Submitted by orange_wires t3_10of3ld in vermont
HeadPen5724 t1_j6mvfnd wrote
Reply to comment by KITTYONFYRE in Debating ranked-choice voting in Vermont by orange_wires
I appreciate the lesson in quoting on Reddit, thank you.
I think your extrapolating a bit to make your point (and I do think it’s a fair point), If we held runoffs by holding them again and again until we got to 50%, but that’s not actually how it’s done. There are only ever two rounds, the election and then a runoff between the top two candidates. I’ll try again to articulate my point better, but it maybe we just disagree.
Let’s pretend we’ve got Sanders, Warren, Gabbard, Clinton, Biden. I really don’t want to vote for Sanders because he’s my neighbor and I don’t like him, and Clinton and Biden are old and outdated. So I rank Gabbard and Warren, both of whom get knocked out. If we have IRV I’m done, my vote “effectively” has been negated, my vote doesn’t get redistributed as others have that ranked everyone, even those candidates they don’t even know or don’t like.
In a traditional runoff maybe Sanders and Biden are the top two vote getters. I can see clearly the race and although I think Biden’s old and his time has gone by, I dislike sanders because he blows his grass all over my driveway and complains about my pickup. I’ve got the opportunity to vote “against” him. I think that’s a crappy way to vote, but realistically it happens all time. But the point is I have a choice to vote again or not. With IRV I have no choice. I HAVE to rank everyone, even the people I don’t like or I risk having my vote not count because there’s no way to know what the future matchups may turn out to be. I think clarity and choice are two critical aspects to voting and IRV does NOT make the runoff clear at all and I my only Choice is to vote for candidates that May it may not be running. I realize that a small and nuanced point, or maybe I still haven’t made it well.
This also encourages people to vote for candidates they don’t know, again because people are essentially forced to rank everyone. Not something I personally want to encourage.
And again, outside of a token amount of money saved I don’t see a benefit or reason to change the current system that is straightforward and simple. And there’s still the educational challenges that exist. If there’s no real meaningful benefit, what’s the point?
All that said, I really do appreciate this dialogue regardless of the difference of opinions. Thank you for a respectful conversation on the topic. Cheers.
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6nnpvs wrote
> If we held runoffs by holding them again and again until we got to 50%, but that’s not actually how it’s done. There are only ever two rounds, the election and then a runoff between the top two candidates.
But that's a terrible system! It encourages two-party rule, and enforces the spoiler effect. There will NEVER be a competitive 3rd party with this rule, because if you vote for a candidate that's unlikely to win, you're effectively giving a vote to the side you dislike, pulling a vote away from the side you DO like.
> Let’s pretend we’ve got Sanders, Warren, Gabbard, Clinton, Biden. I really don’t want to vote for Sanders because he’s my neighbor and I don’t like him, and Clinton and Biden are old and outdated. So I rank Gabbard and Warren, both of whom get knocked out. If we have IRV I’m done, my vote “effectively” has been negated, my vote doesn’t get redistributed as others have that ranked everyone, even those candidates they don’t even know or don’t like.
You can't choose to not vote between two candidates, then complain you didn't get to vote between two candidates. A runoff between any two candidates could happen. If you want to participate in that runoff, rank them. If you hate them both and don't see one as slightly less bad, don't vote for either. If you CHOOSE to not vote for them, yes, of course you won't get a vote.
> In a traditional runoff maybe Sanders and Biden are the top two vote getters. I can see clearly the race and although I think Biden’s old and his time has gone by, I dislike sanders because he blows his grass all over my driveway and complains about my pickup. I’ve got the opportunity to vote “against” him.
You already had that opportunity with IRV! You chose to not rank them. There's no difference between the two, at all. You are simply choosing "I will vote for the runoff between these two people I dislike" at the polling station, rather than waiting for a second runoff and having to take more time off work and more time out of your day to do it (or to decide not to do it). It's the exact same except one doesn't require a 2nd trip to the polling stations (which is hard on many working class Vermonters!)
> IRV does NOT make the runoff clear at all and I my only Choice is to vote for candidates that May it may not be running
This doesn't make sense. it's not "I have to vote for candidates who may or may not be running", it's that you get the BENEFIT of BEING ABLE to vote for candidates who might not win, without killing your primary party's chances. So I can vote for Bernie without killing Hillary's odds. You are never "voting for candidates who are not running". You literally CANNOT get your vote thrown away unless you choose not to vote at all at some point in the runoffs, at which point you've DECIDED not to vote - not had that vote take naway from you.
> And again, outside of a token amount of money saved I don’t see a benefit or reason to change the current system that is straightforward and simple.
A huge benefit of removing the spoiler effect (3rd party votes taking away from your primary party votes, thus helping the other side) and reducing (but not eliminating) two-party rule. Pretty gigantic benefits. On top of money saved on runoffs, which is a minor benefit. It would also dramatically increase voter turnout, because it means a vote for a 3rd party isn't a wasted vote, so people have more choice and will feel better represented.
HeadPen5724 t1_j6nwbtp wrote
I don’t see two party rule as any more of a problem than 3 party rule. All parties suck as far as I’m concerned, and as long as we allow political parties to run out elections whether it’s 2,3 or 5 doesn’t really matter. Get rid of all party affiliation on election material and maybe we can rid ourselves of this ridiculous party system all together.
Time isn’t an issue. We mass mail out ballots now.
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6nzb37 wrote
> I don’t see two party rule as any more of a problem than 3 party rule.
You think that having fewer viable options is the same as having more viable options? I'm not sure how to respond to that. That's pretty ridiculous. If you don't like the mainline dem/rep candidate now, you're fucked. If there were 5 options, you could have someone your beliefs more closely aligned to to vote with.
It's not "5 party rule" at that point. That's just having five different candidate options. Maybe some are the same party, maybe they aren't.
HeadPen5724 t1_j6o17s4 wrote
As long as there are parties involved, I don’t believe there will ever be more than two viable candidates. The current system allows for more than two parties but human nature is to align with others, that share similar beliefs to maximize power, which is always going to lead to 2 groups only. If everyone was an independent and not beholden to a party platform, that would give people more options to choose somebody that is most closely aligned with your personal beliefs.
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6o3phc wrote
> As long as there are parties involved, I don’t believe there will ever be more than two viable candidates. The current system allows for more than two parties but human nature is to align with others, that share similar beliefs to maximize power, which is always going to lead to 2 groups only.
Actually, no. The two party system is 100% due to our current voting system and how it works, not just simple human nature. This is a fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
Under "Effects on political parties and societies", it mentions Duverger's law. Essentially, the two-party system only exists because of this style of voting. Ranked hcoice won't totally eliminate it, but it'll remove a few of the contributing factors such as the spoiler effect (see: ralph nader taking some of Al Gore's votes, making Bush win even though Nader voters would have preferred Al Gore).
> If everyone was an independent and not beholden to a party platform
then people would start grouping those independent people as "gun supporters", "socially liberal", etc etc, until you've got a list of labels that describe a general group of people. you've not got parties again. having political parties grouped around general beliefs is unavoidable: having only two of those parties dominate, however, IS avoidable.
HeadPen5724 t1_j6o8m4r wrote
Quick question, when you quote do you have to retype the entire damn text? I can’t copy and paste, it’s just collapses your comment? Or am I missing something???
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6omerp wrote
Are you on a computer? Not sure.
You can also just type in whatever after the > and it'll show up as a comment
(ps, if you want > or any other markdown symbol to appear, you need to put a backslash before it, so you'd type this \> to get this > to appear)
HeadPen5724 t1_j6oq0zh wrote
Thanks. I’m using Reddit on my phone so that’s probably the issue.
HeadPen5724 t1_j6o8e01 wrote
At least if voters started grouping people it would mean they actually learned about the candidates and didn’t just look for the letter next to their name, that would be an improvement, but I doubt that would actually happen realistically.
We don’t have FPTP voting, so I’m not sure the relevance of that. You can’t win with a plurality (see Shumlin v Milne 2014) or any traditional runoff really.
In VT IRV would actually likely lead to 1 party rule. The GOP would stop being a viable party. Progressives would pick up some of the democrats, but democrats would pick up almost all of the independents/centrists AND conservative voters who no longer have a viable candidate. One party rule is even worse than 2.
It really doesn’t save enough money to warrant a change, mail out balloting negates the “saves time” benefit, and it won’t disrupt the 2 party system (which isn’t really the problem, rather the party system as whole is).
I’ll finish here with my original comment, IRV is a solution looking for a problem.
I appreciate the conversation though and I’m glad we continued it through. I’ve given IRV more thought that I otherwise would have and that’s a positive. I’ll look forward to more dialogues in the future. Thanks.
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6oreh1 wrote
> In VT IRV would actually likely lead to 1 party rule. The GOP would stop being a viable party. Progressives would pick up some of the democrats, but democrats would pick up almost all of the independents/centrists AND conservative voters who no longer have a viable candidate. One party rule is even worse than 2.
No? What? This is just wrong. Why would democrats pick up people voting independent? It's the other way around: People who voted democrat, even though they supported, say, a progressive candidate instead, would now put that progressive candidate as #1 and the democrat (who they previously would have voted for) as #2. Same with any popular party: Lesser parties will, in general, get more votes now.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how and why ranked-choice voting works.
> We don’t have FPTP voting, so I’m not sure the relevance of that. You can’t win with a plurality (see Shumlin v Milne 2014) or any traditional runoff really.
We have FPTP voting. Plurality vs majority doesn't matter, it's still FPTP. And more importantly, I'm not aware of any cases where a plurality was reached and the person who was runner-up didn't cede the election - so we effectively have a plurality anyway. This is a distinction without a difference - it doesn't matter if it's majority or plurality on paper because it has always been plurality in practice.
> mail out balloting negates the “saves time” benefit
no it doesn't. mailing out ballots still takes a ton of labor. it's less than in-person, sure, but it's still there. you can say "mitigate" maybe, but definitely not negate.
> and it won’t disrupt the 2 party system
It won't fully disrupt it, it will help break it up and placate the spoiler effect. It will do better than what we have now.
HeadPen5724 t1_j6oul8v wrote
Independents are generally to the right of democrats from progressives. The majority of those votes will go the democrats, and in far greater numbers than democrats switching to progressive. We will end up with 75% Democratic representation in Montpelier. It will be 1 party rule.
Realistically I don’t see it passing, but maybe we will get to see how it all works out 🤷🏼♂️
KITTYONFYRE t1_j6oviwe wrote
no. less popular parties will get MORE votes. this is literally the basis of how it helps (but does not prevent or totally dissuade from) two party rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
this is discussed under "resistance to tactical voting"
and fun fact, this is under "voter confusion":
> Research shows that voters in general can understand and use IRV. Various surveys in the U.S. found 80%–90% of voters reported understanding the ballot very well, and 90% reported it was easy to use. Voter comprehension increased with repeated use, eliminating demographic disparities over time. Older voters were more likely to say they found the system confusing, but in practice correctly completed IRV ballots at the same rate.[20]
so education isn't really a big deal either
HeadPen5724 t1_j6p4sgo wrote
Less popular parties will get more total votes, that doesn’t mean they will get more candidates elected. The flaw in your view, is that you are assuming the VTGOP remains a viable party. It won’t, it barely is now. AND, by definition an independent voter sometimes votes right, sometimes votes left… they aren’t beholden to either party. So they are fairly centered. They aren’t all of a sudden going to leap frog the more moderate party to support the more extreme party? If you have Trump, Biden, and Sanders as candidates, and you remove Trump because the Republican Party is no longer relevant, who do you think those right leaning independents and conservatives are going to vote for? Sanders or Biden? The left leaning independents were mostly already voting for Biden anyways. It has nothing to do with popularity, it has to do with where on the political spectrum the party is compared with where the voters are.
You can rank away all you want, but the shift in votes has to come from somewhere and we are already almost at 1 party rule as is. This will exacerbate it. Republicans already can’t even override a veto?
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments