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I don't know that it's universally positive. In San Francisco it backfired and resulted in electing an extremist District attorney who refuses to prosecute crim

I don't know that it's universally positive. In San Francisco it backfired and resulted in electing an extremist District attorney who refuses to prosecute criminals.

wahern 5y ago
From the perspective of a major Boudin critic, I don't blame RCV/instant-runoff voting at all. Boudin ran on a platform that had broad appeal, albeit more appealing to some than others--thus his third-round win. The problem is that the appeal of the platform came mostly from how voters understood the issues in a national frame of context, not a local frame of context. SF criminal justice policy already had baked in all the reforms which were part of the national discussion. So ill informed people thought they were voting for one set of policies (policies they already had, in fact) but were getting something far more extreme. It does speak to the argument that simple majority voting provides a clear mandate--clear, at least, in terms of the American tradition of elections. But that whole mandate argument isn't very persuasive. If there was a traditional runoff, Boudin might still have won, yet we'd almost certainly still be in the same position, including a recall. But let's say Boudin wouldn't have won--SF criminal justice "reform" might have continued drifting toward ever greater extremes as the Overton Window slowly shifted. (The platform had broad appeal, so it still represented a center gravity.) There's something to be said for giving people what they think they want and letting things play out unencumbered, and RCV/instant-runoff theoretically does that better than first-past-the-post or traditional runoffs on average. If preferred policies are truly poor ideas and things fall apart, it then becomes much more difficult for advocates and voters alike to dissemble later. Boudin's policies have forced every SF politician and plenty of voters to reconcile to some extent their politics with reality, and effectively forced the centrist politicians to firmly declare that reforms have become too radical and counter-productive. Previously everybody had been able to avoid that. I find the whole mandate argument disingenuous. In theory it might make sense in some rare situations, but in practice it's merely part of the rhetoric of a national political party who couldn't care less about mandates--they'll claim a mandate whenever it suits them, and reject a mandate whenever it suits them. And, frankly, voters will often do the same. Boudin's platform had broad appeal, but that won't stop some people from claiming that RCV/IR resulted in voters being cheated; they'd say the same thing even if he won a traditional runoff.

I don't know that it's universally positive. In San Francisco it backfired and resulted in electing an extremist District attorney who refuses to prosecute criminals.

wahern 5y ago

From the perspective of a major Boudin critic, I don't blame RCV/instant-runoff voting at all. Boudin ran on a platform that had broad appeal, albeit more appealing to some than others--thus his third-round win. The problem is that the appeal of the platform came mostly from how voters understood the issues in a national frame of context, not a local frame of context. SF criminal justice policy already had baked in all the reforms which were part of the national discussion. So ill informed people thought they were voting for one set of policies (policies they already had, in fact) but were getting something far more extreme. It does speak to the argument that simple majority voting provides a clear mandate--clear, at least, in terms of the American tradition of elections. But that whole mandate argument isn't very persuasive. If there was a traditional runoff, Boudin might still have won, yet we'd almost certainly still be in the same position, including a recall. But let's say Boudin wouldn't have won--SF criminal justice "reform" might have continued drifting toward ever greater extremes as the Overton Window slowly shifted. (The platform had broad appeal, so it still represented a center gravity.) There's something to be said for giving people what they think they want and letting things play out unencumbered, and RCV/instant-runoff theoretically does that better than first-past-the-post or traditional runoffs on average. If preferred policies are truly poor ideas and things fall apart, it then becomes much more difficult for advocates and voters alike to dissemble later. Boudin's policies have forced every SF politician and plenty of voters to reconcile to some extent their politics with reality, and effectively forced the centrist politicians to firmly declare that reforms have become too radical and counter-productive. Previously everybody had been able to avoid that. I find the whole mandate argument disingenuous. In theory it might make sense in some rare situations, but in practice it's merely part of the rhetoric of a national political party who couldn't care less about mandates--they'll claim a mandate whenever it suits them, and reject a mandate whenever it suits them. And, frankly, voters will often do the same. Boudin's platform had broad appeal, but that won't stop some people from claiming that RCV/IR resulted in voters being cheated; they'd say the same thing even if he won a traditional runoff.