here because the footnote was interesting: > A summary of 37 individual studies, covering a total of 265 real-world elections, large and small, found 25 instances of a Condorcet paradox, for a total likelihood of 9.4%[14]:325 (and this may be a high estimate, since cases of the paradox are more likely to be reported on than cases without).[13]:47 > 13: ""most election results do not correspond to anything like any of DC, IC, IAC or MC ... empirical studies ... indicate that some of the most common paradoxes are relatively unlikely to be observed in actual elections. ... it is easily concluded that Condorcet’s Paradox should very rarely be observed in any real elections on a small number of candidates with large electorates, as long as voters’ preferences reflect any reasonable degree of group mutual coherence" I think I have to file this one under "it's complicated, must dig more".
- yyyk 7y ago
  I'm not at all a fan of G-S and the Arrow Theorem, since they make widely unrealistic assumptions about voting (e.g. Arrow's IIA is nonsense - intensity matters!). G-S and Arrow damaged tremendously any attempt to look at electoral systems rationally by imposing a mathematical description which is simply irrelevant to actual concerns. In your given example, the particular unrealistic assumption is the way it looks at voting. Voting is not an extended opinion poll. It is use of political power where each voter is given an equal amount. Therefore, there's no need to reduce "tactical voting" to a minimum (the useful requirements are far laxer than that). The voters in your example did not "fail" or "cheat" by voting for a candidate they liked less. They compromised, and therefore got a better result for them. Arguably a voting system that pushes people into consensus and majority is actually desirable and not a flaw. Aside, I do prefer Borda or Approval over IRV, but the better reasoning is just they are far simpler overall while preserving the actually important advantages.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    Indeed. I'd be in favour of people who know Arrow's Theorum designing the voting system; but not because I care about tactical voting. I rank the voting systems [Anarchy] -> [Dictatorship] -> [First Past the Post] -> [IRV] -> [Approval]. Anarchy is sort-of the base case. Dictatorship is better than anarchy because at least it is large-scale organisation and infrastructure might happen. FPTP is that and the dictatorship can't be truly unpopular (<35% general support). IRV adds in a really stabilising ability for 3rd parties to successfully build support with a slow rolling campaign - makes it really hard for major parties to move away from the centre because people have a powerful signal for what they want. Approval adds in a level of simplicity to IRV. I like IRV for the same arguable reason you like tactical voting - a good system should really be a bit random in tight situations. 50.1% of the votes isn't really different from 49.9% and voting systems don't need to differentiate. In Australia (IRV) when we had our last really tight election a bloke got elected on a couple of hundred primary votes from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast party. His platform was basically that he liked souped-up fast cars. Nobody had ever heard of him. Dude was an excellent Senator, he read the legislation and thought about things. Big win for Australia, IMO. Better than some political swamp-creature elected on a tiny margin. Also; my favourite voting link: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ EDIT I think the order is obvious, but I upgraded my '>' to '->' for tmporter.
- ar_lan 7y ago
  Voting tactically will give a false impression of endorsement. If all the third party voters voted for Hillary, it would send a hugely wrong message about what the people actually want.
- tekknik 7y ago
  i know very little about the various methods of voting and wanted to learn something about it here. while i’m not a republican (i’m independent) it’s very hard to take you seriously when your post reads of anti-trump. if people really want voting reform the reason needs to be something other than stopping trump. otherwise it seems like an attempt to game the system and i’m less likely to vote for reforms. granted it looks like you tried to make it neutral but the last paragraph kinda ruined it
  - learc83 7y ago
    What part of that post is anti-Trump?
  - jefftk 7y ago
    How is the post anti-Trump?
whenanother 7y ago
wrong this is a ruse pushed by conservatives. this is only being pushed in liberal states, which will effectively give conservatives votes they never would have gotten in those states. all the while they refuse to convert conservative states to rank choice. this can only work if all states changed at the same time. if that is not done states that are converted first are helping the incumbents. if you want something that actually reflects the will of the people then national popular vote is close to having enough states to be effective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters... secondarily you can increase the number of representatives/electoral college members.
briandear 7y ago
> it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. They can already do that now. The idea of voting for the “winner” is just ridiculous. Vote for who you want.
bluecaribou 7y ago
> We just need _better_ right now, we need momentum. Agreed. But we shouldn't be relying on local governments to provide that momentum. I think the people in the best position to legitimize improved voting systems are the pollsters. If they allowed the people they poll to rank or rate all the candidates, in the Democratic primary for example, for whom they have an opinion, then I'm pretty sure the political media (always desperate to fill air-time right?) would start reporting how the candidates would be fairing under different voting systems (that more accurately reflect their inherent popularity). Once these voting systems become familiar in their media, I think the public would be much more ready to accept them at the ballot box.

jefftk 7y ago

> But also it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. You already have the option to vote for who you want to vote for in "first past the post", you just might get an outcome you don't like very much... IRV and every other voting system is the same way: you can vote your heart, but you'll get an outcome you prefer more often if you vote tactically. There's even a theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard–Satterthwaite_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard–Satterthwaite_theorem For the specific case of IRV, consider an election like: * 32% of people: Clinton, Sanders, Trump * 33% of people: Sanders, Trump, Clinton * 35% of people: Trump, Clinton, Sanders Now, this is a terrible election and there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Under traditional voting Trump wins, while under IRV Clinton is eliminated and Sanders wins. But if a few people preferring Trump > Clinton > Sanders had instead voted just Clinton > Trump > Sanders we could have had: * 32% of people: Clinton, Sanders, Trump * 33% of people: Sanders, Trump, Clinton * 32% of people: Trump, Clinton, Sanders * 3% of people: Clinton, Trump, Sanders Then Trump would have been eliminated first, with only 32% of the first place votes, and his second place votes would have gone to Clinton, making her win. So by voting for a candidate they liked less, these voters got an outcome they liked more.

unethical_ban 7y ago
Every single voting system has some element of fault. Very few voting systems are close to "perfect representation" and they tend to be more math heavy, in a way that would lead to distrust from the average voter. IRV might have some corner cases, such as the one you listed, where strategic voting is beneficial for some. IRV reduces that element drastically, and encourages positive voting and true representation to a much larger degree. Essentially, everything the NYT article says.
keerthiko 7y ago
Yep, it is flawed and, conversely, can be gamed with unintuitive choices. Yet, it is an improvement nonetheless just because fewer people get an outcome they liked less.
Dylan16807 7y ago
> There's even a theorem Calling it the "same" is missing the point. It's a corner case in instant runoff, while in first past the post it's just normal voting.
- jquery 7y ago
  IRV failing to capture voter preferences is not a "corner case". It is absolutely unclear that IRV is better at all than FPTP. See a set of voting simulations with candidates and distributions here for different voting methods: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ Alarmingly, IRV is the worst voting system of all just by eyeballing these simulations. The charts it produces are bizarre, and it tends to select for extremists and/or candidates that do not capture the voter's preferences! It's not just of theoretical interest either, IRV famously spoiled the 2009 Burlington mayoral election, resulting in its repeal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Burlington_mayoral_electi... The only good takeaway from IRV picking up steam is that maybe it puts us on the path towards something like approval voting, which is much harder to game, and is much easier for voters to understand (I doubt more than 1 out of 10 people could explain how IRV works).
  - JAlexoid 7y ago
    There should be a rule - no majority = no win. Let alone - anything is better, than a simple plurality based system.
    - einpoklum 7y ago
      Very often when there are more than two candidates, none of them have a majority of supporters. In fact, sometimes that's true even with two or even one candidate...
    - birdyrooster 7y ago
      What do you do when votes lead to a plurality?
    - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
JAlexoid 7y ago
Dude... In the two cases you list the least objectionable candidate won. What is your problem? Do you not understand how you rank your options?
- jefftk 7y ago
  Could you clarify? I'm not sure what you're objecting to.
SkyBelow 7y ago
One thing to consider is that because gaming the vote is harder to understand, it may have less of an impact. People can easily understand that voting for 3rd party candidate is not voting for a candidate that actually has a chance. Fewer people will be able to understand the second example you give, meaning it will have less impact on people gaming their votes.
- jakemal 7y ago
  But you also have to consider that most people don't understand it because it's currently not relevant to them. If the system was put in place, I would imagine people who hear a lot more about that strategy.
  - magduf 7y ago
    This is a good point I think. If this system were adopted, all it would take is a small number of activist people to understand how to game the system, then post a bunch of YouTube videos explaining to all their acolytes how they can join in and game the system.
    - caf 7y ago
      The lived experience of IRV is that this does not happen. There are probably a few reasons for this. Firstly, the situations where tactical voting can be of benefit tend to arise only rarely. Secondly, when these situations do arise, it is not usually apparent in advance of the election. Thirdly, even when such a situation arises and it is reasonably forseeable in advance of the election, it is easy for the tactical voting to backfire and hinder the candidates chances rather than helping them, if the vote shares/exclusion order aren't as predicted.
      - magduf 7y ago
        >The lived experience of IRV is that this does not happen. What "lived experience"? IRV has never been used in American elections at least, unless you count some towns.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
The fundamental reason for this: IRV doesn't care what your preferences are other than your top choice, until your top choice is eliminated. Until choice A is eliminated, votes for A>B>C and votes for A>C>B are treated identically, and neither one will affect whether B or C gets eliminated first. Better systems take all preferences into account from the beginning.
theptip 7y ago
> there's no clear winner because people's preferences point around in a circle. Is there evidence around how often such cycles actually occur in practice? Seems like a convoluted example, intuitively speaking.
- pizza 7y ago
  For groups of individuals, it is quite possible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox
  - theptip 7y ago
    It's obvious that these cycles can exist when the things referred to have labels like "A, B, C" or "carrot, potato, lettuce", but how often do they occur for political candidates like the ones described above? I'm willing to buy that IRV is objectively not suitable for picking meals, but that in practice it is suitable for picking presidential candidates -- or that it's always inferior. Seems like an empirical question, not a theoretical one.
    - ikiris 7y ago
      Thankfully lots of smart people have written papers about how that's incorrect. They just use generic terms like "A,B,C"
    - amalcon 7y ago
      The wikipedia page includes a cite of such an empirical analysis: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_studies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox#Empirical_...
      - theptip 7y ago
        Thanks! I'm just going to quote here because the footnote was interesting: > A summary of 37 individual studies, covering a total of 265 real-world elections, large and small, found 25 instances of a Condorcet paradox, for a total likelihood of 9.4%[14]:325 (and this may be a high estimate, since cases of the paradox are more likely to be reported on than cases without).[13]:47 > 13: ""most election results do not correspond to anything like any of DC, IC, IAC or MC ... empirical studies ... indicate that some of the most common paradoxes are relatively unlikely to be observed in actual elections. ... it is easily concluded that Condorcet’s Paradox should very rarely be observed in any real elections on a small number of candidates with large electorates, as long as voters’ preferences reflect any reasonable degree of group mutual coherence" I think I have to file this one under "it's complicated, must dig more".
yyyk 7y ago
I'm not at all a fan of G-S and the Arrow Theorem, since they make widely unrealistic assumptions about voting (e.g. Arrow's IIA is nonsense - intensity matters!). G-S and Arrow damaged tremendously any attempt to look at electoral systems rationally by imposing a mathematical description which is simply irrelevant to actual concerns. In your given example, the particular unrealistic assumption is the way it looks at voting. Voting is not an extended opinion poll. It is use of political power where each voter is given an equal amount. Therefore, there's no need to reduce "tactical voting" to a minimum (the useful requirements are far laxer than that). The voters in your example did not "fail" or "cheat" by voting for a candidate they liked less. They compromised, and therefore got a better result for them. Arguably a voting system that pushes people into consensus and majority is actually desirable and not a flaw. Aside, I do prefer Borda or Approval over IRV, but the better reasoning is just they are far simpler overall while preserving the actually important advantages.
- roenxi 7y ago
  Indeed. I'd be in favour of people who know Arrow's Theorum designing the voting system; but not because I care about tactical voting. I rank the voting systems [Anarchy] -> [Dictatorship] -> [First Past the Post] -> [IRV] -> [Approval]. Anarchy is sort-of the base case. Dictatorship is better than anarchy because at least it is large-scale organisation and infrastructure might happen. FPTP is that and the dictatorship can't be truly unpopular (<35% general support). IRV adds in a really stabilising ability for 3rd parties to successfully build support with a slow rolling campaign - makes it really hard for major parties to move away from the centre because people have a powerful signal for what they want. Approval adds in a level of simplicity to IRV. I like IRV for the same arguable reason you like tactical voting - a good system should really be a bit random in tight situations. 50.1% of the votes isn't really different from 49.9% and voting systems don't need to differentiate. In Australia (IRV) when we had our last really tight election a bloke got elected on a couple of hundred primary votes from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast party. His platform was basically that he liked souped-up fast cars. Nobody had ever heard of him. Dude was an excellent Senator, he read the legislation and thought about things. Big win for Australia, IMO. Better than some political swamp-creature elected on a tiny margin. Also; my favourite voting link: http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ EDIT I think the order is obvious, but I upgraded my '>' to '->' for tmporter.
ar_lan 7y ago
Voting tactically will give a false impression of endorsement. If all the third party voters voted for Hillary, it would send a hugely wrong message about what the people actually want.
tekknik 7y ago
i know very little about the various methods of voting and wanted to learn something about it here. while i’m not a republican (i’m independent) it’s very hard to take you seriously when your post reads of anti-trump. if people really want voting reform the reason needs to be something other than stopping trump. otherwise it seems like an attempt to game the system and i’m less likely to vote for reforms. granted it looks like you tried to make it neutral but the last paragraph kinda ruined it
- learc83 7y ago
  What part of that post is anti-Trump?
- jefftk 7y ago
  How is the post anti-Trump?

whenanother 7y ago

wrong this is a ruse pushed by conservatives. this is only being pushed in liberal states, which will effectively give conservatives votes they never would have gotten in those states. all the while they refuse to convert conservative states to rank choice. this can only work if all states changed at the same time. if that is not done states that are converted first are helping the incumbents. if you want something that actually reflects the will of the people then national popular vote is close to having enough states to be effective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Inters... secondarily you can increase the number of representatives/electoral college members.

briandear 7y ago

> it gives voters the option to actually vote for whom they want to vote for instead of who they think will win. They can already do that now. The idea of voting for the “winner” is just ridiculous. Vote for who you want.

bluecaribou 7y ago

> We just need _better_ right now, we need momentum. Agreed. But we shouldn't be relying on local governments to provide that momentum. I think the people in the best position to legitimize improved voting systems are the pollsters. If they allowed the people they poll to rank or rate all the candidates, in the Democratic primary for example, for whom they have an opinion, then I'm pretty sure the political media (always desperate to fill air-time right?) would start reporting how the candidates would be fairing under different voting systems (that more accurately reflect their inherent popularity). Once these voting systems become familiar in their media, I think the public would be much more ready to accept them at the ballot box.