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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?

#351

Post by godelski »

adamjb wrote: post #332
godelski wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but up here in Canada we have a parliament and we're drifting toward a two party system Actually this is kinda my point: Canada: Liberal + Conservative = 81.1% (90.5% with Bloc, 97.6% w/ NDP, ) Australia: Liberal + Labor = 84.8% (95.4% with National) Germany: CDU + SPD = 56% (68% w/ AfD, 79.7% w/FDP, 89.4% w/ Left) France: REM + LR = 71.8% (79.9% w/ MoDem, 85.4% w/ UAI, 90.8% w/SOC) I can continue if needed... Thes…

>These 4 countries have 4 different voting systems but what they have in common is a parliament where seats are assigned proportionately to votes (there's no winner take all). That is wrong. Australian lower house seats are single member aka winner takes all. edit: and Canada is FPTP

> Canada is FPTP

Yes? I said those 4 examples use different election styles, not that Canada doesn't use FPTP...

> Australian lower house seats are single member aka winner takes all.

>> The lower house, the House of Representatives, currently consists of 151 members, each elected using full-preference instant-runoff voting from single-member constituencies known as electoral divisions (and commonly referred to as "electorates" or "seats").[0]

(And the upper house uses STV with proportional representation)

Winner-take-all refers to

>> a legislative body is elected by dividing the jurisdiction into geographic constituencies, each electing exactly one representative. Although this may result in diverse representation due to different political groups making up majorities of different districts, within each district, only one political party or group will be able to elect a candidate[1]

Yes, I am using more of an Ameri-centric usage of the word (since we commonly use it referring to the electoral college and not local elections), but pointing this out isn't exactly a great rebuttal. The "winner-take-all" definition is vague and a given considering the impracticality of implementing a non-winner-take-all system without a significantly larger number of representatives. Consider that in Australia they do not have greater than a 10% variation of electorates. If we give more seats and apply proportionate seating this is functionally equivalent to just dividing the electorate further and using winner-take-all. Thus if we follow this usage, there is no election that would _not_ be winner-take-all (or making our term meaningless). This is not the system we see in America where the phrase winner-take-all is applied to electorates that are nowhere near uniform. But I apologize for the confusion and hope this comment clarifies my more (American) natural usage of the term.

And if this is why you're throwing my comment out the window I think you missed the entire point and I do not appreciate the lack of good faith here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Australia

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Winner-take-all

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

#352

Post by godelski »

adamjb wrote: post #336
godelski wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the Australian experience is instructive. No? It is instructive of how parliaments work. IRV doesn't explain the multi-party house and senate given that every other country with a parliament also has a similar distribution. If you're only looking at Australia vs America you're doing the wrong analysis (it is far too limited). Australia vs France just outright disproves your supposition (they use a 2 round syste…

>who also uses MMP (like Australia) Australian federal lower house elections are single member IRV, upper house are multiple member STV. MMP isn't used anywhere in Australia.

I apologize, I was wrong. I'm not sure why I confused that. I appreciate the correction.

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

#353

Post by dragonwriter »

dragonwriter wrote: post #201
dane-pgp wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 U…

> Fortunately it has been mostly abandoned in the US thanks to the Voting Rights Act and subsequent SCOTUS decisions. A close variant (vote for up to N, top N win, at large) is used in a lot of local elections still; all multimember district methods are banned in House elections specifically to prevent plurality at large from being used there. (Though the Senate uses temporally-segregated two-seat plurality at large…

> (Though the Senate uses temporally-segregated two-seat plurality at large in every state.)

Correction: it uses either that or similarly segregated majority/runoff, varying by state.

Majority/runoff and plurality are similar FPTP variants, but majority/runoff is slightly less bad.

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

#354

Post by tomjen3 »

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…

>We can vote for the Greens without "throwing our left-of-centre" vote away and still preferring Labor to Liberal.

Do the greens get elected, then?

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

#355

Post by abecedarius »

klodolph wrote: post #205
jeff_tyrrill wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vot…

I’d say that part of the cost of switching voting systems is educating voters how the new system works. Many voters simply don’t care about the finer details and just have a couple desiderata—we want to have our vote count, and we want to be able to vote for our favorite candidate. Instant runoff is super easy to explain and achieves those desiderata, at least to some extent. It’s hard to quantify the differences in…

I'm always baffled by this claim that simple explanations favor instant runoff.

Here's approval voting: "Upvote the candidates you like. The candidate with the most total votes wins." It's not just mathematically simpler, it's simpler in informal terms, a smaller change from current plurality voting, and it seems less messy in the strategic dynamics insofar as we've tested these different systems for real.

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

#356

Post by coryrc »

wslack wrote: post #326
coryrc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get a lot of chances to change the voting system. Tacoma, WA changed to IRV for a while, but it didn't make any difference in who got elected, then they threw it out a few years later. Good luck getting a better system in place now.

Did they eliminate the primary process? The real value of IRV (IMO) is when you can have a Sanders and a Clinton (or a Trump and a Rubio) both on a general election ballot.

It appears they did, from https://www.sightline.org/2017/09/19/what-really-happened-wi...

"In a single high-turnout election in November, voters could rank any candidates they wanted, regardless of party."

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

#357

Post by jahmed »

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.

If you don't represent the views of the voters you won't win.

Another way to say it is "if you're not of the society, you will be outcast and blockaded from any chance of winning."

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

#358

Post by godelski »

pksebben wrote: post #322
justinpombrio wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone like me who hadn't heard of Gibbard's theorem, it's actually even simpler (and more depressing) than Arrow's theorem. To quote Wikipedia: For any deterministic process of collective decision, at least one of the following three properties must hold: 1. The process is dictatorial, i.e. there exists a distinguished agent who can impose the outcome; 2. The process limits the possible outcomes to two options o…

according to Wikipedia: >Gibbard's theorem states that a deterministic process of collective decision cannot be straightforward, except possibly in two cases: if there is a distinguished agent who has a dictatorial power, or if the process limits the outcome to two possible options only. .. it also mentions that gibbard's is specifically about irv. All that aside, I can't understand the idea that we only get to chang…

> it also mentions that gibbard's is specifically about irv.

This isn't true

> I can't understand the idea that we only get to change things once.

Those of us concerned about IRV and promoting cardionality actually looked at history. Between 1910 and 1920 40 US cities used Bucklin voting (similar to IRV, slightly better even) and all repealed them[0]. So looking at history we see that people recognized the need for a better voting system, implemented something similar to IRV, saw that it didn't make things better, and subsequently said "fuck it, we'll go back to FPTP because it is easier." (I should also mention that in Australia, since 1949, 90% of Lower House elections, which use IRV, are equivalent to using FPTP[1])

So we're looking at history (and modern times) and saying "hey, this didn't work and actually ended up causing us to take a step backwards. Maybe we shouldn't repeat the same mistake."

I hope this clarifies our differing understanding of history.

[0] https://clayshentrup.medium.com/momentum-e5fd12ffce2a

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

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

#359

Post by anitil »

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…

I remember there was also some parties that would name themselves suspiciously similar to existing parties and parlay that in to political power via the horse trading you mentioned.

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

#360

Post by hash872 »

gizmo385 wrote: post #334
hash872 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I left a key part out- the issue is combining ranked choice voting AND a multiple party system. If you only had 2-3 parties, I agree with you. However I think what the RCV people are hoping for is a multiparty system, yes? So once you get above 4 parties, the odds of multiple states all having picked a different candidate increases, so that no one gets a majority. Extremely simplified example- the South all ch…

Couldn't states just develop complex rules for sending their delegations that knock losing candidates off the list and redistribute local votes based on national electoral gridlock? That sounds somewhat similar to the way the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is supposed to work.

I guess in theory. You'd need a bunch of states to cooperate together (so both red & blue), plus Congress has to bless it. Contrary to what the popular vote people seem to believe, the Compact Clause (Article I, Section 10, Clause 3) of the Constitution states that "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State"
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