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Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

forwardparty.com

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Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ranked choice has a lot of advantages over the alternatives that are often underestimated by people too worried about theory. The big advantage of ranked choice is that it is simple to understand and implement. In elections, it is essential that the average person understand exactly how the system works. An election result that people don't understand/trust is worse than useless.

That's a reason I like approval voting. It's easier to consider what your ballot's effect will be. That's hard with IRV.

Approval voting makes much more sense to me. Consider ranked-choice if it were applied to the presidency: Given that some states are slow to report their results, there are scenarios where you can't fall back to people's second choices until all the votes are in and finalized to determine who lost the first round.

With approval voting, you can declare a victor without running a state machine.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#112
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Condorcet Method has a huge disadvantage that it is hard to understand. Being simple to understand is crucial for voting systems and I would argue is the most important factor since an election without public buy-in is worse than worthless.

Honestly I don't know if I buy this argument. The act of voting is just as easy, does anyone really care how the tally is calculated? With condorcet I think you can also visualize it nicely by playing a Head to Head thing and show ok A vs B, B wins. Ok B vs C, B wins, etc.

> does anyone really care how the tally is calculated?

If the 2020 US election tabulation process is any indication, yes.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#113

Edit: I was wrong, he's doing exactly what I thought he wasn't. See Hannibalhorn's comment below for more details. I'm glad he supports Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), but I think he's going about this the wrong way. Right now, he's creating a new third-party within an electoral system that effectively defaults to two existing and dominant parties. Those two parties currently control every federal and state legislature a…

That is actually what he's doing [1]: We will support candidates for office who align with our core principles so that we can reform the system and make it more responsive to the American people. This means that we will support Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - as well as candidates identifying themselves as Forward Party members. 1. https://www.forwardparty.com/whyforward

Sorry, I didn't read carefully. Thanks for correcting me.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#114
For folks asking why Approval Voting (vote for as many candidates as you want) is more representative than RCV/IRV, here's 2 starting points:

* Voter Satisfaction Efficiency: https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSEbasic/

* Ka-Ping Yee showing how voters' preferences would translate to ballots, then how different election methods picks winners from those ballots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7btAd1HYvjU&t=1329 (watch about 10 minutes).

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#115
I feel like now is the best time to make a 3rd party.

Non-loony-tunes republican voters held their noses and voted D against Trump. Progressive D are frustrated because they're not getting so much as a fig leaf after supporting the establishment candidate.

Basically: the Democratic party tent is currently busting at the seams. It seems possible that the corporate-centrist Dems and Republicans unite under the Dems flag, leaving all the non-Q populists without a sane party to represent them.

I don't think his chances are good, but the iron is as hot as it has ever been.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approval voting is simpler, doesn't require ballots to change and has the same effect in practice (but not in theory). I'd be surprised if an average person finds ranked choice voting to be simpler to understand than approval or FPTP.

Yeah, this is one huge advantage of approval voting. The main issue with approval voting though is that it's much harder for individuals to use when voting. It's tricky to figure out when to bullet vote vs not bullet vote. Simplicity to use != simplicity to count I think ranked choice is in that sweet spot where it is reasonably simple to use and simple to count.

I would really like to see open primaries with approval voting and the top two going to the general election. I think that is much simpler than RCV and I'm not convinced RCV would ever provide a better outcome.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#117

Edit: I was wrong, he's doing exactly what I thought he wasn't. See Hannibalhorn's comment below for more details. I'm glad he supports Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), but I think he's going about this the wrong way. Right now, he's creating a new third-party within an electoral system that effectively defaults to two existing and dominant parties. Those two parties currently control every federal and state legislature a…

That is actually what he's doing [1]: We will support candidates for office who align with our core principles so that we can reform the system and make it more responsive to the American people. This means that we will support Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - as well as candidates identifying themselves as Forward Party members. 1. https://www.forwardparty.com/whyforward

Sounds like he is actually starting a PAC as opposed to a new political party.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#118

Edit: I was wrong, he's doing exactly what I thought he wasn't. See Hannibalhorn's comment below for more details. I'm glad he supports Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), but I think he's going about this the wrong way. Right now, he's creating a new third-party within an electoral system that effectively defaults to two existing and dominant parties. Those two parties currently control every federal and state legislature a…

Mixed member proportionate voting works well for NZ, in terms of allowing multiple political parties to gain significant representation… [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_re...]

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#119
post #63

I was excited about Yang’s candidacy in the NYC mayoral election, but it didn’t take very long to see that he was out of his depth. In the end, he didn’t even rank in my top 5 (NYC has ranked choice now). Why does he keep running for top positions? He clearly doesn’t have a record of success as an executive, either in private or public sectors. He seems like a nice guy. If he wants to get into politics, why not start…

I think it's important not to confuse the goal with the action.

I don't think he wants to become a politician. He wants to enact political change. These are two very different things.

Saying "if he wants to enact political change, why not start as city councillor?" Well... how many democrats or republicans are pushing for change? No one who is born and raised in party lines is pushing for reform; they're doing the opposite.

Yang could never push for the ideas that he wants to see changed in the US as a democrat or a republican. It just isn't possible - the system is too incumbent. I think he realized this during his NY election, which was his first real taste of political competition.

I think this is the only step that he can take. This isn't a "chess move" that he's doing to brilliantly win the political arena; this is more like someone with core values believing in those core values and doing whatever it takes to push those things forward.

At the end of the day, politics is not about winning or losing elections, it's about making sure what you think as important issues are heard and addressed.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#120
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tempted to back them purely for Ranked Choice Voting. Will be keeping an eye on this for the future.

Ugh I support electoral reform, but why the obsession with ranked choice? It is the second WORST voting system after first past the post, which is what we have now.

I'll take second worst over worst. The current system has been in place for hundreds of years, I'm not going to hold my breath for the "perfect" voting system.
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