11 ms·

Florida bans ranked-choice voting in new elections law

43 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

dane-pgp 5y ago
> Senate Bill 524 specifically said it was "prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting to determine election or nomination to elective office; voiding existing or future local ordinances authorizing the use of ranked choice voting." I suppose that leaves open the possibility of introducing other alternative systems like Approval Voting or Score Voting, though if that loophole exists it may not last long enough to be taken advantage of.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Republicans will do whatever is possible to prevent anything that risks their political dominance.
  - chii 5y ago
    everything except actually doing good for the american public.
  - sul_tasto 5y ago
    Make no mistake, both parties have entrenched themselves to the extent that they no longer have to serve their constituents. I moved from a red state to a blue one a few years ago, thinking it would make a difference. The corruption is everywhere.
  - washadjeffmad 5y ago
    The DNC also wants to keep FPTP, otherwise their most effective compliance tool of "voting for [policy candidates, progressives, anyone besides who DNC leadership promotes] is the same as voting for the GOP!" goes away. Everyone but the extremists wants ranked choice.
rbanffy 5y ago
This is a terrible decision, all things considered. Ireland uses this system and the result is boring, predictable politics, which, in the end, is all you really want.
- WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  There is, however, an argument that the longer it takes to produce a result from an election, the less confidence people have in the result, either because they lose the cause-and-effect feeling between going to the polling station and learning the result, or because bad actors deliberately try to undermine the process by filling social media with false narratives (and encouraging intimidation of poll workers) while the count goes on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the result should be announced immediately, using electronic counting (and definitely not online voting), but 13 counts and then 10 days of recounts for a single district (Dublin South-Central[0] in 1992) is hard to justify, and I think that the voting system makes the process slower/more expensive and more error-prone. For comparison, apparently the most recounts for a UK general election seat was seven.[1] Also, I believe that IRV/STV/RCV doesn't support the summability criterion[2], which leads to more centralisation of the vote counting process. [0] https://www.thejournal.ie/closest-irish-election-results-in-history-2625155-Feb2016/ https://www.thejournal.ie/closest-irish-election-results-in-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_electio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summability_criterion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summability_criterion
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    Even after the 1992 incident happened, the system continued to be used. I didn't live here back then, but, according to my local friends, after that, counting was automated for a couple elections and, then, it was agreed that while automation offered faster results, the manual process was more trusted by the people. > bad actors deliberately try to undermine the process by filling social media with false narratives I'm glad the voting system also weeds out extremists. The problem is that, in the US, said extremists are already in power, because current voting systems don't punish extremism enough.
dane-pgp 5y ago
> In 2007, Sarasota voted to use it in future municipal elections, but the state never certified the necessary software so it couldn't be used. That's another reason to oppose voting machines: it puts the power into the hands of state officials to selectively withhold approval of machines that enable reforms they don't want. (I'm assuming that if the officials assessed that the reform would help their party, they'd rubberstamp the software without delay, perhaps with an expiry date so they could change their mind later).
- specialist 5y ago
  Two yes and: States have to certify the whole stack. Even without (electronic) voting machines, the state can deny the ballot production, tabulation, etc, softwares. There are no longer political parties as the layperson understands it. Oftentimes, local and state orgs are antogonists with their own electeds. Electeds mosdef don't feel any obligation to those orgs. Rather, electeds protect their own power, their caucus, their fund raising cartels, and mosdef their powerful donors and lobbyists. More often than not, against the expressed positions of the orgs. Source: member of my local party's exec board, was also a candidate for office.
RichardHeart 5y ago
Terrible.
eezing 5y ago
Maybe rising sea levels isn’t such a bad thing after all.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  The reactionaries in Florida live in the panhandle. They've love it if Miami sunk into the ocean.
- zackees 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't do this. You may not feel you owe your political enemies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
say_it_as_it_is 5y ago
This behavior is consistent with the outcome of Bush v Gore
zackees 5y ago
dane-pgp 5y ago
I can't resist responding to this [dead] comment: > Ranked choice voting is pushed by the Globalist network to erode democracy. It allows advanced gaming and surprise candidates without a clear mandate from the people. Voting needs to be simple and the person that wins needs to have a clear majority. Rank choice takes that away. My response is: If you're worried about candidates gaming the system and getting a surprise win without a clear majority and a mandate from the people, then you should be campaigning against the electoral college. You also need to reject plurality voting (or having more than 2 parties), and advocate for something like a two-rounds system system.
- jwozn 5y ago
  "Globalist network to erode democracy" doesn't scream rational to me...
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    Were they ever rational?
- rbanffy 5y ago
  The electoral college is not a bad idea in itself. It can be one more layer of defense against a populist like Trump. Unfortunately, it didn't act in the best interests of the country when it was needed the most. At this point, I am much more worried with disinformation campaigns and extremism, the latter of which is neatly dealt with by IRV.
  - specialist 5y ago
    What are some examples of the electoral college thwarting populism?
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      Can't remember one in the US, but it can vote against the popular vote and, therefore, it can be used to protect the integrity of the office. Much like the Queen could have stopped Brexit (and produce an institutional crisis), because it's her job to protect the country above all else. Unfortunately, she didn't.
stuckinhell 5y ago
I'm not surprised. America really has a different culture than Europe, and takes pride in that fact. Traveling across the country has really shown me, America is really a bunch of different countries held together loosely by corporate "cultures" like mcdonalds and coke. As the institutional trust keeps dropping, you can expect laws will be changed so regional sections can protect their own historical culture. After all nations, countries, counties, states, etc are not sets of abstract laws and economic zones, but groups of people.
- mbg721 5y ago
  The culture clash is especially true in Florida; you have a Latin-American diaspora, Midwestern retirees, Jewish people from New York, and the culture of the American South, depending where you are in the state.
throwaway15908 5y ago
>Free speech! So important! >No no, not free voting. How do you stay calm and polite? I cant comprehend.
qgin 5y ago
Ranked choice voting kills the power of fear. Without ranked choice voting, nobody running has to make the case for why they, specifically, will be good. They just have to make the case for why someone else will be horrific and that they are the most likely candidate to defeat the horrific person. With ranked choice voting, each candidate has to make the case for why they, specifically, deserve your vote. There’s no need to be afraid of “throwing your vote away” on a candidate that is perceived before the election to not have as much support as others.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  For executives, RCV is the way to go for sure (or maybe approval voting). For the representative govt, proportional voting seems like the way to go. Give each legislator voting power equal to their number of votes (with some cutoff for logistical reasons). Reducing both the need to vote strategically and the efficacy of gerrymandering (since one district can now be 45% rep from party A, 44% rep from party B, and 11% rep from party C scaled by the total number of residents).
_-david-_ 5y ago
This is a bit of a tangent, but is there a voting system that is similar to ranked choice voting but would prevent someone who had the second least number of original votes from winning?
- Atheros 5y ago
  If everyone likes pepperoni pizza but they like one of 1000 other types of pizza slightly more, but all mutually hate each other's first choices, why should pepperoni pizza lose?
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    I am not sure pepperoni should lose, I was just curious if there was some sort of alternative.

43 points by dane-pgp 5y ago

> Senate Bill 524 specifically said it was "prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting to determine election or nomination to elective office; voiding existing or future local ordinances authorizing the use of ranked choice voting." I suppose that leaves open the possibility of introducing other alternative systems like Approval Voting or Score Voting, though if that loophole exists it may not last long enough to be taken advantage of.

rbanffy 5y ago
Republicans will do whatever is possible to prevent anything that risks their political dominance.
- chii 5y ago
  everything except actually doing good for the american public.
- sul_tasto 5y ago
  Make no mistake, both parties have entrenched themselves to the extent that they no longer have to serve their constituents. I moved from a red state to a blue one a few years ago, thinking it would make a difference. The corruption is everywhere.
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  The DNC also wants to keep FPTP, otherwise their most effective compliance tool of "voting for [policy candidates, progressives, anyone besides who DNC leadership promotes] is the same as voting for the GOP!" goes away. Everyone but the extremists wants ranked choice.

rbanffy 5y ago

This is a terrible decision, all things considered. Ireland uses this system and the result is boring, predictable politics, which, in the end, is all you really want.

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
dane-pgp 5y ago
There is, however, an argument that the longer it takes to produce a result from an election, the less confidence people have in the result, either because they lose the cause-and-effect feeling between going to the polling station and learning the result, or because bad actors deliberately try to undermine the process by filling social media with false narratives (and encouraging intimidation of poll workers) while the count goes on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the result should be announced immediately, using electronic counting (and definitely not online voting), but 13 counts and then 10 days of recounts for a single district (Dublin South-Central[0] in 1992) is hard to justify, and I think that the voting system makes the process slower/more expensive and more error-prone. For comparison, apparently the most recounts for a UK general election seat was seven.[1] Also, I believe that IRV/STV/RCV doesn't support the summability criterion[2], which leads to more centralisation of the vote counting process. [0] https://www.thejournal.ie/closest-irish-election-results-in-history-2625155-Feb2016/ https://www.thejournal.ie/closest-irish-election-results-in-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election_records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_electio... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summability_criterion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summability_criterion
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Even after the 1992 incident happened, the system continued to be used. I didn't live here back then, but, according to my local friends, after that, counting was automated for a couple elections and, then, it was agreed that while automation offered faster results, the manual process was more trusted by the people. > bad actors deliberately try to undermine the process by filling social media with false narratives I'm glad the voting system also weeds out extremists. The problem is that, in the US, said extremists are already in power, because current voting systems don't punish extremism enough.

dane-pgp 5y ago

> In 2007, Sarasota voted to use it in future municipal elections, but the state never certified the necessary software so it couldn't be used. That's another reason to oppose voting machines: it puts the power into the hands of state officials to selectively withhold approval of machines that enable reforms they don't want. (I'm assuming that if the officials assessed that the reform would help their party, they'd rubberstamp the software without delay, perhaps with an expiry date so they could change their mind later).

specialist 5y ago
Two yes and: States have to certify the whole stack. Even without (electronic) voting machines, the state can deny the ballot production, tabulation, etc, softwares. There are no longer political parties as the layperson understands it. Oftentimes, local and state orgs are antogonists with their own electeds. Electeds mosdef don't feel any obligation to those orgs. Rather, electeds protect their own power, their caucus, their fund raising cartels, and mosdef their powerful donors and lobbyists. More often than not, against the expressed positions of the orgs. Source: member of my local party's exec board, was also a candidate for office.

RichardHeart 5y ago

Terrible.

eezing 5y ago

Maybe rising sea levels isn’t such a bad thing after all.

UncleMeat 5y ago
The reactionaries in Florida live in the panhandle. They've love it if Miami sunk into the ocean.
zackees 5y ago
dang 5y ago
Please don't do this. You may not feel you owe your political enemies better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

say_it_as_it_is 5y ago

This behavior is consistent with the outcome of Bush v Gore

zackees 5y ago

dane-pgp 5y ago

I can't resist responding to this [dead] comment: > Ranked choice voting is pushed by the Globalist network to erode democracy. It allows advanced gaming and surprise candidates without a clear mandate from the people. Voting needs to be simple and the person that wins needs to have a clear majority. Rank choice takes that away. My response is: If you're worried about candidates gaming the system and getting a surprise win without a clear majority and a mandate from the people, then you should be campaigning against the electoral college. You also need to reject plurality voting (or having more than 2 parties), and advocate for something like a two-rounds system system.

jwozn 5y ago
"Globalist network to erode democracy" doesn't scream rational to me...
- rbanffy 5y ago
  Were they ever rational?
rbanffy 5y ago
The electoral college is not a bad idea in itself. It can be one more layer of defense against a populist like Trump. Unfortunately, it didn't act in the best interests of the country when it was needed the most. At this point, I am much more worried with disinformation campaigns and extremism, the latter of which is neatly dealt with by IRV.
- specialist 5y ago
  What are some examples of the electoral college thwarting populism?
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    Can't remember one in the US, but it can vote against the popular vote and, therefore, it can be used to protect the integrity of the office. Much like the Queen could have stopped Brexit (and produce an institutional crisis), because it's her job to protect the country above all else. Unfortunately, she didn't.

stuckinhell 5y ago

I'm not surprised. America really has a different culture than Europe, and takes pride in that fact. Traveling across the country has really shown me, America is really a bunch of different countries held together loosely by corporate "cultures" like mcdonalds and coke. As the institutional trust keeps dropping, you can expect laws will be changed so regional sections can protect their own historical culture. After all nations, countries, counties, states, etc are not sets of abstract laws and economic zones, but groups of people.

mbg721 5y ago
The culture clash is especially true in Florida; you have a Latin-American diaspora, Midwestern retirees, Jewish people from New York, and the culture of the American South, depending where you are in the state.

throwaway15908 5y ago

>Free speech! So important! >No no, not free voting. How do you stay calm and polite? I cant comprehend.

qgin 5y ago

Ranked choice voting kills the power of fear. Without ranked choice voting, nobody running has to make the case for why they, specifically, will be good. They just have to make the case for why someone else will be horrific and that they are the most likely candidate to defeat the horrific person. With ranked choice voting, each candidate has to make the case for why they, specifically, deserve your vote. There’s no need to be afraid of “throwing your vote away” on a candidate that is perceived before the election to not have as much support as others.

MiddleEndian 5y ago
For executives, RCV is the way to go for sure (or maybe approval voting). For the representative govt, proportional voting seems like the way to go. Give each legislator voting power equal to their number of votes (with some cutoff for logistical reasons). Reducing both the need to vote strategically and the efficacy of gerrymandering (since one district can now be 45% rep from party A, 44% rep from party B, and 11% rep from party C scaled by the total number of residents).

_-david-_ 5y ago

This is a bit of a tangent, but is there a voting system that is similar to ranked choice voting but would prevent someone who had the second least number of original votes from winning?

Atheros 5y ago
If everyone likes pepperoni pizza but they like one of 1000 other types of pizza slightly more, but all mutually hate each other's first choices, why should pepperoni pizza lose?
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  I am not sure pepperoni should lose, I was just curious if there was some sort of alternative.