KITTYONFYRE t1_j6o3phc wrote on January 31, 2023 at 6:28 PM

Reply to comment by HeadPen5724 in Debating ranked-choice voting in Vermont by orange_wires

> 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 on January 31, 2023 at 6:58 PM

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 on January 31, 2023 at 8:23 PM

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 on January 31, 2023 at 8:46 PM

Thanks. I’m using Reddit on my phone so that’s probably the issue.

HeadPen5724 t1_j6o8e01 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 6:56 PM

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 on January 31, 2023 at 8:54 PM

> 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 on January 31, 2023 at 9:14 PM

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 on January 31, 2023 at 9:19 PM

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 on January 31, 2023 at 10:17 PM

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?