5 ms·

RCV eliminates the spoiler effect, but I don't think that necessarily means that 3rd party candidates have a higher chance of winning. I don't know. It is nice

RCV eliminates the spoiler effect, but I don't think that necessarily means that 3rd party candidates have a higher chance of winning. I don't know. It is nice to be able to show your support for third party candidates in the way that matters most, by actually voting for them, even if they still have little chance of winning. It's nice to be able to do this without throwing your vote away. You no longer have to choose between strategic voting and showing support for your favorite candidate. Even with RCV there will still be political parties with varying popularity, and there will still be 2 at the top that are most popular. At least we wont have to have candidates strategically drop out to avoid being a spoiler any more.

heintje_ghulam 6y ago
It doesn't eliminate the spoiler effect. Here's a simple example of what can happen under RCV: Pretend Bernie Sanders in 2016 ran under the Green Party after dropping out of the Democratic Primary. RCV claims to eliminate the spoiler effect, so it is "safe" for all the people who want Bernie as their first choice to actually express that. Assume everyone who likes Bernie the best follows that: they put Bernie as their first choice and either Trump or Clinton as their second choice. Presumably more will have Clinton as their second choice than Trump since Clinton is more centrist than Trump who is on the right. Say the "first choice" votes go as follows: - 45% top choice Trump - 35% top choice Bernie - 20% top choice Hillary Hillary gets eliminated and the people who put Hillary as their first choice now have their second choices distributed among the remaining candidates. Say that split goes (within the 20%): - 6% 2nd choice Trump - 14% 2nd choice Bernie Trump wins, even if all the Bernie voters had Hillary as their 2nd choice, because their second choices didn't count for anything. So the claim that it was "safe" to express their true preferences and put Bernie as their first choice completely backfired. summary: among three choices, under Ranked Choice Voting, you only get your votes moved to your 2nd choice in Ranked Choice if you do not come in 2nd place overall. If your candidate comes in 2nd, your votes are worthless. A system that fixes this and other issues is STAR Voting, and it's what people should be pushing for: https://www.equal.vote/ https://www.equal.vote/ https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/
- lhopki01 6y ago
  Surely in your example STAR Voting would have had the same result? Hilary (and all other lesser candidates of which there are none) get eliminated leaving Bernie and Trump. Then preferences of Hilary voters for those two are calculated (Preference for a runoff between Bernie and Trump are already determined) so you end up with the exact same result.
  - heintje_ghulam 6y ago
    You're assuming the scores were chosen from e.g. 1,2,3, and people gave their first preference 1, second preference 2, and third preference 3. So yes, if you force everyone to rank the candidates like in Ranked Choice Voting, in this case you get the same outcome as Ranked Choice Voting. STAR doesn't restrict people to strict ranking though.
    - lhopki01 6y ago
      The only situation where what you say is true is if enough of Hilary's supporters give both Bernie and Trump the same preference number. This is reflected in RCV by not putting a second and third choice. Remember that only the first round takes into account scoring. Runoff only uses relative preference which works out the same as RCV. Also it took me way too long to understand this which makes this seem to me to be a bad system. I've never struggled to understand how a voting system works before and I've used, STV, MMPR, PR, RCV, and FPT. I honestly think proportional representation in a Parliamentary system is way better than any of these complicated system. It's simple to understand, I vote for who I want, and it doesn't end up with the stupid situation of an Executive who can't command support of a Legislative.
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  The second vote was still counted, though. It just happened that Bernie had 49% (35 + 14) of the vote vs Trump's 51% (45 + 6) in this example? Just because I don't like the hypothetical results of the vote doesn't mean it is wrong.

heintje_ghulam 6y ago

It doesn't eliminate the spoiler effect. Here's a simple example of what can happen under RCV: Pretend Bernie Sanders in 2016 ran under the Green Party after dropping out of the Democratic Primary. RCV claims to eliminate the spoiler effect, so it is "safe" for all the people who want Bernie as their first choice to actually express that. Assume everyone who likes Bernie the best follows that: they put Bernie as their first choice and either Trump or Clinton as their second choice. Presumably more will have Clinton as their second choice than Trump since Clinton is more centrist than Trump who is on the right. Say the "first choice" votes go as follows: - 45% top choice Trump - 35% top choice Bernie - 20% top choice Hillary Hillary gets eliminated and the people who put Hillary as their first choice now have their second choices distributed among the remaining candidates. Say that split goes (within the 20%): - 6% 2nd choice Trump - 14% 2nd choice Bernie Trump wins, even if all the Bernie voters had Hillary as their 2nd choice, because their second choices didn't count for anything. So the claim that it was "safe" to express their true preferences and put Bernie as their first choice completely backfired. summary: among three choices, under Ranked Choice Voting, you only get your votes moved to your 2nd choice in Ranked Choice if you do not come in 2nd place overall. If your candidate comes in 2nd, your votes are worthless. A system that fixes this and other issues is STAR Voting, and it's what people should be pushing for: https://www.equal.vote/ https://www.equal.vote/ https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/

lhopki01 6y ago
Surely in your example STAR Voting would have had the same result? Hilary (and all other lesser candidates of which there are none) get eliminated leaving Bernie and Trump. Then preferences of Hilary voters for those two are calculated (Preference for a runoff between Bernie and Trump are already determined) so you end up with the exact same result.
- heintje_ghulam 6y ago
  You're assuming the scores were chosen from e.g. 1,2,3, and people gave their first preference 1, second preference 2, and third preference 3. So yes, if you force everyone to rank the candidates like in Ranked Choice Voting, in this case you get the same outcome as Ranked Choice Voting. STAR doesn't restrict people to strict ranking though.
  - lhopki01 6y ago
    The only situation where what you say is true is if enough of Hilary's supporters give both Bernie and Trump the same preference number. This is reflected in RCV by not putting a second and third choice. Remember that only the first round takes into account scoring. Runoff only uses relative preference which works out the same as RCV. Also it took me way too long to understand this which makes this seem to me to be a bad system. I've never struggled to understand how a voting system works before and I've used, STV, MMPR, PR, RCV, and FPT. I honestly think proportional representation in a Parliamentary system is way better than any of these complicated system. It's simple to understand, I vote for who I want, and it doesn't end up with the stupid situation of an Executive who can't command support of a Legislative.
alextheparrot 6y ago
The second vote was still counted, though. It just happened that Bernie had 49% (35 + 14) of the vote vs Trump's 51% (45 + 6) in this example? Just because I don't like the hypothetical results of the vote doesn't mean it is wrong.