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is it a real issue if its failure mode in the worst case scenario is the exact same standard case as FPTP? They don't have less political power, they are either

by lovich 4y ago

is it a real issue if its failure mode in the worst case scenario is the exact same standard case as FPTP? They don't have less political power, they are either choosing or neglecting to use the power they were provided. I'm failing to see how the person in your example is worse off in any way under RCV than they were in FPTP, and if that's not your implication than what's the point in bringing it up? There's superior voting systems like STAR, but those aren't on the table to be adopted by the country, unlike RCV which already has some support and has been implemented in a few states

mindslight 4y ago
I wish these movements for "Ranked Choice Voting" would be recast as RCV/Condorcet (same input, differing tallying), rather than revolving around runoff voting. Runoff voting is essentially still bound to the idea of the two party system, with the added ability for an informational third-party vote in addition to your "real" duopoly choice. Whereas a tallying process that abides by the Condorcet criterion makes sure that whoever gets elected really was actually favored by most voters. The difference will start to matter if third parties ever gain ground.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  I agree that a Condorcet counting process would give better outcomes than the IRV one that is usually proposed, you're right, but I think that both are unintuitive, in the sense that if you handed someone a set of ranked ballots and asked them to calculate the winner, they would not be able to come up with a system on their own. In fact, even if you told them what the process should be, they probably wouldn't be able to remember it and implement it correctly. This lack of transparency/legibility between the voting process and the results it produces is just the sort of thing that undermines people's confidence in elections, and that makes it an easy target for those who oppose reform, or who just want to undermine faith in an outcome that didn't go their way. We only have to look at the 2011 UK referendum on introducing the "Alternative Vote" system (their name for IRV) where the Prime Minister said in the national press that "It’s a puzzling mess of preferences, probabilities and permutations."[0] I support any reform that is offered to replace FPTP, but advocates need to be really careful that they don't tie themselves to a proposal that is open to such attacks, and then poisons the well for years to come, preventing other more understandable or more representative reforms from being offered (as happened in the UK). [0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1383675/AV-referendum-Dont-sleepwalk-damages-democracy.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1383675/AV-refere...
  - mindslight 4y ago
    To your point, at least with Condorcet, you can say that the winner was preferred to every other candidate by a majority of people. That isn't a specification of the counting process, but it seems like a pretty straightforward definition of a winner that most everyone can understand. Runoff voting seems to completely fall to your criticism, in that the outcome can be non-intuitive and really does depend on the counting process. Heck I understand the algorithm and can still foresee examples where it would feel completely unfair. The real criticism of Condorcet is the possibility of ties. But really that seems like more of a feature, compared to a greedy algorithm that produces non-intuitive outputs. If there is a Condorcet tie, then that should be considered exceptional and a winner should be chosen some other way. Or heck, maybe the winners should be the whole group of 3+ tied candidates, who'd then need a quorum amongst themselves for every action in office.
dane-pgp 4y ago
> They don't have less political power, they are either choosing or neglecting to use the power they were provided. That sounds like victim blaming. If more people "neglect" to use their power, or if the people who "neglect" to use their power are those who disproportionately prefer one party over another, then you're changing the outcome of elections based on the new voting system's inability to capture the true intent of voters (rather than improving its accuracy). > if that's not your implication than what's the point in bringing it up? I think it is still on-topic for this article/discussion to suggest that other reforms would be even better, but I also think that some people under RCV will be worse off than other people, and they will be different people to those who were worse off under FPTP. Like I say, that might be a price worth paying if there are fewer worse-off people under RCV, but we need to be honest with ourselves about that (and aim for voting systems where the fewest possible people have less voting power than their fellow citizens).
- lovich 4y ago
  > That sounds like victim blaming. If more people "neglect" to use their power, or if the people who "neglect" to use their power are those who disproportionately prefer one party over another, then you're changing the outcome of elections based on the new voting system's inability to capture the true intent of voters (rather than improving its accuracy). Is there any point where you would concede it was up to the individuals agency? I’m not trying to be combative, but whether or not you think this point exists matters a lot for continuing discourse
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    If the voting process was made as simple as possible (taking into account the best available evidence from user testing, psychology, linguistics, and so on) and someone decided to deliberately disregard the instructions given, and avoided all efforts to be educated on the topic, then at that point I would agree that the individual's agency was at fault. To be clear, I don't think that such an individual would "deserve" disenfranchisement as a "punishment" for their actions, since voting is a fundamental right that needs proper due process to remove from someone; it would just be an unfortunate practical consequence of their poor decisions. Let me reverse the question though: Is there any point where you would concede that the voting system was unacceptably flawed if it caused one or more people to mistakenly fill out a ballot that didn't reflect their true intention (or made them choose not to vote at all)?

by lovich 4y ago

mindslight 4y ago

I wish these movements for "Ranked Choice Voting" would be recast as RCV/Condorcet (same input, differing tallying), rather than revolving around runoff voting. Runoff voting is essentially still bound to the idea of the two party system, with the added ability for an informational third-party vote in addition to your "real" duopoly choice. Whereas a tallying process that abides by the Condorcet criterion makes sure that whoever gets elected really was actually favored by most voters. The difference will start to matter if third parties ever gain ground.

dane-pgp 4y ago
I agree that a Condorcet counting process would give better outcomes than the IRV one that is usually proposed, you're right, but I think that both are unintuitive, in the sense that if you handed someone a set of ranked ballots and asked them to calculate the winner, they would not be able to come up with a system on their own. In fact, even if you told them what the process should be, they probably wouldn't be able to remember it and implement it correctly. This lack of transparency/legibility between the voting process and the results it produces is just the sort of thing that undermines people's confidence in elections, and that makes it an easy target for those who oppose reform, or who just want to undermine faith in an outcome that didn't go their way. We only have to look at the 2011 UK referendum on introducing the "Alternative Vote" system (their name for IRV) where the Prime Minister said in the national press that "It’s a puzzling mess of preferences, probabilities and permutations."[0] I support any reform that is offered to replace FPTP, but advocates need to be really careful that they don't tie themselves to a proposal that is open to such attacks, and then poisons the well for years to come, preventing other more understandable or more representative reforms from being offered (as happened in the UK). [0] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1383675/AV-referendum-Dont-sleepwalk-damages-democracy.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1383675/AV-refere...
- mindslight 4y ago
  To your point, at least with Condorcet, you can say that the winner was preferred to every other candidate by a majority of people. That isn't a specification of the counting process, but it seems like a pretty straightforward definition of a winner that most everyone can understand. Runoff voting seems to completely fall to your criticism, in that the outcome can be non-intuitive and really does depend on the counting process. Heck I understand the algorithm and can still foresee examples where it would feel completely unfair. The real criticism of Condorcet is the possibility of ties. But really that seems like more of a feature, compared to a greedy algorithm that produces non-intuitive outputs. If there is a Condorcet tie, then that should be considered exceptional and a winner should be chosen some other way. Or heck, maybe the winners should be the whole group of 3+ tied candidates, who'd then need a quorum amongst themselves for every action in office.

dane-pgp 4y ago

> They don't have less political power, they are either choosing or neglecting to use the power they were provided. That sounds like victim blaming. If more people "neglect" to use their power, or if the people who "neglect" to use their power are those who disproportionately prefer one party over another, then you're changing the outcome of elections based on the new voting system's inability to capture the true intent of voters (rather than improving its accuracy). > if that's not your implication than what's the point in bringing it up? I think it is still on-topic for this article/discussion to suggest that other reforms would be even better, but I also think that some people under RCV will be worse off than other people, and they will be different people to those who were worse off under FPTP. Like I say, that might be a price worth paying if there are fewer worse-off people under RCV, but we need to be honest with ourselves about that (and aim for voting systems where the fewest possible people have less voting power than their fellow citizens).

lovich 4y ago
> That sounds like victim blaming. If more people "neglect" to use their power, or if the people who "neglect" to use their power are those who disproportionately prefer one party over another, then you're changing the outcome of elections based on the new voting system's inability to capture the true intent of voters (rather than improving its accuracy). Is there any point where you would concede it was up to the individuals agency? I’m not trying to be combative, but whether or not you think this point exists matters a lot for continuing discourse
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  If the voting process was made as simple as possible (taking into account the best available evidence from user testing, psychology, linguistics, and so on) and someone decided to deliberately disregard the instructions given, and avoided all efforts to be educated on the topic, then at that point I would agree that the individual's agency was at fault. To be clear, I don't think that such an individual would "deserve" disenfranchisement as a "punishment" for their actions, since voting is a fundamental right that needs proper due process to remove from someone; it would just be an unfortunate practical consequence of their poor decisions. Let me reverse the question though: Is there any point where you would concede that the voting system was unacceptably flawed if it caused one or more people to mistakenly fill out a ballot that didn't reflect their true intention (or made them choose not to vote at all)?