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Major this. Also plug for CGP Grey's "politics in the animal kingdom" video series that explains exactly why we have that 'lesser of two evils' problem, and how

Major this. Also plug for CGP Grey's "politics in the animal kingdom" video series that explains exactly why we have that 'lesser of two evils' problem, and how exactly RCV and Alternative vote systems resolve that problem, in a very simple, understandable way. https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom

gspr 6y ago
What I, as a European from a country that elects proportionally (which isn't perfect, but anyway), cannot understand is the blank stare Americans give me when people point out that the two-party system and FPTP are the things that need to be fixed for the US to have a democratic future. It's like so many of them cannot wrap their heads around something being fundamentally broken. The same goes for Canadians and UKians.
- Taek 6y ago
  We've literally been brainwashed from birth to believe that we have, by far, the best government that's ever been built. It's a major part of the school system. Cognitive dissonance around the idea that there is room for improvement is inevitable.
  - gspr 6y ago
    I'm surprised that this attitude survives along side the attitude of "the government sucks at everything and it should be made as small as possible" that seems to be so pervasive in the US. And I'm surprised that I get the same blank stares from Americans that have lived for a decade in Europe. It's like they've never contemplated any other way of electing. Of course it's not true about everyone. I'm generalizing a lot here, but it still surprises me.
    - baddox 6y ago
      Most people who believe the “the government sucks at everything and should be as small as possible” probably still worship the Constitution and “the forefathers” and believe it’s completely compatible.
      - syshum 6y ago
        Well I guess I am not part of most people, as I believe Government is inherently inefficient, and should be microscopic.. I also believe that "whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." -- Lysander Spooner
        baddox 6y ago
        Lysander Spooner is not taught in public schools civics courses, as far as I know.
        syshum 6y ago
        Probably not, but he should be No Treason should be required reading
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  To be fair, the UK did have the "Alternative Vote Referendum" where we got the second-worst voting system proposed as an alternative to the worst voting system (FPTP). That might explain why nobody thinks "alternative voting systems" are any good; they just think of instant run-off.
  - gspr 6y ago
    Interesting! Was this done on purpose to discredit the voices for change, or was it just incompetence or a compromise or something like that?
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      Incompetence or compromise, I think. Hanlon's razor.
  - godelski 6y ago
    This frustrates me to no end. IRV has a 6% improvement of VSE over plurality. But STAR and RP have 15% improvements. Not only that, but both are strongly resistant to spoiler effects and the trend to two coalitions dominance (in the States that's the two party system, outside the states that's two major parties being the dominant ruler over their coalitions). The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it is because IRV doesn't effectively change things. The realist in me thinks it is just trendy. For others: See me other comment (it is large, you can't miss it) explaining these topics in more detail (with links!)
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Using terminology like FPTP may be the problem, I had to look it up, and still feel the description doesn't match the term.
- baddox 6y ago
  Americans are deliberately and explicitly indoctrinated from a very young age to believe our system is the best system in every way: most democratic, most free, etc. It’s not surprising that even the slightest challenge to those beliefs would be met with blank stares by many Americans.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    Heh, blank stairs if you're lucky. In my experience you're more likely to be called a traitor or god forbid a communist.
godelski 6y ago
The problem with Fair Vote and the CGP Grey videos, while I like them for an introduction to the subject, both have two very misleading points. 1) When they say RCV they specifically mean Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). There are many other, and better, RCV methods. 2) They overclaim IRV's ability to solve the spoiler effect (see my other comment for links). While other RCV methods have strong resistance to spoiler effects, IRV has a weak resistance. CGP actually hints to this when he talks about that IRV doesn't prevent a trend towards two party systems.
- elihu 6y ago
  I think when people talk about RCV (in the context of single-winner elections), they're almost always talking about the same thing as IRV. "Ranked voting" is the more general term. > Ranked voting is any election voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to rank choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. There are multiple ways in which the rankings can be counted to determine which candidate (or candidates) is (or are) elected (and different methods may choose different winners from the same set of ballots). The other major branch of voting systems is cardinal voting, where candidates are independently rated, rather than ranked.[1] > The similar term "Ranked Choice Voting" (RCV) is used by the US organization FairVote to refer to the use of ranked ballots with specific counting methods: either instant-runoff voting for single-winner elections or single transferable vote for multi-winner elections. In some locations, the term "preferential voting" is used to refer to this combination of ballot type and counting method, while in other locations this term has various more-specialized meanings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting I share your frustration with FairVote and CGP Grey (and recently an episode of Patriot Act) painting an unrealistically rosy picture of RCV/IRV as the solution to our voting problems. There are some other systems that aren't ranked voting at all that I think would be significantly better than IRV, such as approval voting, range voting, and STAR voting (which is basically range voting with an immediate runoff between the top two). For some reason, FairVote persists in claiming that in approval voting (which is like traditional first-past-the-post voting except that you can vote for more than one candidate), you somehow maximize your voting influence by voting for only one candidate. They call this bullet voting. I don't know what possible reason one could have for believing this. This manifests in their comparison chart: https://www.fairvote.org/alternatives https://www.fairvote.org/alternatives They show "resistance to strategic voting" as "high" under RCV and "low" under approval voting. This is somewhat subjective, but I think they've got it backwards. Under approval voting, strategic voting and honest voting are basically the same: you vote for as many of the candidates as you can tolerate, and maybe if there's a candidate you really don't want to win you vote for everyone but them. Under RCV, it's only safe to put you first choice first if they are either clearly in the lead or so far behind they have no hope of winning. If the outcome is in doubt, it's possible to cause your first place candidate to lose by putting them first. (That's a weird problem for any voting system to have.) For this reason, I don't trust FairVote; I don't think they're presenting their preferred voting system or the alternatives honestly. They're more of an advocacy/PR organization that's pushing their chosen solution out of a sense of inertia or something. The Center for Election Science is a smaller, less-well funded group that advocates for approval voting (and similar methods) that I donate to from time to time. They had a successful campaign to convert Fargo ND to approval voting back in 2018.

gspr 6y ago

What I, as a European from a country that elects proportionally (which isn't perfect, but anyway), cannot understand is the blank stare Americans give me when people point out that the two-party system and FPTP are the things that need to be fixed for the US to have a democratic future. It's like so many of them cannot wrap their heads around something being fundamentally broken. The same goes for Canadians and UKians.

Taek 6y ago
We've literally been brainwashed from birth to believe that we have, by far, the best government that's ever been built. It's a major part of the school system. Cognitive dissonance around the idea that there is room for improvement is inevitable.
- gspr 6y ago
  I'm surprised that this attitude survives along side the attitude of "the government sucks at everything and it should be made as small as possible" that seems to be so pervasive in the US. And I'm surprised that I get the same blank stares from Americans that have lived for a decade in Europe. It's like they've never contemplated any other way of electing. Of course it's not true about everyone. I'm generalizing a lot here, but it still surprises me.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Most people who believe the “the government sucks at everything and should be as small as possible” probably still worship the Constitution and “the forefathers” and believe it’s completely compatible.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Well I guess I am not part of most people, as I believe Government is inherently inefficient, and should be microscopic.. I also believe that "whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." -- Lysander Spooner
      - baddox 6y ago
        Lysander Spooner is not taught in public schools civics courses, as far as I know.
        syshum 6y ago
        Probably not, but he should be No Treason should be required reading
wizzwizz4 6y ago
To be fair, the UK did have the "Alternative Vote Referendum" where we got the second-worst voting system proposed as an alternative to the worst voting system (FPTP). That might explain why nobody thinks "alternative voting systems" are any good; they just think of instant run-off.
- gspr 6y ago
  Interesting! Was this done on purpose to discredit the voices for change, or was it just incompetence or a compromise or something like that?
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    Incompetence or compromise, I think. Hanlon's razor.
- godelski 6y ago
  This frustrates me to no end. IRV has a 6% improvement of VSE over plurality. But STAR and RP have 15% improvements. Not only that, but both are strongly resistant to spoiler effects and the trend to two coalitions dominance (in the States that's the two party system, outside the states that's two major parties being the dominant ruler over their coalitions). The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it is because IRV doesn't effectively change things. The realist in me thinks it is just trendy. For others: See me other comment (it is large, you can't miss it) explaining these topics in more detail (with links!)
mixmastamyk 6y ago
Using terminology like FPTP may be the problem, I had to look it up, and still feel the description doesn't match the term.
baddox 6y ago
Americans are deliberately and explicitly indoctrinated from a very young age to believe our system is the best system in every way: most democratic, most free, etc. It’s not surprising that even the slightest challenge to those beliefs would be met with blank stares by many Americans.
- non-entity 6y ago
  Heh, blank stairs if you're lucky. In my experience you're more likely to be called a traitor or god forbid a communist.

godelski 6y ago

The problem with Fair Vote and the CGP Grey videos, while I like them for an introduction to the subject, both have two very misleading points. 1) When they say RCV they specifically mean Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). There are many other, and better, RCV methods. 2) They overclaim IRV's ability to solve the spoiler effect (see my other comment for links). While other RCV methods have strong resistance to spoiler effects, IRV has a weak resistance. CGP actually hints to this when he talks about that IRV doesn't prevent a trend towards two party systems.

elihu 6y ago
I think when people talk about RCV (in the context of single-winner elections), they're almost always talking about the same thing as IRV. "Ranked voting" is the more general term. > Ranked voting is any election voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to rank choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. There are multiple ways in which the rankings can be counted to determine which candidate (or candidates) is (or are) elected (and different methods may choose different winners from the same set of ballots). The other major branch of voting systems is cardinal voting, where candidates are independently rated, rather than ranked.[1] > The similar term "Ranked Choice Voting" (RCV) is used by the US organization FairVote to refer to the use of ranked ballots with specific counting methods: either instant-runoff voting for single-winner elections or single transferable vote for multi-winner elections. In some locations, the term "preferential voting" is used to refer to this combination of ballot type and counting method, while in other locations this term has various more-specialized meanings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting I share your frustration with FairVote and CGP Grey (and recently an episode of Patriot Act) painting an unrealistically rosy picture of RCV/IRV as the solution to our voting problems. There are some other systems that aren't ranked voting at all that I think would be significantly better than IRV, such as approval voting, range voting, and STAR voting (which is basically range voting with an immediate runoff between the top two). For some reason, FairVote persists in claiming that in approval voting (which is like traditional first-past-the-post voting except that you can vote for more than one candidate), you somehow maximize your voting influence by voting for only one candidate. They call this bullet voting. I don't know what possible reason one could have for believing this. This manifests in their comparison chart: https://www.fairvote.org/alternatives https://www.fairvote.org/alternatives They show "resistance to strategic voting" as "high" under RCV and "low" under approval voting. This is somewhat subjective, but I think they've got it backwards. Under approval voting, strategic voting and honest voting are basically the same: you vote for as many of the candidates as you can tolerate, and maybe if there's a candidate you really don't want to win you vote for everyone but them. Under RCV, it's only safe to put you first choice first if they are either clearly in the lead or so far behind they have no hope of winning. If the outcome is in doubt, it's possible to cause your first place candidate to lose by putting them first. (That's a weird problem for any voting system to have.) For this reason, I don't trust FairVote; I don't think they're presenting their preferred voting system or the alternatives honestly. They're more of an advocacy/PR organization that's pushing their chosen solution out of a sense of inertia or something. The Center for Election Science is a smaller, less-well funded group that advocates for approval voting (and similar methods) that I donate to from time to time. They had a successful campaign to convert Fargo ND to approval voting back in 2018.