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HeadPen5724 t1_j6hwfgc wrote

Reply to comment by builtforcameron in Debating ranked-choice voting in Vermont by orange_wires

If you don’t know the name of the candidate you support and are instead using their self described party affiliation then you aren’t really casting an informed vote or participating in democracy in a positive way. I don’t think we should be encouraging or advocating for that.

It IS OK to not cast a vote in every box if you aren’t informed, in fact it’s preferred.

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builtforcameron t1_j6hwssb wrote

The issue isnt whether we encourage people to make uninformed decisions when voting, its about understanding HOW people vote. If you take party affiliations off the ballot, a lot of people won't vote/won't know who to vote for. We want MORE people voting, which RCV encourages

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HeadPen5724 t1_j6hxcvz wrote

I disagree. We want MORE INFORMED voters, not more uninformed voters. Uninformed voters are not a positive thing.

And IRV actually discounts the votes of people that don’t rank candidates they don’t know anything about, so it’s not benefitting that aspect either. At least with a traditional runoff it gives the voter some time to read up and learn about the two remaining candidates. And no one should ever be forced to vote for a particular candidate to have their vote count, which in some IRV scenarios is the case.

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