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Beating everyone head to head is beating the field. The reason Begich wasn't picked by RCV is because he didn't have enough first choice votes. The problem with

Beating everyone head to head is beating the field. The reason Begich wasn't picked by RCV is because he didn't have enough first choice votes. The problem with your analysis is that you are placing more value on a person's first choice than is warranted. You are assuming people care so much about their first choice winning that their lower choices are essentially irrelevant as long as their first choice is in the race. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, what if someone liked their first two choices equally (or perhaps close to equal), but was forced by the ballot to rank one ahead of the other? That is a very different situation than if the voters did in fact have a very strong preference for their favorite over their second favorite, which is the situation you are assuming. Neither of these situations can be assumed from the data presented on a ranked/ordinal ballot. With a cardinal ballot such as score or STAR, your argument could potentially hold water because we can glean the nuanced preferences from people's ballots. eg if someone ranked Palin 5, Begich 4, and Peltota 0, that's a very different story from Palin 5, Begich 1, Peltota 0, even though both of those ballots would look identical if they were squished into a ranked ballot format. The second case would support your argument pretty solidly since the voter didn't like Begich much at all, just a smidgen better than Peltota. For the opposite scenario, consider if this race had been done with a 5 point score/STAR ballot where 40% voters give Palin 5, Begich 4, and Peltota 0, 40% voters give Peltota 5, Begich 4, and Palin 0, and 20% voters give Begich 5. It would be inexcusable not to elect Begich. Even though Begich was not the first choice for 80% of the population, an election like that would indicate such extremely strong support for him that you'll probably be inclined to point out that such an election would never happen in reality and I'm giving a contrived example. Which you're right, I'm not saying this is a likely scenario, I'm simply trying to illustrate how a compromise candidate could in fact be very strong, but RCV will still eliminate them if they don't have enough first choice votes. Placing a premium on people's first choice votes as RCV does is both unwarranted given the data represented on the ballots as well as harmful due to the issues it causes with monotonicity, not electing the Condorcet winner, etc. If we want to insist on ranked ballots, we should be using a Condorcet method to count them.

bena 4y ago
Beating everyone head to head is not beating the field. He came in third against the field. He only wins when you eliminate all other choices except one opponent. Peltola beat the field. In a FPTP system, she would have just won. Democratic second choice votes for Begich only exist because Democrats would prefer him to Palin. They don't want him so much as don't want her. And if they can't get Peltola, they much rather have Begich. The only reason there's noise about Peltola's win and RCV is because she's a Democrat. Look at all the hubbub being thrown about trying to say Begich should have won. You'd rather the person who came in third in the general win. And don't think people wouldn't complain about that. STAR is RCV/IRV with extra steps that doesn't scale. There was a time, not too long ago, that both parties could accept losing an election. I'd like to see that come back.
- supreme_loquat 4y ago
  You're just repeating the same points without engaging with anything I wrote. You're still making the assumption that the first choice votes are the most important, and ignoring the fact that people have other preferences that they marked as well. > Peltola beat the field. In a FPTP system, she would have just won. FPTP sucks and does not elect representative winners, that's exactly why we need to get rid of it. RCV is just iterated FPTP and as such, carries a lot of the same baggage and problems (while adding a lot of complexity and other new problems). > He only wins when you eliminate all other choices except one opponent No, this is exactly backwards. Begich is the only one in this race that can win without artificially eliminating someone (which is what RCV does by ignoring lots of information on the ballots). Peltota can only win by eliminating Begich as Begich wins in the head to head, in order to get this win lots of votes that voters expressed have to be discarded. > Democratic second choice votes for Begich only exist because Democrats would prefer him to Palin. They don't want him so much as don't want her. And if they can't get Peltola, they much rather have Begich. That's exactly the point, the voters farthest to the right prefer Begich to Peltota, the voters farthest to the left prefer Begich to Palin, and there's a few people in the middle who prefer Begich to both. Begich was the best candidate considering the whole field of preferences - admittedly a weak compromise candidate for some, but a strong compromise candidate for others and the first choice for many (and as I mentioned before, we can't know how many consider Begich a weak compromise vs a strong compromise candidate, anything you say about the sizes of those groups is just your personal speculation). > The only reason there's noise about Peltola's win and RCV is because she's a Democrat. Look at all the hubbub being thrown about trying to say Begich should have won. For some people, sure, but for those of us actually trying to push for positive change this has nothing to do with democrats or republicans. This has to do with RCV not electing the condorcet winner and having a non-monotonic election. > You'd rather the person who came in third in the general win. And don't think people wouldn't complain about that. Yes I would, if they win the head to head vs everyone else. You're still treating FPTP like some kind of gold standard. Sorry but that's not a good metric. > STAR is RCV/IRV with extra steps that doesn't scale. STAR has exactly 2 steps, a summation step and then a step to compare the top two winners. RCV is a whole iteration process and thus a lot more complex and a lot less scalable. STAR is also precinct summable, whereas RCV requires tallying in a central location which is another thing which makes RCV much less scalable.

bena 4y ago

Beating everyone head to head is not beating the field. He came in third against the field. He only wins when you eliminate all other choices except one opponent. Peltola beat the field. In a FPTP system, she would have just won. Democratic second choice votes for Begich only exist because Democrats would prefer him to Palin. They don't want him so much as don't want her. And if they can't get Peltola, they much rather have Begich. The only reason there's noise about Peltola's win and RCV is because she's a Democrat. Look at all the hubbub being thrown about trying to say Begich should have won. You'd rather the person who came in third in the general win. And don't think people wouldn't complain about that. STAR is RCV/IRV with extra steps that doesn't scale. There was a time, not too long ago, that both parties could accept losing an election. I'd like to see that come back.

supreme_loquat 4y ago
You're just repeating the same points without engaging with anything I wrote. You're still making the assumption that the first choice votes are the most important, and ignoring the fact that people have other preferences that they marked as well. > Peltola beat the field. In a FPTP system, she would have just won. FPTP sucks and does not elect representative winners, that's exactly why we need to get rid of it. RCV is just iterated FPTP and as such, carries a lot of the same baggage and problems (while adding a lot of complexity and other new problems). > He only wins when you eliminate all other choices except one opponent No, this is exactly backwards. Begich is the only one in this race that can win without artificially eliminating someone (which is what RCV does by ignoring lots of information on the ballots). Peltota can only win by eliminating Begich as Begich wins in the head to head, in order to get this win lots of votes that voters expressed have to be discarded. > Democratic second choice votes for Begich only exist because Democrats would prefer him to Palin. They don't want him so much as don't want her. And if they can't get Peltola, they much rather have Begich. That's exactly the point, the voters farthest to the right prefer Begich to Peltota, the voters farthest to the left prefer Begich to Palin, and there's a few people in the middle who prefer Begich to both. Begich was the best candidate considering the whole field of preferences - admittedly a weak compromise candidate for some, but a strong compromise candidate for others and the first choice for many (and as I mentioned before, we can't know how many consider Begich a weak compromise vs a strong compromise candidate, anything you say about the sizes of those groups is just your personal speculation). > The only reason there's noise about Peltola's win and RCV is because she's a Democrat. Look at all the hubbub being thrown about trying to say Begich should have won. For some people, sure, but for those of us actually trying to push for positive change this has nothing to do with democrats or republicans. This has to do with RCV not electing the condorcet winner and having a non-monotonic election. > You'd rather the person who came in third in the general win. And don't think people wouldn't complain about that. Yes I would, if they win the head to head vs everyone else. You're still treating FPTP like some kind of gold standard. Sorry but that's not a good metric. > STAR is RCV/IRV with extra steps that doesn't scale. STAR has exactly 2 steps, a summation step and then a step to compare the top two winners. RCV is a whole iteration process and thus a lot more complex and a lot less scalable. STAR is also precinct summable, whereas RCV requires tallying in a central location which is another thing which makes RCV much less scalable.