Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
Approval Voting seems to just dilute your vote the more candidates you vote for. Candidates will tell people people to only place one vote. What a silly system.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.
Nobody thinks its a magic bullet, we’re all looking for the next rung that leads us closer to a happy democracy. None of us are looking for instant easy solutions, we’re trying to iterate and be better.
Yup, and the only way out of that is Ranked Choice Voting.
Go volunteer for your local RCV group, California’s is here: https://www.calrcv.org/
Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
Approval Voting seems to just dilute your vote the more candidates you vote for. Candidates will tell people people to only place one vote. What a silly system.
Your worst-case scenario is how things currently work.
Realistically, people will just ignore that shite advice, and vote for as many people as they feel like. It works out on average.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.
Approval is trivial.
Ranked Pairs has the same ballots as Ranked Choice and it works the way people think ranked ballots work.
RCV has momentum primarily because people keep using the name to mean “ranked ballots.”
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Nobody thinks its a magic bullet, we’re all looking for the next rung that leads us closer to a happy democracy. None of us are looking for instant easy solutions, we’re trying to iterate and be better.
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In other words, It’s necessary but not sufficient for reforming the two party system.
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