11 ms·

Have you not heard about approval voting? Or do you not see it as another path to multi party elections?

unethical_ban 2y ago
Approval voting would be better than what we have now, but I think ranked choice is easier for people to understand. I think putting preferences is more comforting to people than the idea of approving people equally if you have preference.
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  > I think ranked choice is easier for people to understand I strongly disagree. "Vote for one or more candidates" is even easier to explain than "sort all these candidates in the order of your preference". And once you start trying to explain the potential adverse effects there's no contest. Approval voting today, tomorrow, forever.
  - buzzy_hacker 2y ago
    Proportional representation is more important than RCV vs approval voting for single-winner elections. And, in the US, multi-winner RCV (single transferable vote) is the most viable approach to achieve that.
  - unethical_ban 2y ago
    * You can cap the number of candidates to rank (in other words cap the number of instant run-offs before another election may be needed). Or you cap the number of candidates, or determine a tie-breaker strategy after X rounds. * What adverse effects are there that are worse than FPTP? * I think if someone loathes candidate A, doesn't like candidate B but would tolerate them, and REALLY LIKES candidate C, they should be able to express that preference. Approval voting demands they express B and C with equal endorsement. Personally, I think that's discouraging.
    - clolege 2y ago
      > what adverse effects are there that are worse than FPTP. * The results of close elections become basically random (due to results swinging wildly depending on the order in which the first few candidates are eliminated) * You have to convey results with a series of graphs rather than a single graph (which confuses voters) * You need all ballots in-hand to start an official count, so you can't call elections early * You lose the ability to perform risk-limiting audits, which are the cheapest and easiest way to audit elections So bad actors can trivially affect RCV elections by destroying or delaying a few mail-in ballots, as well as cast doubt on RCV results as a whole
      - joveian 2y ago
        1) This is not worse than FPTP at all since they are the same in the case of two candidates and FPTP has horrible properties with multiple candiates (the condorcet loser can win the election). Ranked voting can use various methods (condorcet or hybrid) to make sure the winner is the condorcet winner or in the smith set but that adds complexity and no voting method has every desirable property (IRV does not always elect the condorcet winner). Approval voting also can elect the condorcet loser which seems like quite a bad property to me (particularly since this can be affected by strategic voting). 2) Any confusion is due to lack of familiarity and the additional information can be useful beyond determining the winner. 3) This is only true when hand counting a lot of votes (just because you don't want to do it multiple times). Portland just had an election with STV for council seats and IRV for Mayor and these elections were (when possible) called early. You can see the early results here: https://rcvresults.multco.us/ https://rcvresults.multco.us/ 4) From a quick Google Scholar search there are risk-limiting audit options for IRV that usually work with few ballots but in occasional worst cases can need a full recount. See Blom et al. Ballot-Polling Risk Limiting Audits for IRV Elections: [PDF] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Blom-3/publication/326460148_Ballot-polling_Risk_Limiting_Audits_for_IRV_Elections/links/5b4ebb75aca27217ff9eade2/Ballot-polling-Risk-Limiting-Audits-for-IRV-Elections.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Blom-3/publica... I agree with buzzy_hacker that proportional representation is the most important thing to aim for. The main advantage of IRV is that it is easy to understand for single winner elections if you use STV for proprotional representation (which seems like a good choice for the US to me). As far as I know Ireland only has the President (a ceremonial role) individually elected but the US has a bunch of individually elected positions so going directly to the Irish system would be a bigger change.

Approval voting would be better than what we have now, but I think ranked choice is easier for people to understand. I think putting preferences is more comforting to people than the idea of approving people equally if you have preference.

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
> I think ranked choice is easier for people to understand I strongly disagree. "Vote for one or more candidates" is even easier to explain than "sort all these candidates in the order of your preference". And once you start trying to explain the potential adverse effects there's no contest. Approval voting today, tomorrow, forever.
- buzzy_hacker 2y ago
  Proportional representation is more important than RCV vs approval voting for single-winner elections. And, in the US, multi-winner RCV (single transferable vote) is the most viable approach to achieve that.
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  * You can cap the number of candidates to rank (in other words cap the number of instant run-offs before another election may be needed). Or you cap the number of candidates, or determine a tie-breaker strategy after X rounds. * What adverse effects are there that are worse than FPTP? * I think if someone loathes candidate A, doesn't like candidate B but would tolerate them, and REALLY LIKES candidate C, they should be able to express that preference. Approval voting demands they express B and C with equal endorsement. Personally, I think that's discouraging.
  - clolege 2y ago
    > what adverse effects are there that are worse than FPTP. * The results of close elections become basically random (due to results swinging wildly depending on the order in which the first few candidates are eliminated) * You have to convey results with a series of graphs rather than a single graph (which confuses voters) * You need all ballots in-hand to start an official count, so you can't call elections early * You lose the ability to perform risk-limiting audits, which are the cheapest and easiest way to audit elections So bad actors can trivially affect RCV elections by destroying or delaying a few mail-in ballots, as well as cast doubt on RCV results as a whole
    - joveian 2y ago
      1) This is not worse than FPTP at all since they are the same in the case of two candidates and FPTP has horrible properties with multiple candiates (the condorcet loser can win the election). Ranked voting can use various methods (condorcet or hybrid) to make sure the winner is the condorcet winner or in the smith set but that adds complexity and no voting method has every desirable property (IRV does not always elect the condorcet winner). Approval voting also can elect the condorcet loser which seems like quite a bad property to me (particularly since this can be affected by strategic voting). 2) Any confusion is due to lack of familiarity and the additional information can be useful beyond determining the winner. 3) This is only true when hand counting a lot of votes (just because you don't want to do it multiple times). Portland just had an election with STV for council seats and IRV for Mayor and these elections were (when possible) called early. You can see the early results here: https://rcvresults.multco.us/ https://rcvresults.multco.us/ 4) From a quick Google Scholar search there are risk-limiting audit options for IRV that usually work with few ballots but in occasional worst cases can need a full recount. See Blom et al. Ballot-Polling Risk Limiting Audits for IRV Elections: [PDF] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Blom-3/publication/326460148_Ballot-polling_Risk_Limiting_Audits_for_IRV_Elections/links/5b4ebb75aca27217ff9eade2/Ballot-polling-Risk-Limiting-Audits-for-IRV-Elections.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Blom-3/publica... I agree with buzzy_hacker that proportional representation is the most important thing to aim for. The main advantage of IRV is that it is easy to understand for single winner elections if you use STV for proprotional representation (which seems like a good choice for the US to me). As far as I know Ireland only has the President (a ceremonial role) individually elected but the US has a bunch of individually elected positions so going directly to the Irish system would be a bigger change.