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I was a big proponent of ranked choice voting until I got a chance to talk with a number of voters in New Hampshire and Maine in the runup to the 2020 election.

I was a big proponent of ranked choice voting until I got a chance to talk with a number of voters in New Hampshire and Maine in the runup to the 2020 election. One of those states has ranked-choice and the other doesn't, so whenever I got a chance I would bring up the topic. I was surprised at how negative a reaction some voters had to the scheme. Digging in a bit, their perception of unfairness seemed to come from the fact that some people's votes would be counted more than others'. That is, if you voted for a series of fringe candidates in increasing likelihood of electability, your vote might be counted several times, while someone who voted for the mainstream candidate would just get their vote counted once. This kind of folk analysis of ranked-choice voting makes some people very mistrustful of the method and is hard to counter. Since elections are a social phenomenon, and not just a mathematical exercise, and given our current atmosphere of mistrust and attacks against the electoral process itself, I think the interest in having a crystal clear criterion for winning ("most votes wins") outweighs the many theoretical advantages of ranked choice.

googlryas 4y ago
It might help them understand that their votes aren't actually counted multiple times - every #1 vote for a fringe candidate is, essentially just thrown out.
- idlewords 4y ago
  I'm talking about voter perceptions and politically effective attacks on ranked choice voting, not its mathematical properties. A complete understanding of the latter by all voters would remove the problem, but practically speaking you end up in a PR fight where one side is trying to condescendingly explain a math problem to the other. That's not a good place for the explaining side to be, and in a political environment already polarized by education level, it is a losing fight. People are going to trust their gut over anything some egghead from the political opposition tells them.
  - googlryas 4y ago
    I don't think the math really needs to be explained - just telling people how to operate it. Millions of Australians vote via a similar system and they're not all constantly scratching their head over the Condorcet paradox.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
godelski 4y ago
Look into cardinal systems. They have better embedding properties and scalability. Your votes will always be counted (counter e.g. in NY you could only rank 6 candidates and if you didn't rank any of the top 6 your votes go straight to the garbage bin). Better embedding also helps with the favorite betrayer (strong spoiler effect).
js2 4y ago
> that some people's votes would be counted more than others It's hard to square that knowing these voters are in small states whose votes already count more than others, but I'll bet they are okay with that. It's also not really unfair since each voter is free to adopt the strategy the voter is claiming is unfair. I wonder how representative the voters you talked to are of the population. Did you catch this story on Croydon, NH about the school budget nearly getting cut in half by a handful of voters who were not all representative of the majority? https://www.thisamericanlife.org/776/i-work-better-on-deadline/act-one-14 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/776/i-work-better-on-deadli...
fdsjgfklsfd 4y ago
It's true, too. Hare RCV counts some voter's 2nd preferences but not others, which is why you get undemocratic outcomes like this one. A Condorcet RCV system counts all voters' preferences simultaneously.

googlryas 4y ago

It might help them understand that their votes aren't actually counted multiple times - every #1 vote for a fringe candidate is, essentially just thrown out.

idlewords 4y ago
I'm talking about voter perceptions and politically effective attacks on ranked choice voting, not its mathematical properties. A complete understanding of the latter by all voters would remove the problem, but practically speaking you end up in a PR fight where one side is trying to condescendingly explain a math problem to the other. That's not a good place for the explaining side to be, and in a political environment already polarized by education level, it is a losing fight. People are going to trust their gut over anything some egghead from the political opposition tells them.
- googlryas 4y ago
  I don't think the math really needs to be explained - just telling people how to operate it. Millions of Australians vote via a similar system and they're not all constantly scratching their head over the Condorcet paradox.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

godelski 4y ago

Look into cardinal systems. They have better embedding properties and scalability. Your votes will always be counted (counter e.g. in NY you could only rank 6 candidates and if you didn't rank any of the top 6 your votes go straight to the garbage bin). Better embedding also helps with the favorite betrayer (strong spoiler effect).

js2 4y ago

> that some people's votes would be counted more than others It's hard to square that knowing these voters are in small states whose votes already count more than others, but I'll bet they are okay with that. It's also not really unfair since each voter is free to adopt the strategy the voter is claiming is unfair. I wonder how representative the voters you talked to are of the population. Did you catch this story on Croydon, NH about the school budget nearly getting cut in half by a handful of voters who were not all representative of the majority? https://www.thisamericanlife.org/776/i-work-better-on-deadline/act-one-14 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/776/i-work-better-on-deadli...

fdsjgfklsfd 4y ago

It's true, too. Hare RCV counts some voter's 2nd preferences but not others, which is why you get undemocratic outcomes like this one. A Condorcet RCV system counts all voters' preferences simultaneously.