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Or perhaps we need to change our democracy to stop enforcing a duopoly. I firmly believe that widely implementing STAR Voting (https://www.starvoting.us/ https:

Or perhaps we need to change our democracy to stop enforcing a duopoly. I firmly believe that widely implementing STAR Voting (https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/) would fix a large swath of problems in politics and public policy.

azinman2 5y ago
Ranked voting also can have unexpected surprises as well. Every system has flaws, and if we open things up even more, I believe we’ll just get a collection of even more radicalized parties who only care about a single issue. At least with two parties there’s inner tension they need to modulate.
- smaddox 5y ago
  RCV can have unexpected surprises, but STAR voting resolves all such issues with RCV.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    As far as I know, STAR voting is a form of RCV. However, the Fairvote organization has advertised RCV with instant runoff voting as the counting method as being RCV.
    - voting749227383 5y ago
      Technically speaking, STAR voting is a form of cardinal voting, while ranked-choice encompasses the various ordinal methods. The distinction here is that in STAR voting, I could rank two candidates equally to show that I have no preference between them. Also, I don't have to rank the candidates in order: I could give my first-place a score of 5, my second place a score of 2, and my third place a score of 0. If I scored my second place candidate as 3, this ballot could result in a different outcome.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Thanks for the correction! The whole voting system and counting methods is a deeper dive than what I first imagined.
  - nickff 5y ago
    There is no 'best' voting system, only different trade-offs.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...
    - smaddox 5y ago
      Arrow's impossibility theorem does not apply to STAR voting. STAR voting is strictly more expressive than Ordinal Voting systems (i.e. RCV), while simultaneously being simpler to implement (and explain/understand). STAR voting also provides other benefits over RCV, such as being district summarizable.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        STAR is not easier to implement than ordinal voting methods in general, it may be easier to implement than IRV [0] in particular. Likewise, while IRV is not district summarizable, some ordinal methods are. And outside of specialized circumstances that don’t apply to usual candidate elections, the additional information on STAR ballots compared to unforced preference ordinal ballots is noise of no consistent meaning. Also, Arrows impossibility theorem applies to any balloting system that expresses ranked preferences and produces a ranked result, whether or not it provides additional information or compresses the available rankings for either the inputs or the result (typically, it applies to single winner election results which compress the results the same way FPTP ballots compress ballots—one first place and everyone else tied for not-first-place.) [0] “RCV” is a name used by advocates to conflate IRV with ordinal methods generally, and accepted by some opponents of ordinal methods to conceal that their arguments apply only to IRV and not the broader class.
        smaddox 5y ago
        > STAR is not easier to implement than ordinal voting methods in general, it may be easier to implement than IRV [0] in particular. Likewise, while IRV is not district summarizable, some ordinal methods are. Could you provide an example? Thanks in advance. > Arrows impossibility theorem applies to any balloting system that expresses ranked preferences and produces a ranked result My understanding is that Arrow's impossibility theorem does not apply to STAR or any other Cardinal Voting system. Is that incorrect?
vkou 5y ago
Canada does not have a duopoly[1], and yet, ABC (Anything But Conservative) has been a rallying cry behind a few elections. The US will probably get better outcomes with a multi-party system, but moving to one will not change the tone of political conversation. (Which is what this thread is about.) [1] Although it suffers from all the typical FPTP nonsense, where the party that gets 30% of the vote gets 100% of the power.
- smaddox 5y ago
  > The US will probably get better outcomes with a multi-party system, but moving to one will not change the tone of political conversation. (Which is what this thread is about.) I believe it could and would. There will always be extremists, but the current outsized focus on them is driven, in part, by their effectiveness in our two-party Plurality Voting system. In a system where the best compromise candidate is regularly elected, I believe the public discourse would differ.

azinman2 5y ago

Ranked voting also can have unexpected surprises as well. Every system has flaws, and if we open things up even more, I believe we’ll just get a collection of even more radicalized parties who only care about a single issue. At least with two parties there’s inner tension they need to modulate.

smaddox 5y ago
RCV can have unexpected surprises, but STAR voting resolves all such issues with RCV.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  As far as I know, STAR voting is a form of RCV. However, the Fairvote organization has advertised RCV with instant runoff voting as the counting method as being RCV.
  - voting749227383 5y ago
    Technically speaking, STAR voting is a form of cardinal voting, while ranked-choice encompasses the various ordinal methods. The distinction here is that in STAR voting, I could rank two candidates equally to show that I have no preference between them. Also, I don't have to rank the candidates in order: I could give my first-place a score of 5, my second place a score of 2, and my third place a score of 0. If I scored my second place candidate as 3, this ballot could result in a different outcome.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Thanks for the correction! The whole voting system and counting methods is a deeper dive than what I first imagined.
- nickff 5y ago
  There is no 'best' voting system, only different trade-offs.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...
  - smaddox 5y ago
    Arrow's impossibility theorem does not apply to STAR voting. STAR voting is strictly more expressive than Ordinal Voting systems (i.e. RCV), while simultaneously being simpler to implement (and explain/understand). STAR voting also provides other benefits over RCV, such as being district summarizable.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      STAR is not easier to implement than ordinal voting methods in general, it may be easier to implement than IRV [0] in particular. Likewise, while IRV is not district summarizable, some ordinal methods are. And outside of specialized circumstances that don’t apply to usual candidate elections, the additional information on STAR ballots compared to unforced preference ordinal ballots is noise of no consistent meaning. Also, Arrows impossibility theorem applies to any balloting system that expresses ranked preferences and produces a ranked result, whether or not it provides additional information or compresses the available rankings for either the inputs or the result (typically, it applies to single winner election results which compress the results the same way FPTP ballots compress ballots—one first place and everyone else tied for not-first-place.) [0] “RCV” is a name used by advocates to conflate IRV with ordinal methods generally, and accepted by some opponents of ordinal methods to conceal that their arguments apply only to IRV and not the broader class.
      - smaddox 5y ago
        > STAR is not easier to implement than ordinal voting methods in general, it may be easier to implement than IRV [0] in particular. Likewise, while IRV is not district summarizable, some ordinal methods are. Could you provide an example? Thanks in advance. > Arrows impossibility theorem applies to any balloting system that expresses ranked preferences and produces a ranked result My understanding is that Arrow's impossibility theorem does not apply to STAR or any other Cardinal Voting system. Is that incorrect?

vkou 5y ago

Canada does not have a duopoly[1], and yet, ABC (Anything But Conservative) has been a rallying cry behind a few elections. The US will probably get better outcomes with a multi-party system, but moving to one will not change the tone of political conversation. (Which is what this thread is about.) [1] Although it suffers from all the typical FPTP nonsense, where the party that gets 30% of the vote gets 100% of the power.

smaddox 5y ago
> The US will probably get better outcomes with a multi-party system, but moving to one will not change the tone of political conversation. (Which is what this thread is about.) I believe it could and would. There will always be extremists, but the current outsized focus on them is driven, in part, by their effectiveness in our two-party Plurality Voting system. In a system where the best compromise candidate is regularly elected, I believe the public discourse would differ.