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There were two Republicans in the race and one was Sarah Palin. People in Alaska have strong opinions about her, especially after she quit the governorship half

by frob 4y ago

There were two Republicans in the race and one was Sarah Palin. People in Alaska have strong opinions about her, especially after she quit the governorship half-way through to go be a reality TV actor. There were many GOP voters that chose the other republican as their first choice and the Democrat as their second because they disliked Palin more than an R after her name could make up for. In fact, this seems like the perfect example of ranked-choice voting giving people the outcome they preferred.

gamegoblin 4y ago
> In fact, this seems like the perfect example of ranked-choice voting giving people the outcome they preferred. 52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola. That majority of voters did not get the outcome they preferred. Imagine an election with 6 candidates. 5 candidates each get 20% of the 1st round voting, and 1 candidate gets 0% of the 1st round voting, but everybody marks him as their 2nd choice. He is nobody's favorite, but everyone likes him over their alternatives to their favorite. It seems reasonable to me that a good voting system should select this guy who is broadly approved by everyone. But in IRV, he is eliminated in the first round. The recent Alaska election was much less egregious version of this same failure mode.
- t-writescode 4y ago
  It's arguably still a better situation than FPTP. In other countries, like Australia, where they're used to alternative styles of voting, they have guides on how to vote and who to put in what rank to match what a given party thinks is the best rundown of potentials. Alaska will get there.
  - gamegoblin 4y ago
    I would put higher odds on Alaska repealing and going back to FPTP. That's what happened in a few US cities that have experienced controversial Condorcet failures with RCV, e.g. Burlington Vermont. The right-wing media machine is drumming up support for a repeal right now.
    - t-writescode 4y ago
      I find your word choice here, “failure” interesting, as it worked as implemented, the local politicians just aren’t used to the new game they have to play.
      - gamegoblin 4y ago
        I'm not saying RCV failed, I agree it worked as intended. "Condorcet failure" is a phrase meaning a failure of the voting system to select the Condorcet winner. If a candidate beats all other candidates in a 1-on-1 election, they are what is referred to as the Condorcet winner [1]. If a Condorcet winner exists, and an election system fails to select that candidate, that is a Condorcet failure. Whether or not you think Condorcet failures are important or not is a matter of opinion. But they are important to many people (at least on an intuitive level). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  > That majority of voters did not get the outcome they preferred. The majority of R voters voted for Palin. Without IRV the election would've been between palin and Peltola would've still won. I also disagree that most people would prefer their second choice over the plurality first choice.
  - gamegoblin 4y ago
    I totally agree with you that in a standard FPTP election, Palin would have beaten Begich in a Republican primary, and then lost in the final election, and we would have had the same result. I don't think IRV did worse than the system it replaced here. But they both failed in the same way. There are non-FPTP, non-IRV election methods that would have correctly picked the Condorcet winner, Begich.
- Bilal_io 4y ago
  40% Peltola 32% Palin 29% Begich Begich's votes split to 3: 50% for Palin, 29% for Peltola while 21% were exhausted. That adds up to: 49.67% for Peltola and 46.5% for Palin. And you said "52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola" ignoring that 40 + 32 percent preferred other candidates over Begich. What this says is that if Begich didn't run, more people would have picked Peltola oved Palin.
  - gamegoblin 4y ago
    > And you said "52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola" ignoring that 40 + 32 percent preferred other candidates over Begich. What this says is that if Begich didn't run, more people would have picked Peltola oved Palin. You could just as easily say that if Palin hadn't run, more people would have picked Begich over Peltola (the 52.5% I mentioned). This is just tautological based on the IRV method. My claim is that if you reason from first principles, the IRV method produces results that are suboptimal. Begich beats both Peltola and Palin in head to head elections. It seems to me that if a candidate beats every other candidate in a head to head election, that candidate should probably be the one selected. If they aren't selected, that is a failure of the tabulation algorithm you're using. IRV is just one possible tabulation algorithm. My argument is that there are better tabulation algorithms. If you disagree that a candidate who beats every other candidate in a head to head election should win, that's the core of our disagreement, and I'd be interested to know what you think this criteria is not a good one.
    - Bilal_io 4y ago
      How can we say "if Palin hadn't run" when Republicans preferred her over Begich? Why didn't they pick him over the other two if he's the favorite? Begich only got more second choice votes because after picking your first, it comes down to "the least evil", on one hand some people preferred Palin because they'd hate Peltola to win, and on the other hand people picked Peltola because they'd hate for Palin to win. If there were Republican primaries, Palin would have won over Begich, because in that instance you cannot count the votes that went second after Peltola as they're like Democrats. And then in a general election, we'd have the same scenario play as it did with RCV.
phkahler 4y ago
So Palin managed to split the republican vote even with IRV. Somehow I find that really funny.

by frob 4y ago

gamegoblin 4y ago

> In fact, this seems like the perfect example of ranked-choice voting giving people the outcome they preferred. 52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola. That majority of voters did not get the outcome they preferred. Imagine an election with 6 candidates. 5 candidates each get 20% of the 1st round voting, and 1 candidate gets 0% of the 1st round voting, but everybody marks him as their 2nd choice. He is nobody's favorite, but everyone likes him over their alternatives to their favorite. It seems reasonable to me that a good voting system should select this guy who is broadly approved by everyone. But in IRV, he is eliminated in the first round. The recent Alaska election was much less egregious version of this same failure mode.

t-writescode 4y ago
It's arguably still a better situation than FPTP. In other countries, like Australia, where they're used to alternative styles of voting, they have guides on how to vote and who to put in what rank to match what a given party thinks is the best rundown of potentials. Alaska will get there.
- gamegoblin 4y ago
  I would put higher odds on Alaska repealing and going back to FPTP. That's what happened in a few US cities that have experienced controversial Condorcet failures with RCV, e.g. Burlington Vermont. The right-wing media machine is drumming up support for a repeal right now.
  - t-writescode 4y ago
    I find your word choice here, “failure” interesting, as it worked as implemented, the local politicians just aren’t used to the new game they have to play.
    - gamegoblin 4y ago
      I'm not saying RCV failed, I agree it worked as intended. "Condorcet failure" is a phrase meaning a failure of the voting system to select the Condorcet winner. If a candidate beats all other candidates in a 1-on-1 election, they are what is referred to as the Condorcet winner [1]. If a Condorcet winner exists, and an election system fails to select that candidate, that is a Condorcet failure. Whether or not you think Condorcet failures are important or not is a matter of opinion. But they are important to many people (at least on an intuitive level). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_winner_criterion
colinmhayes 4y ago
> That majority of voters did not get the outcome they preferred. The majority of R voters voted for Palin. Without IRV the election would've been between palin and Peltola would've still won. I also disagree that most people would prefer their second choice over the plurality first choice.
- gamegoblin 4y ago
  I totally agree with you that in a standard FPTP election, Palin would have beaten Begich in a Republican primary, and then lost in the final election, and we would have had the same result. I don't think IRV did worse than the system it replaced here. But they both failed in the same way. There are non-FPTP, non-IRV election methods that would have correctly picked the Condorcet winner, Begich.
Bilal_io 4y ago
40% Peltola 32% Palin 29% Begich Begich's votes split to 3: 50% for Palin, 29% for Peltola while 21% were exhausted. That adds up to: 49.67% for Peltola and 46.5% for Palin. And you said "52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola" ignoring that 40 + 32 percent preferred other candidates over Begich. What this says is that if Begich didn't run, more people would have picked Peltola oved Palin.
- gamegoblin 4y ago
  > And you said "52.5% of people preferred Begich to Peltola" ignoring that 40 + 32 percent preferred other candidates over Begich. What this says is that if Begich didn't run, more people would have picked Peltola oved Palin. You could just as easily say that if Palin hadn't run, more people would have picked Begich over Peltola (the 52.5% I mentioned). This is just tautological based on the IRV method. My claim is that if you reason from first principles, the IRV method produces results that are suboptimal. Begich beats both Peltola and Palin in head to head elections. It seems to me that if a candidate beats every other candidate in a head to head election, that candidate should probably be the one selected. If they aren't selected, that is a failure of the tabulation algorithm you're using. IRV is just one possible tabulation algorithm. My argument is that there are better tabulation algorithms. If you disagree that a candidate who beats every other candidate in a head to head election should win, that's the core of our disagreement, and I'd be interested to know what you think this criteria is not a good one.
  - Bilal_io 4y ago
    How can we say "if Palin hadn't run" when Republicans preferred her over Begich? Why didn't they pick him over the other two if he's the favorite? Begich only got more second choice votes because after picking your first, it comes down to "the least evil", on one hand some people preferred Palin because they'd hate Peltola to win, and on the other hand people picked Peltola because they'd hate for Palin to win. If there were Republican primaries, Palin would have won over Begich, because in that instance you cannot count the votes that went second after Peltola as they're like Democrats. And then in a general election, we'd have the same scenario play as it did with RCV.

phkahler 4y ago

So Palin managed to split the republican vote even with IRV. Somehow I find that really funny.