politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I have no personal experience of explaining ranked choice.
I can imagine calculating ranked choice vote outcomes is probably pretty labour intensive (without computers).
However people generally understand the concept of how someone comes 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a race, and I'm sure most people have thought about a ranked list of their favourite movies or football players, so it's not some completely alien concept.
That seems pretty simple to me, unless I'm missing something?
And finally whole bunch of countries manage this without any issues ...
Coming from a two party country (UK) the only real issue I see is the fragmenting of power and subsequent need to form endless alliances in parliament. (If I voted for the Greens but the Greens need the the votes of another party and end up doing deals is that really representing my vote..)
Look at the Examples section on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting and I think you’ll see it’s probably more complicated than anticipated. And everyone has an opinion on which is the “best” method (which is fair as they are each optimized for different goals).
In theory it shouldn’t be hard to explain, and yep, lots of places all over the world manage it without a problem. But remember in the US we’re so idiotic we can’t even accept the metric system. And a fair numbers of folks are absurdly proud of that fact. We’re also not smart enough to handle health care like everyone else does or provide real parental leave. So while ranked choice voting is objectively superior to first past the post and even aligns with a lot of people’s stated goals for fairness, etc., it’s still a huge uphill climb and many folks will reject it outright without even really thinking about it.
So in summary, it can be done, but not likely to be something you want to run on as a presidential candidate.
All valid points, and I didn't realise the differences in outcomes based on the various counting methods!
That would be complex to explain to many people I'm sure. However, and I'm possibly biased here, there's a whole bunch of systems I don't fully understand (car engines, encryption methods, football tournament knock out rules) but I know they work and tend to accept them and at least understand their limitations and outcomes.
I can totally see how people would reject things they don't understand, and could be easily pushed in to rejecting a new system.
Also I agree that winning an election based on the change could be hard, and perhaps attempting to introduce this change later would work. Though I'm not sure the big parties (labour and conservatives in UK) really want to change a system that works for them!
The sad thing is that RCV might require a constitutional amendment to make it happen nationwide. See for example https://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/23/maine-high-court-says-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/
I like it but I don't see it happening without some other major reforms. Hence why I keep hoping for the 127 DC states plan...
This is a good video that gets into the issues of various forms of voting, and argues "approval voting is the best option".
Because it is the best option. It's dead simple, it's easy to give updates mid count, it's easy to audit, it's no more expensive than any other form, etc.
This is not to say it's perfect, but it's easily the best.