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Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

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Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#251

Post by c7b »

DominikPeters wrote: post #141
c7b wrote: post #62

Feature suggestion: the system automatically tells you when you have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_paradox situation and offers to decide the outcome based on a coin flip instead. Only half joking there, the amount of negative results about ranked-choice voting in social choice theory is quite amazing. I'm not sure whether I'd place it on the efficiency frontier of the 'complex but has desirable propertie…

In case there is no Condorcet winner, there is actually a more principled way to randomize over alternatives than just choosing each with the same probability, known as maximal lotteries (e.g., https://pub.dss.in.tum.de/brandt-research/fishburn_slides.pd... ).

very cool, thank you

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#252

Post by manholio »

dllthomas wrote: post #128
malnourish wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. "Perfect is the enemy of good" as they say. I used to be vehemently opposed to RCV; I'm still against it. It's leagues better than FPTP and my hope is that it opens the door for improvements like STAR or anything that can satisfy the Condorcet criterion.

I'm not convinced that instant runoff is actually better than FPTP. Without tactical voting (and good information to support it) the first thing IRV does (along with most variations that in practice get the label "RCV", though of course this doesn't apply to all ranked methods) is to throw out the compromise candidate that everyone likes. In the current situation, I am concerned that most people will prefer their par…

Even if your technical argument would be correct (it's not), you would be trying to fix the problems of democracy by purposefully skewing the vote away from the desires of the electorate. That's a bad idea because it prevents democracy from working and exposing the leaders to the unfiltered democratic will of the people; so you get unaccountable leaders that can maintain power by gaming the system instead of catering for the interest of the public.

Essentially, any power-mad dictator and authoritarian regime has some variant of this argument. Yes, we love democracy and voting, but we definitely cannot let those kinds of people vote or get elected. You are just espousing the softer version still accepted in some countries of "yes, the voting system is not ideal but it gives our side an advantage for now, realpolitik always trumps democratic principles".

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#253

Post by fdsjgfklsfd »

crazygringo wrote: post #88
bhauer wrote: post #32

Ranking the voting systems: STAR Voting > Approval Voting > Ranked Choice Voting > Plurality ("pick only one") voting. Ranked Choice Voting is marginally better than plurality voting, but it has problems. The chief defect with Ranked Choice Voting is its non-monotonicity, whereby increasing your support for your genuine favorite can actually hurt their odds of winning. This may be what happened in Alaska [1]. STAR Vo…

I just want to make clear for others: this "ranking" is just bhauer's opinion. Since some people here might interpret it as being presented as objective fact or some consensus opinion. There are a lot of pros/cons to all of the richer voting systems, usually categorized as approval voting, ranked voting, and score voting, in terms of increasing information. But there is absolutely no consensus that approval or score…

There are many forms of "ranked" and there absolutely is consensus that the form that constantly gets pushed in the US is no good. It is marketed with lies and doesn't live up to any of its promises, as we just saw in Alaska. It didn't prevent the spoiler effect, it didn't make it safe for voters to rank candidates honestly, and it didn't choose the candidate preferred by the majority. Pretty much any other proposal is better.

I genuinely don't understand why people are so hardheadedly loyal to this one centuries-old poorly-designed voting system. Just because it's the first one they heard of? I don't get it.

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#254

Post by fdsjgfklsfd »

dragonwriter wrote: post #250
ClayShentrup wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normalization error, what you are calling subjectivity, is already accounted for in VSE calculations. Score voting methods like star voting and approval voting are objectively superior. https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSEbasic/

> The normalization error, what you are calling subjectivity, is already accounted for in VSE calculations. I’d love to see an actual paper of the methodology of VSE (the FAQ is less complete than I would like, but helpful in that it shows lots of problems – for instance, while the brief description claims VSE tests elections with “voters who cluster on issues in a realistic way”, none of the descriptions of the diff…

> I’d love to see an actual paper of the methodology of VSE

See the references on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_utility_efficiency

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#255

Post by fdsjgfklsfd »

autoexec wrote: post #237
josephcsible wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who picked Begich as their first choice had their second choice counted, but the people who picked Palin as their first choice threw away their second choice. Had the latter's second choices not been thrown away, then Begich would have won.

> The people who picked Palin as their first choice threw away their second choice. You don't get to rank a bunch of choices and then claim your vote didn't get counted because every one of your choices didn't win the election. People who picked Palin as their #1 choice won against Begich. Their vote went to Palin exactly as they wanted. Palin lost, but the voter who put Palin first voted for the person they wanted a…

Yes, it does mean throwing your vote away under Hare RCV. People who ranked Begich second had their vote thrown away when he was eliminated.

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#256

Post by fdsjgfklsfd »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #232
ClayShentrup wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it works in practice. You just vote for the stronger lesser evil candidate, for the same reason my aunt voted for Biden even though she preferred Warren. This is called compromise strategy. The opposite strategy would be like if Trump supporters voted for Warren to advance the weaker candidate against their guy. The same strategy works in any kind of runoff method including instant runoff voting.

What you mentioned is something closed primaries are designed to counteract.

Closed primaries are the reason we have a polarized two-party system.

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#257

Post by tadmilbourn »

cphoover wrote: post #74

I feel like drag and drop sorting would be more user-friendly

That is an option! You can choose between the "Grid" ballot type which simulates what's used on real-world paper ballots. There's also "Drag and Drop" which works particularly well on mobile touch devices. People just drag their most preferred to the top! Try it on this demo: https://app.rankedvote.co/decisions/4973/Family-Movie-Night/...

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#258

Post by tadmilbourn »

alphabet9000 wrote: post #129

consider making .h04_h1.hero min-height 174px - otherwise the 'get started' button jumps around

What device/browser are you on where it's hopping around? I've been manually testing across devices so that the "typing text animation" stays stable. 174px actually creates a bit more height than I desire on mobile safari/iphone. But knowing what you browser you were on will help me troubleshoot.

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#259

Post by bena »

josephcsible wrote: post #228
bena wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since Begich only wins the Condorcet because he's preferable to Palin to Democrats. In a primary system, Begich doesn't even get to the general. So it becomes Palin against Peltola. Begich can only win in a head to head matchup in a general election against any single candidate. He cannot beat the field, because he is consistently someone's second choice in the overall field.

You make it sound like being the consistent second choice means he doesn't deserve to win, when the opposite is true. Consider a hypothetical country in which 33% of the population is religion X, 33% is religion Y, and 34% is religion Z. Candidate 1 wants the country to be a religion X theocracy, candidate 2 wants the country to be a religion Y theocracy, candidate 3 wants the country to be a religion Z theocracy, an…

Assuming absurd scenarios can get you any result you want.

Because in your scenario, all of those people have to prefer gaining their religious theocracy to such the degree that they're willing to lose practicing their religion at all to get it.

It's reductio ad absurdum.

Re: Show HN: RankedVote – SurveyMonkey but focused on ranked-choice voting

#260

Post by bena »

supreme_loquat wrote: post #227
bena wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since Begich only wins the Condorcet because he's preferable to Palin to Democrats. In a primary system, Begich doesn't even get to the general. So it becomes Palin against Peltola. Begich can only win in a head to head matchup in a general election against any single candidate. He cannot beat the field, because he is consistently someone's second choice in the overall field.

Beating everyone head to head is beating the field. The reason Begich wasn't picked by RCV is because he didn't have enough first choice votes. The problem with your analysis is that you are placing more value on a person's first choice than is warranted. You are assuming people care so much about their first choice winning that their lower choices are essentially irrelevant as long as their first choice is in the ra…

Beating everyone head to head is not beating the field. He came in third against the field. He only wins when you eliminate all other choices except one opponent. Peltola beat the field. In a FPTP system, she would have just won.

Democratic second choice votes for Begich only exist because Democrats would prefer him to Palin. They don't want him so much as don't want her. And if they can't get Peltola, they much rather have Begich.

The only reason there's noise about Peltola's win and RCV is because she's a Democrat. Look at all the hubbub being thrown about trying to say Begich should have won. You'd rather the person who came in third in the general win. And don't think people wouldn't complain about that.

STAR is RCV/IRV with extra steps that doesn't scale.

There was a time, not too long ago, that both parties could accept losing an election. I'd like to see that come back.

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