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posted by martyb on Thursday April 19 2018, @10:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the democracy dept.

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"The Maine legislature has changed or repealed all four of the initiatives passed by Maine voters in 2016", said Kyle Bailey of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in a statement on Tuesday.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.


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  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:58PM (2 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Thursday April 19 2018, @05:58PM (#669187) Homepage Journal

    I agree with you, completely that letting the voter specify the weighting they wish to give each candidate is the only truly fair system. I suspect the trouble is that many of the proles just won't understand a system of that complexity and either won't use it at all or their vote will be rejected as invalid or they'll vote in a way that doesn't represent their true feelings due to misunderstanding the process. You could end up with 20-30% of the ballots being rejected. Hey, on second thoughts, that's probably still better than the current system!

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:36PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday April 19 2018, @06:36PM (#669214)

    > on second thoughts, that's probably still better than the current system!

    Choosing a bus driver is a complex process with many criteria, and an assessment by knowledgeable people in the field. We don't want to make a mistake and have people get hurt.

    Choosing the people in control of the US ? Meh! That's a popularity contest based on whatever lies sound the best. Who could possibly get hurt?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @09:27PM (#669325)

    their vote will be rejected as invalid ... You could end up with 20-30% of the ballots being rejected.

    This is a fairly big problem with ranked (ordinal) ballot systems, because it typically looks like:
    Candidate A [ ]
    Candidate B [ ]
    Candidate C [ ]
    Candidate D [ ]

    and has instructions that each box must be left empty or filled with consecutive numbers from 1 to n, where n≤(number of candidates). So
    Candidate A [1]
    Candidate B [3]
    Candidate C [2]
    Candidate D [ ]

    is a valid ballot, but
    Candidate A [2]
    Candidate B [4]
    Candidate C [3]
    Candidate D [ ]

    or
    Candidate A [1]
    Candidate B [2]
    Candidate C [2]
    Candidate D [ ]

    or
    Candidate A [1]
    Candidate B [4]
    Candidate C [3]
    Candidate D [ ]

    are all invalid.

    With score (cardinal) ballots, the ballots are (conceptually, at least) identical, but the rules and semantics are different; each box may be left blank or filled with any number from 0 to 9, 0 to 99, or some such range. It's incredibly simple, and the only way to spoil a ballot is to write illegibly, to write something other than a number, or to write a number outside the range.

    In practice, to avoid issues with handwriting, and to enable machine counting, a related form is generally suggested:
    ___________ (0) (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
    Candidate A [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
    Candidate B [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
    Candidate C [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
    Candidate D [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

    In this case, at most one box/oval/hole is to be checked/filled/punched per row. Again, incredibly simple, and the only way to spoil a ballot (punching two holes in the same row) is very similar to spoiling a plurality ballot by punching holes for two candidates. People accustomed to the existing system should be able to get that.

    they'll vote in a way that doesn't represent their true feelings due to misunderstanding the process

    That's a valid concern with either ranked or score ballots -- confusion between 1 for 1st place, 2 for 2nd, etc. vs. highest score wins is entirely possible in either direction. But honestly, while I don't want to disenfranchise anyone, even those who can't read and follow directions, or set up any sort of capability test for voting, I'm prepared to tolerate some confusion the first few cycles with a new voting system -- it will decrease over time as people become familiar with the new system.