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Ranked-choice voting adopted in New York City, along with other ballot measures
New York City will move to a system of ranked-choice voting, shaking up the way its elections are run after voters approved a ballot question to make the change.
The city will be by far the biggest place in the U.S. to put the new way of voting to the test, tripling the number of people around the country who use it.
A ballot question proposing the shift for New York primaries and special elections was approved Tuesday by a margin of nearly 3-1. It's now set to be in effect for New York's elections for mayor, City Council and other offices in 2021.
Under the system, voters will rank up to five candidates in order of preference, instead of casting a ballot for just one. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote, the last place candidate is eliminated and their votes are parceled out to the voter's second choice, a computerized process that continues until one candidate has a majority and is declared the winner.
Ranked-choice voting is now in use or approved in 18 other cities around the country, including San Francisco, Minneapolis and Cambridge. The state of Maine also uses it. Backers say the system discourages negative campaigning, and forces candidates to reach out to more voters rather than relying on a narrow base. It's also designed to allow voters to pick their true favorite, without worrying about throwing away a vote on someone who can't win.
Previously: Maine Supreme Court Approves Ranked-Choice Voting for 2018 Elections
Maine Debuts Ranked-Choice Voting
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:12AM (13 children)
Fat chance that.
However, I woulds still file this in the "sudden outbreak of common-sense" drawer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:36AM
It is more about slowing down the process of people voting themselves free stuff.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/88664-when-the-people-find-that-they-can-vote-themselves-money [goodreads.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:39AM (9 children)
Don't ranked-choice/Condorcet methods produce a government -- or results in general -- by the choice everyone's willing to compromise on?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:51AM (3 children)
If you mean it will produce a government that will be:
1. distrusted by all the voters (that needed to accept a compromise), but...
2. ... the level of distrust each of the voters holds is not the maximum
then yes, it is correct.
At least the Australians don't quite hate each other on the ground of politics (but we still manage to elect lizzard people).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:28PM
Yes, the current system creates more or less the maximum amount of distrust. Constantly voting for 'the lesser evil' does that to you, and it only creates the illusion of unity.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:04PM (1 child)
I thought they were more agriculturers [youtube.com] and the like. At least it looks like the average Australian citizen has better direct access to them.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday November 07 2019, @10:36PM
The skyrocketing prices [wikipedia.org] in the urban areas would disagree with that depiction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:17AM (3 children)
Except NYC didn't vote for a Condorcet method, they voted for instant-runoff voting [wikipedia.org]. The positive is that there is some evidence that IRV reduces negative campaigning/attack ads. But it doesn't do a good job of reducing polarization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:59AM
Given that NYC is 7-1 Democratic, that's not really an issue.
Come visit. It's a wonderful place to enjoy yourself, and we're happy to take your money even if you're a LIV [wikipedia.org].
I recommend a Broadway show [tdf.org] and then take your friends/family to Carmine's [carminesnyc.com], Plataforma [plataformaonline.com] or both.
But don't talk to the furries or take photos with them. They will grab your teenage daughter's ass [nypost.com] and that's your job.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:47PM (1 child)
Now that they have the ballot, can't they feed it through the Condorcet method -- and first-past-the-post, for that matter -- and come up with those winners even if they're not the ones who will assume office? It would be interesting, if nothing else. You could also get the ranked losers that way if you wanted.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Friday November 08 2019, @03:09PM
Can't really compare to first-past-the-post because the two different methods change voting methodology quite a bit. For example, someone who ranks Green Party first and Dem second may vote straight Dem if they don't have ranked choice.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:02PM
It encourages parties to move away from the fringe extremes of the left and right, and move more toward the centre. There will still be nutbag groups, but they'll only gain 0.1% of the vote.
The absolute best thing about this is that you reduce the risk of similar candidates cannibalising each other. In the current first-past-the-post system, 5 pro-widget and 1 anti-widget candidates will likely result in the anti-widget candidate winning, even if 75% of the population are pro-widget. In ranked/runoff/Condorcet methods, one of the pro-widget candidates is far, far more likely to win, because most of the population is pro-widget.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:30PM (1 child)
Ranked Choice voting tends to produce more popular results (i.e., more people find the winning candidate tolerable), but it is subject to information overload.
There's no perfect answer. Probably, though, when there are a lot of diverse opinions it's worth the cost. Personally, I prefer Condorcet voting, but that's harder to explain to people, so Instant Runoff Voting is probably a better approach. Both are versions of Ranked Choice.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:09PM
Information overload? Like, worse than what we have now with all numpteen Democratic contenders? Other countries with coalition governments would seem to have a worse time of it.
Why is Condorcet voting hard to explain? I thought it was just, like, drag and drop your candidates from the 'too lame; didn't rank' pile to one of the spots on the rocks <--> sucks continuum, and the Dexter Boffinmatic Egghead-o-tron will pick the best one for you.