from the [6]-a⠀[⠀]-b⠀[3]-c⠀[1]-d⠀[⠀]-e⠀[9]-f⠀[2]-g⠀[4]-h⠀[7]-i⠀[5]-j⠀[⠀]-k⠀[8]-l dept.
Maine Is Trying Out A New Way To Run Elections. But Will It Survive The Night?
The man who lives in the Blaine House in Augusta, Maine, was, for many, a sneak preview of the 45th president of the United States. Like Donald Trump, Republican Gov. Paul LePage has transformed the face of government with his politically incorrect brand of conservatism — and he did it despite winning less than a majority of votes. LePage won a seven-way Republican primary for governor in 2010 with 37 percent of the vote, and he beat a Democrat and three independents in the general with just 38 percent.
Eight years later, it's far from clear that LePage would have a path to victory if he were running now in the Republican primary for governor. That's because, partly in response to LePage's plurality wins, Maine on Tuesday will become the first state to use ranked-choice voting to decide a statewide election. So not only are there races in Maine we'll be watching, but the process matters too. And if Maine voters don't pass an initiative reauthorizing the voting method at the same time, this real-life political-science experiment will be cut short.
The question of keeping ranked-choice in place for future primaries and Congressional races in the general election led 54-46 percent with 57% of precincts reporting at 12:05 AM EDT.
Maine's Governor Paul LePage has threatened to not certify the results, but that doesn't matter according to Maine's Secretary of State:
Gov. LePage on Tuesday says he "probably" won't certify results from the voter-approved ranked-choice voting system.
Maine law requires the secretary of state to tabulate results and get them to the governor within 20 days of an election. The governor "shall" certify them within a reasonable time period, but Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, said this only applies to state general elections and not primaries. "He can bluster all he wants, but he can't change the results," Dunlap said.
Also at WGME, Vox, NYT (live results), and Portland Press Herald.
Previously: Maine Supreme Court Approves Ranked-Choice Voting for 2018 Elections
Related Stories
Common Dreams reports
Election reform advocates on [April 18] praised a decision by Maine's Supreme Court, upholding the use of ranked-choice voting for the state's upcoming primary elections, saying the ruling demonstrated that the court heeded the demands of Maine voters.
[...]Unlike in traditional voting, in which the candidate with the largest share of votes wins--even if he or she is far from capturing a majority of the support--in ranked choice voting, voters rank each candidate in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority after the first count, the least-popular contender is eliminated, voters' ballots are added to the totals of their second-ranked candidates, and the ballots are recounted. The eliminations and recounts continue until one candidate has a majority.
Supporters of the system say it increases voter turnout and proportional representation.
Maine's June 12 multi-party primary elections, in which voters will choose candidates for governor and congressional districts, will now make history as the first state election to use ranked-choice voting.
Fifty-two percent of Maine voters supported the system in a November 2016 ballot initiative, but lawmakers passed a bill last year delaying its implementation until December 2021 and argued that the state could not use a new voting system without direction from the legislature. The state Senate also threatened to repeal ranked-choice voting altogether if it could not pass a constitutional amendment by then.
More than 77,000 Maine residents signed a petition saying any repeal of the system by the legislature should be voided.
"The Maine legislature has changed or repealed all four of the initiatives passed by Maine voters in 2016", said Kyle Bailey of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in a statement on Tuesday. "Today's decision by the Maine Supreme Court confirms that the Maine people are sovereign and have the final say."
The Portland Press Herald, Maine's largest circulation daily newspaper, has extensive background details in their April 17th story: Ranked-choice voting will be used for June primaries, Maine supreme court rules.
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: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:50PM (10 children)
Republicans know they can't win a fair fight so of course they'll illegally fail to certify the results.
The Will of the People and the Rule of Law simply don't matter to them.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Entropy on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:30PM (7 children)
By "fair" do you mean all the illegals in California illegally voting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:47PM
So dumb
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:13PM (5 children)
If that were actually true. Yet, voter fraud has been investigated numerous times, and never found to be in any significant amounts. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong with citations, which of course can't be Fox News, a White Nationalists propaganda outlet (Brietbart), or the Daily Stormer.
I'm not all that worried about them voting anyway. It's the Republicans that have the *real* problem. They offer nothing to those communities but denigration, while in turn, taking advantage of low cost labor for their businesses. What a fucking wonder that immigrants don't vote for them. I think it's presumptuous and telling anyways, that they think it automatically benefits the Democrats. Some of them might vote 3rd party :)
No proof has ever been produced that it's a problem either. All of those Minute Men and White Nationalists that were monitoring the polling stations with video cameras never produced a damn thing. I was curious and open minded, and nothing was produced.
The type of voter fraud I'm more interested in investigating is dead people voting. Now I'm pretty sure it ain't an illegal digging up a US citizen to vote, but some group of people that have access to the records, access to the bureaucracy, a motive, .etc. In other words, the most serious voter fraud is perpetrated by Americans.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:11PM (3 children)
"In other words, the most serious voter fraud is perpetrated by Americans."
Oh yes, absolutely true. The party machines don't typically operate by or for recent immigrants, though one of them in particular likes to pretend otherwise.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Newander on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:35PM
So, the best evidence of fraud is that there's no evidence of fraud?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:32PM (1 child)
That's not logic, that's bias. Logic has to be based on something. All you're basing your argument on is "Chicago used to be very corrupt, therefore the whole country is corrupt".
There has been zero evidence ever presented by anyone from any interested party that there are more than a literal handful of isolated, unrelated voter fraud cases per state, per year. Nothing that could ever swing even a neighborhood election. We're talking about national elections here, not stuffing ballot boxes for a local Chicago precinct election. If you had any comprehension of how national elections work in the US, you wouldn't be capable of believing there is any "iceberg" to be found just because you found an ice cube in your glass. There are observers from every political party at every single polling place all across the nation on election day. Election officials call the police if there is any sign of voter intimidation or voter fraud. There are voter rolls that your name has to be listed on at the exact polling place where you are registered to be voting, or you will have to get a provisional ballot from the local election officials. You have to show ID to get your ballot.
In order to swing national elections you have to swing entire states, which means somehow getting tens of thousands (if you're lucky) or hundreds of thousands of people to vote illegally. To bus 100,000 people from one state to another to supposedly vote twice or vote illegally in the wrong state, you would need approximately 2,500 buses and bus drivers. If you are capable of believing that you can get 100,000 people and 2,500 bus drivers to keep a secret and somehow not be noticed by anyone and get them all paid their hush money without any investigators being able to find any evidence, you are a certifiable nut bar. Hell, if you're capable of believing you can get three people to keep a secret you're already a loon.
But as usual, I state the obvious.
And this is just what would be necessary to affect the votes for a SINGLE STATE. To make this even work, all the names of those people will have to be on the voter rolls in two states, or they will all have to vote provisional ballots, or they'll all need believable fake IDs. Seems like somebody would notice SOMETHING among all this insane movement of people and money, but you can't present so much as a single tiny scrap of a receipt for a bus rental on an election day, can you? Yet you want us to believe that the US election system is rife with MILLIONS of fraudulent votes. But they only vote for Democrats, and yet Clinton still lost. And they all get handsomely paid off by George Soros, millions of people individually receiving checks or cash adequate to convince them to commit a felony and vote illegally, but Soros is still a billionaire after all these decades handing out money like candy.
What?
The funniest part is that at least 9 out of 10 of the actual, proven cases of deliberate voter fraud that I read about in my research turned out to be Republicans double-voting because they were afraid the other side were double-voting. Every news article, investigation or study on known voter fraud cases said the same thing.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:24PM
More than straight up vote fraud, which is probably reasonably rare outside of a few specific areas where it makes economic sense, there's also fraud at the higher level. The DNC and RNC have both been exposed as deeply corrupt in their inner workings; profoundly undemocratic and even antidemocratic institutions. Both actively work to thwart their own constituents, both have been exposed repeatedly doing so, and anyone that trusts either of them in the slightest is worse than naive.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ChrisMaple on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:07AM
>>"They [Republicans] offer nothing to those communities but denigration."
Ah, that explains why the big city centers of poverty and corruption have been mostly run by Democrats for decades.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:31AM (1 child)
The R team is probably toast in a modern voting system such as ranked choice, no argument there. The Libertarians will eat their lunch.
I'm curious how the D team would fare against the Greens. To me that seems like it could be an evenly matched fight. It'd probably even pull the D team back to center from their current right-wing position, which would do them some good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:46AM
The Democrats can barely beat the GOP and frequently can't. Of course the Greens would crush them. But, that would require the Greens to be running.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @05:18PM (16 children)
Just like Trump then.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:12PM (15 children)
I get it, it doesn't matter if what you're saying makes any sense, just as long as it's anti-Trump, right?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:21PM (10 children)
62,984,828:128,838,342 is not a majority, it is only 48%. If you "got it" you know that's what the AC parent meant. But whatever, we happily elect you Most Pedantic if it makes you happy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:30PM (8 children)
Trump campaign to win by the rules in place.
Given different rules, he probably would have won by those rules, by tailoring his campaign accordingly.
If the election were held today, just about ANY rules would have Trump re-elected.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
That must be some tasty koolaid you're sipping.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:59PM
I dunno, cheeto koolaid sounds pretty gross.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
> If the election were held today, just about ANY rules would have Trump re-elected.
No quite, I can think of a few exceptions right away
1) only I can vote
2) the rest of the world votes
3) Ok, not the whole rest of the world, just countries where the US has bases ... our allies.
4) Votes are multiplied by each state's ratio of Federal taxes paid vs Fed money granted
5) Someone, anyone, in the Democratic party rolls a Charisma score above 11, and is not term limited.
Ok, that last one is by far the least plausible, but you get the point.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:12PM
I'm not sure about that. I suspect that 1.4 billion people [wikipedia.org] and 146 million people [wikipedia.org] love him, seeing how he's doing so much to improve their world standing. He'd have a fairly strong chance at a worldwide election.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:12PM
So your position amounts to: Trump über alles. Got it. That's clearly the result of careful consideration of the available data, and there's no president that's ever managed things better than Trump. /sarcasm
Here are some rules: We're going to go back in time, bring back a clone any president since the invention of the public opinion poll in the 1940's, and allow them to run for another term. The winner is determined by Trump's approval rating [fivethirtyeight.com] now versus their approval rating at the time of their re-election campaign. By those rules, Trump loses to everybody but Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. If you go by Trump's approval rating versus the other guys' approval rating this far into their presidency, then Trump loses to every single one of them, with the closest calls being against Harry Truman or Gerald Ford.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:44AM (2 children)
Just wanted to say that as much as I hate the R team, frojack isn't wrong here.
The D team just completely failed. They picked an awful candidate, and then she had an awful campaign. I don't think Clinton even came to my state to speak once! She and the D team just assumed my state was in the bag. Arrogant fucks. My state wound up going to Trump.
And can we just elide the whole electoral college whargarbl? If you want to abolish the electoral college, you'll probably need to call an Article V convention. Lots of people want one of those. So let's have one instead of bitching and moaning because She Lost.
Direct all anger over She Lost squarely at the DNC. (This method works for me personally.) If the DNC hadn't fucked over Sanders, he would have won in the general election in a landslide. Powerful interests wanted Clinton, and so we got Trump thanks to their out-of-touch hubris.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:52AM (1 child)
Why would she? The fix was in. The DNC made sure she was the D nominee, and her friends in the media pushed Trump as the R nominee, at her request. Everyone was certain that it was impossible for even her to win against Trump.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:11AM
impossible to LOSE against Trump, obviously.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:45PM
IN FACT, there were 531 votes available and 304 of them went for Trump. You can spin that any way you want but it's simply an undeniable fact that he got well over half the available votes.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:24PM (3 children)
Are you? Perhaps just disingenuous. What you're actually stating is that Trump got the majority of the Electoral College. Duh, of course he did otherwise he couldn't win right?
What you were referring to was a statement, that anybody with an unbiased brain, could understand as being related to the Popular Vote. No, Trump did not win the popular vote, but won the Electoral College. Those are things we call facts.
Donald Trump Rep. Electoral College (304/538 56.50%) Popular Vote(45.98% −2.10% 62,979,636 −2,864,974) [wikipedia.org]
I think we both know you are better than spinning the truth like Fox News ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
The Electoral College is the body who elects the President, so in that sense you are correct, however if you're implying that he had to win a majority on the first vote in order to win, that's not actually true either.
"What you were referring to was a statement, that anybody with an unbiased brain, could understand as being related to the Popular Vote."
Wait, what? If we're talking about the election of a President then I should think anyone with an unbiased brain would think we were referring to the vote by which the President was elected, the vote by which EVERY President since the beginning of the Republic has been elected, not to something else entirely, but I guess that's just me being rational and fact based again huh?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:02AM (1 child)
We were not talking about the election of a President, or the Electoral College, or at least, that's not what started the conversation. This was primarily, and started, about Paul Le Page who did not run for President, but Governor of Maine. So when we say that Paul Le Page did not win the popular vote, and then an immediate subsequent post says that neither did Trump, that statement is accurate, assuming Paul Le Page did indeed not win the popular vote in Maine. I don't closely follow Maine politics, somebody can provide a citation ( I don't care enough). Still, anybody following in context knew what the comparison was; Paul Le Page's popular vote vs. Trump's popular vote.
All of your arguments related to the Electoral College are somebody loudly yelling about kumquats, while we were talking about salad dressing :) You just jumped it on because it apparently dissed your boy, without actually trying to understand what they were saying right? right? Yeah.... ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:50AM
But no one said that.
The article said of LePage "he did it despite winning less than a majority of votes" and the AC added "so just like Trump then."
No one mentioned 'popular vote' and that's not a real thing anyway. In fact LePage did win a three way race in 2014 with just under 50% of the votes, but Trump in 2016 won his 2016 race with a solid 57% of votes.
Conclusion, article is accurate on that point, but ACs addition is not accurate.
"All of your arguments related to the Electoral College are somebody loudly yelling about kumquats, while we were talking about salad dressing"
You're talking about the 2016 Presidential election, AC claimed that Trump had less than 50% of the votes. He did not, I pointed that out. You still seem to be confused as to how the President of the USA is elected.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @05:38PM (14 children)
This makes me a bit concerned. People look at instant runoff voting as a sort of panacea. The problem is that, depending on how you define it, it can lead to bad results. For an example see this election [wikipedia.org]. I prefer one of the systems that elect a Condorcet winner. However, with every system there are tradeoffs. A comparison (not necessarily a good one or the best one) is available here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @05:59PM (4 children)
It's not a panacea, but it does mean that the winner is likely to at least not be completely loathed by the majority, which is a good thing.
Also, on the off-chance that you're a politician trying to do right by your constituents (I know, fantasy, but let's pretend for a moment), it would be really useful to know which of your opponents the public thought was best. If it's a 3-way race between Smith, Jones, and Johnson, and Jones wins, it will help Jones to govern well if he knows whether more people like what Smith was saying or Johnson was saying. Or, alternately, if Jones doesn't do a good job of listening, it would help Jones's next opponents figure out whether the public would be behind someone who sounds more like Smith, or someone who sounds more like Johnson. Even from the political science point of view, that extra information would be interesting to have, since you're no longer throwing away the preferences other than the #1 choice.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:40PM (3 children)
Bullshit. You absolutely ARE throwing away preferences for anyone but the first winner.
Are you trying to assert the second and third choices in the first election has any effect on the next election? You are delusional, and you are mixing inputs and outputs across events widely separated in time. You've let you laboratory experiment bleed over into real life.
You can't bank second place and use it as a stepping stone to first place in some distant election. So any system of elections chosen with that in mind is base on a fantasy.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:29PM (1 child)
I didn't say you'd save the votes for upcoming elections, which is ridiculous. I'm talking about the raw data, the ballots themselves. Compare two hypothetical results, first the plurality results:
Smith (i.e. Smith > Jones or Johnson) - 150,255
Jones (i.e. Jones > Smith or Johnson) - 200,127
Johnson (i.e. Johnson > Smith or Jones) - 223,934
And now the ranked-choice results for voters with the exact same preferences as what were recorded above:
Smith > Jones > Johnson - 25,203
Smith > Johnson > Jones - 125,052
Jones > Smith > Johnson - 175, 867
Jones > Johnson > Smith - 24,260
Johnson > Smith > Jones - 142,362
Johnson > Jones > Smith - 81,572
In both cases, Johnson wins: In the plurality version, Johnson has the most votes. In the ranked-choice version, Smith is knocked out after round 1, and then Johnson's strength as the second-choice for Smith voters puts them over the top.
The difference is that now everybody can look at that raw data and know more about voter's preferences, and can make decisions based on that. For instance, the Johnson administration can make sure that they aren't antagonizing the Smith supporters who picked Johnson as the #2 choice, and/or try to encourage Jones supporters to abandon Smith as the #2 option. Which means that now Johnson is being more responsive to the preferences of more citizens, which is part of the point of holding elections.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:17AM
Yeah well I'm voting Jackson/Thompson 2020! Glad there are no Gray or Brown supporters here. Those people are deplorables.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tfried on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:35PM
Well, actually, what GP was probably trying to say is that you do not have to put Lesser Evil in the first place, for fear that voting for your real preference will be diverting votes from Lesser Evil, and help Greater Evil win. Instead you can vote for your real preference, and then put Lesser Evil in second place, just in case.
So, before, you were throwing away the preferences for candidates other than those that people think are the top two before even conducting the ballot. Now, you will at least keep alternative preferences on record.
Will that change the outcome in practice? Remains to be seen, but certainly only under somewhat special circumstances. Does it allow for a more accurate poll of public opinion? Definitely.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:25PM (4 children)
When dealing with humans, nothing is perfect. The question is, which solution is less bad?
If you dislike the 2-party system then this process is less-bad.
Duvergers Law indicates that our current process tends toward 2 parties by nature. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:06PM (2 children)
One could as easily say that any election system that leads to multi-party systems invariably leads to government by the political class.
Because once you use a system that dis-values forming consensus in the minds of the electorate BEFORE an election, you leave it to politicians to build a coalition government AFTER an election. With enough splinter parties, choice is effectively removed from the hands of the electorate, and handed to the politicians. Pretty much what is happening in the EU today.
Two parties may not be optimal. Maybe three, possibly 4 could work better. Much beyond that, and the goal isn't about the people's choice any more.
In Europe, there seems to be a tendency toward 5 parties. [wikipedia.org]
The recent push toward different election systems isn't designed for consensus rule. Its designed for removing ACTUAL choice from the hands of the electorate, by flooding the slate with a multitude of shell-parties, and handing the choice to politicians. A refuge for scoundrels if you ask me.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:41PM
One could as easily say that any election system that leads to multi-party systems invariably leads to government by the political class.
Well, one could say that. But that statement would apply to every other Democratic system on the planet as well.
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tfried on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:30PM
I think you're mixing up IRV and proportional voting in an interesting but misleading way, here.
First thing to note is that IRV implies a majority vote, really, and does not make much sense in a proportional vote (except perhaps in combination with an electoral threshold, but that's a bit of a corner case). Your coalition argument does not apply for the same reason. And in fact an IRV is exactly about moving the "forming consensus" part to the electorate in a transparent fashion: If I cannot have my favorite, what would I agree with instead (and what other option would I avoid at all costs).
Second thing to note is that - for the same reason - IRV does not directly lead to a 2+x party system, but it does not condemn any third option to meaninglessness a priori. For third parties to gain any influence, they'll still have to gain a majority, even if it is of second or third choices.
Third thing to note is that - again for the same reason - IRV is in fact handing an advantage to those candidates that are acceptable to most, i.e. that are closest to a consensus. It precisely helps to avoid the problem where the "majority camp" is splintered over trivialities, while the "extremist camp" stands united, and wins the vote.
Fourth thing to note is that - independent of IRV - a proportional vote has the advantage of keeping certain positions represented, even if they are not "important enough" to win a majority vote. The EU's pirate parties (most obsolete by now, but still) are a great example of that, and the EU's green parties (I know you hate them) are another.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:00AM
In a Federal system, that is not necessarily true. Here in Canada, different regions have different favourites. In one region it is Conservative vs Liberal, another area it is Conservative vs NDP and another area it is Bloc Quebecois vs Liberal or Conservative with the orange wave election before last where all 3 of the regular candidates were so bad that the NDP did very well.
We almost always have at least 3 parties in Parliament with 5 lately and in a close election a minority government is formed where compromise is needed to govern. I love minority governments rather then voting in a dictator for 4 (or 5) years. And even with a majority, the government seems to worry more about the voters then down there.
It probably also helps that the Provincial elections are mostly divorced from the Federal elections, which allows regional parties to grow.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:40PM (1 child)
I find it funny, that in that particular example, the presumed winner using the old method would have been the same. So the argument mentioned in the wiki that IRV "elected an extremist" seems really skewed, especially when he was an incumbent, who won his first IRV election without an uproar being mentioned. In fact by the numbers IRV passed the biggest argument I see against it, 99.99% of ballots were valid, no mention of voter confusion. It is true the Condorcet winner wasn't selected (though I am very curious how you determine that when 16% of ballots were bullet voted, the temptation is there to run the numbers myself, but it seems beyond pointless being almost 10 years later and a repealed system), but repealing IRV doesn't give you that either. Good doesn't have to be the enemy of great, and I would be better served by being able to better express my choice even if the result isn't perfect.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:44PM
I'm trying to understand the problem with that example, seems to work exactly as planned.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:38PM
This is why the US has a two party system, and why presidents win despite getting less than 50% of the vote
Much of the country agree that "the voting system should be better". The incumbants rely on the fact that some people want ranked list, some want STV, some want condorcet, etc, etc
Due to this, the majority of people thing "this is stupid, I just want to vote for my candidate"
So we end up with two party systems, where people vote for Kodos in case Kang gets in.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:47PM
Can lead to bad results? As opposed to the current system where almost every single result is bad and people just vote for who they perceive as 'the lesser evil'? Whether range voting or ranked choice voting, both are far better for democracy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:29PM (8 children)
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you are in favor of Ranked Choice Voting. Okay? How would you vote — "Yes" or "No"?
Here is the actual text of the Ballot Question [ballotpedia.org]:
Have you decided how you would vote?
Was it "Yes" or "No"?
Good. Let's see how you did:
How did you do? Would your vote have expressed your intention?
I'll leave it to the reader to determine if this ballot question was intended to secure "the will of the people".
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:32PM (6 children)
What is wrong with
"Should Maine have ranked voting system for electing congresscritters?"
Yes No
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:52PM (5 children)
People might vote $wrong.
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:04PM (4 children)
Ireland has a solution to this: just keep asking the population to vote, until they vote $right (this concerned adopting an EU treaty which involved closer integration).
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:46PM (3 children)
Ireland had a vote
The population said no
The government said "why, what's the problem"
The population said "this, this and this"
The government said "OK, here we've fixed this, this and this, what do you think now"
The population said "Yes, that's fine"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:22AM (2 children)
And then no more voting ever after.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:04AM
No, they just have to vote in a national government that wants another vote. Sorta like the UK did, though they never had the first vote I believe.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:16PM
The population of Ireland get the chance to elect a government every 5 years (or less). They most recently voted in 2016, the next one will be 2021 at the latest. They are free to vote in a party that would have a referendum on leaving the EU, or even just vote a party that would leave the EU.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:17AM
My brain hurts. Was this question designed by a lawyer, or a programmer??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:23PM (1 child)
As khallow would say: "The obvious debuttal is. . . ". Maine somehow manged to "elect" Mad Rage LePage, so it is not like they could do worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:01PM
As someone over 50 I can definately understand timestamps, so can follow who responds to who and time elapsed between each response, but when I read these posts I get completely lost! Can you tldr eli5?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:57AM (1 child)
Here up North, Trudeau said promised to do two things.
1. Legalize cannabis.
2. Reform the legal system to allow Canadians to vote for a different voting system (such as aboves topic).
Guess he's only able to do one of those things and guess which one he's doing.
You get one guess and then you get to take a toke.
My belief is he knows most Canadians vote either Conservative or Liberal, so there's a good back and forth there: if we allowed REAL voting, maybe the Liberals would not ever again get in to power!?!
Plus, he needed to be able to smoke weed legally or possibly wind up in a prison so HEY...legal now!
I'm hoping people start getting smarter and start voting better (hey, maybe it's happening: Guelph just voted in the first Green member of Parliament for Ontario! Their numbers just keep growing (and the Liberals ALMOST COMPLETELY disappeared).
Turdeau needs to go.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:09AM
Well not much different then Harper, who was all in favour of election reform until he won.
Election reform is going to mean no more majority governments or at least very rarely, something that no majority government is in favour of. The only way it's going to happen is like here in BC where the government needed the support of the Greens to govern and the condition for support was election reform, and even then, they wanted to do the reform then have a referendum, whereas now we're going to have another referendum first.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by prospectacle on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:48AM
1 - It's true that no voting system is perfect. The easiest way to understand this, imo, is this clear example of why you can't translate a set of individual preferences into one consistent social preference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives#Criticism_of_IIA [wikipedia.org]
2 - That not the same as saying all systems are equal. Some can be far worse than others.
3 - It's natural to be wary of some new way of appointing people to power, and reflexively assume the current system is the best. This can lead to focusing only on the imperfections of a proposed replacement as if those imperfections immediately disqualify it.
4 - It's worth at least considering the weaknesses of the current system if you're looking at the weaknesses of any proposed replacement. Why on earth would the current system just happen to be the best?
5 - The flaws in any of the commonly used preferential-voting / ranked-choice voting systems (and the differences between them) are tiny when compared to the flaws in any system where you only count everyone's first preference. For starters, only counting first preferences will often elect someone who is actually the last-preference for a majority of voters. The least preferred candidate (for most voters) will often win. This doesn't require gaming the system it's built right in.
6 - In order to argue about point (5) it's worth reiterating point (4). At least understand the various fairness criteria by which an election system can be judged, and examine the weaknesses of the current system as well as any proposed replacement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Comparisons [wikipedia.org] because there's way to much of (3) going on.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic