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

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

#191

Post by caf »

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…

The whole Ricky Muir / preference-whispering / group-ticket-voting issue was related to the Senate which is a combination of both PR (proportional representation) and STV, a whole additional bucket of worms over the plain STV of single member electorates.

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

#192

Post by coryrc »

dllthomas wrote: post #179
coryrc wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain groups have made RCV==IRV in an Orwellian fashion. It's now how it is used.

I don't believe I conflated the two. The title says RCV, but the algorithm described in the article is specifically IRV and I thought I was clear what I was talking about?

You were clear. I'm talking about orgs like NPR and FairVote.

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

#194

Post by lotsofpulp »

dllthomas wrote: post #179
coryrc wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain groups have made RCV==IRV in an Orwellian fashion. It's now how it is used.

I don't believe I conflated the two. The title says RCV, but the algorithm described in the article is specifically IRV and I thought I was clear what I was talking about?

You were, I did not know about the distinction of IRV as a method of counting votes within the realm of RCV.

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

#195

Post by klodolph »

godelski wrote: post #164
klodolph wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons: Arrow’s impossibility theorem and the fact that people are not perfect logicians. I honestly thought that after learning Arrow’s impossibility theorem that Condorcet is not especially important. Since we can’t have a perfect voting system, we have to pick an imperfect one, and among the alternatives, it’s important to capture information from voters. Instant runoff captures a lot of information. Approval…

> Arrow’s impossibility theorem First off, Arrow's doesn't apply to all systems. You'll need to look into both Gibbard's and Gibbard-Satterthwaite's theorems. Second off, just because you can't find a global optimization in a highly dimensional space doesn't mean there aren't local optimizations along criteria we care more about. Appealing to Arrow's is a cop-out. > Approval voting I think is much too tactical and, s…

I disagree that cardinal voting is understandable. It’s how we rate restaurants and review products on Amazon, and I don’t think it translates to an election with multiple options.

The issue here is not just how logical humans “homo economicus” behaves, but how actual voters behave.

Not really interested in engaging with the rest of this comment right now, but suffice it to say that I don’t think you’re accounting for human behavior in practice, which is messy and illogical. I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that I’m appealing to Arrow’s impossibility theorem as a cop-out—I’m saying that since we don’t have a game theoretic solution the the problem, we should look at the actual behavior of imperfect, irrational humans as the deciding factor.

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

#196

Post by dane-pgp »

throw_away wrote: post #89
_AzMoo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Instant Runoff Voting the worst possible voting method?

Worst possible ranked choice alternative, not worst possible voting method (i.e., still better than FPTP, but not without its weaknesses). Frustrating as there are more straightforward, and objectively better mechanisms which are ignored in favor of IRV. It's hard not to feel conspiratorial that maybe the Powers That Be want worse voting mechanisms. This page is a good explainer of IRV's weaknesses and shows some of…

> not worst possible voting method

Since you mention it, let me offer a candidate for "worst possible voting method (that has actually been used in a democracy)", namely "plurality-At-Large".[0]

It basically takes the worst properties of FPTP and extends them to an entire governing body, allowing a party with less than 50% support to win 100% of the seats (by design).

Fortunately it has been mostly abandoned in the US thanks to the Voting Rights Act and subsequent SCOTUS decisions.

[0] https://www.nonprofitvote.org/the-bias-of-at-large-elections...

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

#197

Post by dragonwriter »

munk-a wrote: post #189
dragonwriter wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not recently for President, Not ever. The Federalists collapsed before we got a Whig, and the Whigs before we got a Republican, and those and the Democratic (ex-Democratic-Republican) parties are the only four that have won the Presidency. > but third parties have won at every other level of government including Governors, Representatives, and Senators. Sure, but its easy to overcount them; state two-party systems…

I would consider Sanders to be a pretty legitimate third party candidate - VT democrats have coalesced around him recently but his initial bid for Senate was pretty spectacular. He managed to ride an extremely popular mayoral career into a state that is extremely dominated by Burlington population-wise. Burlington metro is roughly as large a proportion of the VT voting block as NYC metro is for NY.

> I would consider Sanders to be a pretty legitimate third party candidate -

While he identifies as a socialist by ideology and has some association with the Vermont Progressive Party, AFAIK he has always run for federal legislative office as an independent, not third-party, candidate.

> VT democrats have coalesced around him recently but his initial bid for Senate was pretty spectacular.

IIRC, his original House campaign was spectacular, but Democrats in VT coalesced around him in his 8 terms in VT’s sole House seat.

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

#198

Post by endgame »

glangdale wrote: post #190
endgame wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Roo poo" Ricky Muir was better than many of the regulars, IMHO. IIRC he seemed to actually think about the bills in front of him.

He wasn't awful. OTOH while he seemed principled, he often just seemed to vote along with the Coalition then publicly regret it afterwards - helping them get what they wanted on refugees and then being surprised at how inhumane it all was and the extent that the government reneged or slow-played a lot of the concessions he obtained.

If I remember rightly, that was one of his first votes and he wisened up after that. There was an interview early in his term where he admitted he was unfamiliar with the term "balance of power", but he seemed to learn quickly.

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

#199

Post by jeff_tyrrill »

klodolph wrote: post #143
xvedejas wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you say to someone like me who feels that IRV is perhaps the worst possible alternative voting system to advocate for? It feels like someone at some stage must be very dishonest, or otherwise dangerously uninformed, to think that IRV is worth advocating for over alternatives like approval voting, range voting, or any Condorcet voting system. I'm very worried that most places will have the political will to…

Two reasons: Arrow’s impossibility theorem and the fact that people are not perfect logicians. I honestly thought that after learning Arrow’s impossibility theorem that Condorcet is not especially important. Since we can’t have a perfect voting system, we have to pick an imperfect one, and among the alternatives, it’s important to capture information from voters. Instant runoff captures a lot of information. Approval…

I wouldn't choose to use the word "dishonest" but I sympathize - in nearly all news media explanations of "ranked choice voting", the description solely explains instant runoff, and makes no mention whatsoever that there is a choice of algorithm that comes with the choice to use ranked ballots, such as Condorcet. The words "instant runoff" are almost never mentioned.

Choice of language matters, and "ranked choice voting" (to solely mean "instant runoff voting") is a conceptually misleading term meant to load the debate. It dis-educates rather than educates on how voting systems work.

Advocates of other voting systems have to first start out by explaining this misdirection and unpacking the wrong mental model, then get to the merits of one voting system vs. another - because people have been told that "ranked choice voting" works a certain way and only a certain way.

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

#200

Post by munk-a »

dragonwriter wrote: post #197
munk-a wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider Sanders to be a pretty legitimate third party candidate - VT democrats have coalesced around him recently but his initial bid for Senate was pretty spectacular. He managed to ride an extremely popular mayoral career into a state that is extremely dominated by Burlington population-wise. Burlington metro is roughly as large a proportion of the VT voting block as NYC metro is for NY.

> I would consider Sanders to be a pretty legitimate third party candidate - While he identifies as a socialist by ideology and has some association with the Vermont Progressive Party, AFAIK he has always run for federal legislative office as an independent , not third-party , candidate. > VT democrats have coalesced around him recently but his initial bid for Senate was pretty spectacular. IIRC, his original House c…

Oh excuse me yes - I'd forgotten he initially stepped into congress as a house rep.
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