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I don't see why it should be taken for a given moral good that a third party cannot spoil an election (Ranked Choice doesn't actually prevent that, at any rate,

I don't see why it should be taken for a given moral good that a third party cannot spoil an election (Ranked Choice doesn't actually prevent that, at any rate, it just lessens the effect near the midpoint). If your political values are that a multiparty system is better than a binary choice, the risk of an upstart candidate being a spoiler gives him and by extension potential voters more bargaining power.

kennywinker 7y ago
> the risk of an upstart candidate being a spoiler gives him and by extension potential voters more bargaining power. bargaining power how? if you have a situation like this: - 55% of people vote left - 45% of people vote right The left party has a clear but narrow majority. Now a third party, further to the left enters the race! Say they can pull 15% of the vote, largely from the left (quite popular!) - 15% of people vote farther-left - 40% of people vote center-left - 45% of people vote right now the election likely to be won by the right-wing party - even though 55% of voters still favour a left-of-center result. Voters feel pressured to vote for the center-left party, despite having farther-left views, because they don't want the right wing party to win. Under first-past-the-post systems, there is no bargaining power short of "I will drop out of the race if you do x" which does not seem to happen much If they are unable to pull enough support to "spoil" the election result, they are considered a "throwaway vote" and marginalized. No power at all.
- lr4444lr 7y ago
  Because they don't have to win in order to have power: they can extract concessions from one of the stronger candidates in exchange for dropping out and possibly endorsing him. In Ranked Choice, especially with IRV, third party candidates can be more easily ignored if their 1st choice votes will be assimilated. In your example, under Ranked Choice, the 15% who really wanted far left policies can be safely ignored after the primary. In traditional voting, the majoritarian center left now has to take their concerns seriously if they don't want to lose the whole thing.
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    > they can extract concessions from one of the stronger candidates in exchange for dropping out While technically true, I can't think of a single example of this happening outside of the US two-party system. I.e. you'll see democrats stepping down during the primaries but it's not like Ralph Nader offered to pull out if Gore adopted various policies. > the 15% who really wanted far left policies can be safely ignored after the primary The idea is that you wouldn't need to have a "primary" - you could have multiple parties running candidates in the ACTUAL election. The whole reason for the primaries is to get the in-fighting out of the way so you can run a single candidate - because under FPTP anything other than running a single candidate is suicide. With Ranked Choice you could have multiple candidates on the left and right - and people could vote for a first and second choice. E.g. in 2016 both bernie and hillary could have run. as long as people picked both as part of their ranked choice there would be no negative consequences and people would be free to choose whomever they believed in the most without worrying about their perceived "electability".

kennywinker 7y ago

> the risk of an upstart candidate being a spoiler gives him and by extension potential voters more bargaining power. bargaining power how? if you have a situation like this: - 55% of people vote left - 45% of people vote right The left party has a clear but narrow majority. Now a third party, further to the left enters the race! Say they can pull 15% of the vote, largely from the left (quite popular!) - 15% of people vote farther-left - 40% of people vote center-left - 45% of people vote right now the election likely to be won by the right-wing party - even though 55% of voters still favour a left-of-center result. Voters feel pressured to vote for the center-left party, despite having farther-left views, because they don't want the right wing party to win. Under first-past-the-post systems, there is no bargaining power short of "I will drop out of the race if you do x" which does not seem to happen much If they are unable to pull enough support to "spoil" the election result, they are considered a "throwaway vote" and marginalized. No power at all.

lr4444lr 7y ago
Because they don't have to win in order to have power: they can extract concessions from one of the stronger candidates in exchange for dropping out and possibly endorsing him. In Ranked Choice, especially with IRV, third party candidates can be more easily ignored if their 1st choice votes will be assimilated. In your example, under Ranked Choice, the 15% who really wanted far left policies can be safely ignored after the primary. In traditional voting, the majoritarian center left now has to take their concerns seriously if they don't want to lose the whole thing.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  > they can extract concessions from one of the stronger candidates in exchange for dropping out While technically true, I can't think of a single example of this happening outside of the US two-party system. I.e. you'll see democrats stepping down during the primaries but it's not like Ralph Nader offered to pull out if Gore adopted various policies. > the 15% who really wanted far left policies can be safely ignored after the primary The idea is that you wouldn't need to have a "primary" - you could have multiple parties running candidates in the ACTUAL election. The whole reason for the primaries is to get the in-fighting out of the way so you can run a single candidate - because under FPTP anything other than running a single candidate is suicide. With Ranked Choice you could have multiple candidates on the left and right - and people could vote for a first and second choice. E.g. in 2016 both bernie and hillary could have run. as long as people picked both as part of their ranked choice there would be no negative consequences and people would be free to choose whomever they believed in the most without worrying about their perceived "electability".