What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it? • Hacker News Board

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#361

Post by ajdlinux » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

alexitorg wrote: post #297

Taniwha wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that RCV is at best a hack, a compromise for people who don't want to get too far from FPP. IMHO if you are electing individual people (a mayor, a US president, a city council, a US Senator) then STV is more equitable (it is pretty close to RCV if you are electing a single person). But if you are electing parties (like the US House) then MMP is a fairer solution

I'm Australian so I might be biased, but I don't like MMP. It seems to be optimising for democratic outcome (well at least a parliament that looks like the distribution of first party votes) while ignoring all other factors. Many countries that use it seem to have weak governments that can't get much done. There is parties that won't work together because one is secessionists (Catalans), right wing (national rally in…

Just to be clear - most of the countries you give as your examples aren't MMP systems, they are other proportional representation systems, and the problems you have with it are common to proportional representation systems broadly rather than MMP.

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#362

Post by mycall » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #123

glangdale wrote: post #112

A lot of nitpicking here, as is typical on HN, but the Australian experience is instructive. We can vote for the Greens without "throwing our left-of-centre" vote away and still preferring Labor to Liberal. Ranking only up to 5 is reasonable - if you want the simplicity of the old system, and don't want to research beyond 3 candidates, don't! I can't see the weird complaining about having to learn more about candidat…

In this US, you would rarely need to do any additional research. There are almost always only 2 choices - the Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate. Anyone voting for another candidate is simply saying that's who they /REALLY/ wish would win, but most people aren't willing to throw their vote in the garbage to virtue signal. That 3rd party candidate almost never has a chance at winning. Neither does the a…

If ranked voting happened everywhere at same time, the independents, who outnumber both Democratic and Republican party numbers combined, might become a force onto themselves and change everyone's assumptions on 3rd party candidates. This won't likely happen without national voting reform, but it is an interesting thought experiment.

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#363

Post by Taniwha » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

gwright wrote: post #265

Taniwha wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that RCV is at best a hack, a compromise for people who don't want to get too far from FPP. IMHO if you are electing individual people (a mayor, a US president, a city council, a US Senator) then STV is more equitable (it is pretty close to RCV if you are electing a single person). But if you are electing parties (like the US House) then MMP is a fairer solution

> But if you are electing parties (like the US House) I'm not sure why you are phrasing it this way. Voters don't pick a party for their House representative, they pick a candidate. Each House district election is independent of all the others.

Yes but if each house district is FPP 3rd parties generally don't get a look in, people who vote for them get no representation at all, and can produce governments where the party with the most seats got fewer votes than the others.

MMP provides local representation, and proportional representation (at the expense of having larger local seats, or more representatives).

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#364

Post by jltsiren » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

anonporridge wrote: post #272

erentz wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people could confidently vote for another party there wouldn't be just two parties. If multimember districts are used with RCV yes. If not it tends to maintain a duopoly. Australia’s Senate uses RCV like voting with multimember districts and has more diversity than its House which uses single member districts. That said there is some benefit to using RCV even with single member districts as in theory it tends to…

While multimember districts would be a huge improvement, I wonder if we also should start having the conversation if geography based representation is the right approach for the internet age. I for one, have more in common with a minority identity widely dispersed across the country but connected through the internet than I do my next door neighbors. My niche identity never gets proportionately represented in governm…

There is always a trade-off between the representation of regions, demographic groups, and opinions. Single-member districts are the right solution when regional representation is the most important concern and the representation of various opinions is the least important one. Sufficiently large multimember districts are the opposite.

When it comes to regional representation, the right district size depends on population and mobility. If you live in a rural area, a single-member district probably covers you local area reasonably well. In major cities, the boundaries of electoral districts are often arbitrary and meaningless. If you live in one district, work in another, and use shops and other services in a third, which of the three is most important to you? And what happens if you move to another place within the city?

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#365

Post by vitus » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

elihu wrote: post #340

vitus wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important distinction to make is that RCV isn't the same as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV); rather, IRV is a specific (the most commonly championed, as far as I can tell) implementation of RCV, likely because it's the easiest to explain. Note that all RCV implementations have limitations, per the oft-cited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore... which outlines a number of ostensibly desirable…

As far as I know, the label RCV as it's commonly used in the United States (and advocated most prominently by FairVote) usually means the same thing as IRV. Perhaps there are some minor differences in terms of specifying exactly what happens if a ballot doesn't rank all the candidates, or ranks two candidates equally. Perhaps using RCV to mean an exact system rather than a whole category of voting systems is imprecis…

Oh, I agree that in the US, RCV is (unfortunately) often conflated with IRV.

> I've wondered if IRV couldn't be substantially improved by using ... rather than eliminating the candidate with the least first-choice options.

This is exactly the family of RCV systems -- IRV merely defines one implementation by which a winner is selected from a ranked ballot.

Borda count has its own pathologies, too -- the usual cited problem is that it fails independence of irrelevant alternatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alt...

(Further, Borda count fails the majority criterion, namely there are situations where a candidate is the first pick of a majority of the electorate, yet fails to win. Some proponents of Borda count argue this is a feature, not a bug.)

The wiki article for Borda count has a solid table of various voting systems and whether they satisfy various criteria:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count#Other_properties

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#366

Post by crazygringo » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #335

crazygringo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. I voted in today's NYC mayoral primary. There are 13 candidates on the Democratic primary ballot. Perhaps 3 are considered "front-runners" but everyone's aware it's entirely possible at least a couple of the others could wind up winning. The race is entirely up in the air. Because NYC is overwhelmingly Democratic, this election almost certainly determines who will be mayor. And not only do you need to do y…

> Welcome to actual democracy Fake democracy where you get to choose viable candidates exclusively from one party, and only one party. Aka a party dictatorship, the same as they have in most authoritarian states, and ideologically enforced in a similarly regressive manner. If you're not of the party, you will be an outcast and blockaded from any chance at winning. The opposite of democracy, and very clearly so.

What are you even talking about...?

Literally anyone can run in the Democratic primary, you just have to be registered as a Democrat, which is just filling out a form where there are no wrong answers.

Have you even been following the NYC primary at all? "Ideologically enforced" is hilarious. The difference between, say, the current #1 and #2 candidates Adams and Wiley is basically the difference between Trump and Bernie Sanders, and the the rest are everything in between and then some.

If you think anything is being ideologically enforced in this race, if you think anyone is being "outcast and blockaded" -- I mean, this dude Paperboy Love Prince [1] is actually on the ballot, not even joking -- then quite frankly you're delusional. This isn't Communist China, this is the Democratic Party which is, well, famously a bit of a mess.

I don't know where you live or what news you read, but if you're trying to claim America isn't democratic and open then, ha... you sure picked the wrong race to use as an example! :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperboy_Prince

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#367

Post by SulphurCrested » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

AussieWog93 wrote: post #26

We've had this in Australia since day 1 of Federation. One important factor the article didn't quite emphasise is how this voting system can break up the two party duopoly without creating 1920s-Reichstag-esque anarchy. It's completely normal to put a third party as your first preference, while still indicating that you'd prefer Kodos to Kang. In practical terms, it means the Dems would actually have to do some work…

It's worth mentioning that the way this has taken away seats from the two major parties is not mostly through the rise of third parties, but the election of independents unaffiliated with any party. This has invariably occurred in electorates which are so homogeneous they were safe for one or the other major party, usually (but not always) rural.

The most spectacular example of this was the election of three rural independents who then proceeded to install Julia Gillard from Labor as Prime Minister, even though they were conservative. Their stated reasons were Labor's promise to build a fibre-to-the-premises broadband network and their assessment of the conservative leader. Other examples include members in wealthy Sydney suburbs who, while otherwise conservative, wanted action on climate change, and members in farming electorates unhappy with the way the Nationals have been captured by mining and housing development interests and failed to represent farmers.

(The Nationals, formerly the Country Party, always join the conservative Liberals in coalition, apparently having forgotten the purpose of coalitions.)

An exception is the Greens, who usually score one seat based on the central business district of Melbourne. This includes very high density apartment towers, and student accommodation for the University of Melbourne, and is demographically odd.

Many observers believe the rural independents may eventually coalesce into a new party which displaces the Nationals. I see no evidence thay the Liberals' several humiliating losses to independents in "safe" seats is causing them to rethink their policies. This may or may not change once they are unable to rely on whatever replaces the Nationals to form government.

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#368

Post by Timothycquinn » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:19 AM UTC

GCP Gray has a great series on voting systems. Here is his one on Alternative Voting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE

Highly recommend his videos. Funny and informative. Also his Podcast, Hello Internet is awesome.

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#369

Post by jltsiren » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

alexitorg wrote: post #297

Taniwha wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that RCV is at best a hack, a compromise for people who don't want to get too far from FPP. IMHO if you are electing individual people (a mayor, a US president, a city council, a US Senator) then STV is more equitable (it is pretty close to RCV if you are electing a single person). But if you are electing parties (like the US House) then MMP is a fairer solution

I'm Australian so I might be biased, but I don't like MMP. It seems to be optimising for democratic outcome (well at least a parliament that looks like the distribution of first party votes) while ignoring all other factors. Many countries that use it seem to have weak governments that can't get much done. There is parties that won't work together because one is secessionists (Catalans), right wing (national rally in…

You seem to be assuming that doing something is usually better than doing nothing. I believe the opposite is true in politics. It's difficult to make things better with political decisions, but it's much easier to break things or make them worse. If you can't convince a clear majority that something is a good idea, doing nothing is probably a better choice.

Presidents, prime ministers, and governors are always enemies of liberal democracy (the republic for those more familiar with American terminology). Nobody should be given that kind of power, but unless we can figure out how to run a country without such leaders, we have to tolerate them as a necessary evil.

Re: What is ranked-choice voting and why is New York using it?

#370

Post by elihu » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

vitus wrote: post #365

elihu wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, the label RCV as it's commonly used in the United States (and advocated most prominently by FairVote) usually means the same thing as IRV. Perhaps there are some minor differences in terms of specifying exactly what happens if a ballot doesn't rank all the candidates, or ranks two candidates equally. Perhaps using RCV to mean an exact system rather than a whole category of voting systems is imprecis…

Oh, I agree that in the US, RCV is (unfortunately) often conflated with IRV. > I've wondered if IRV couldn't be substantially improved by using ... rather than eliminating the candidate with the least first-choice options. This is exactly the family of RCV systems -- IRV merely defines one implementation by which a winner is selected from a ranked ballot. Borda count has its own pathologies, too -- the usual cited pr…

You're right that Borda count on its own isn't a great system. Though an RCV-style system that eliminates candidates on the basis of least-Borda count would be something else. It might be better than either normal IRV or plain Borda count on their own. (Though I still think I'd rather go with approval voting or STAR.)