I think this is the first Congressional race using ranked voting. And I like it. I think it help reduce negative campaigning, which reduces negative $$$ influence. It also support independent and 3rd party candidate. Many people do strategic voting because they don't want their vote to not count, wouldn't do so with ranked voting. With independent the largest segment of the US population, this is a good way to have their vote be much more meaningful and I hope eventually lead to less extreme candidates. How does ranked choice voting work? Ranked choice voting gives you the power to rank candidates from your favorite to your least favorite. On Election Night, all the ballots are counted for voters’ first choices. If one candidate receives an outright majority, he or she wins. If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated and voters who liked that candidate the best have their ballots instantly counted for their second choice. This process repeats and last-place candidates lose until one candidate reaches a majority and wins. Your vote counts for your second choice only if your first choice has been eliminated. The loser wasn't too happy and sued. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/6674...sues-to-block-states-ranked-choice-voting-law
I love that system. I think people would be more willing to vote 3rd party if they didn’t feel like they were wasting their vote.
Heard about this on radio lab. It sure sounds more exciting and seems to remove extremists on the right and left.
The mathematicians I know that study voting really think ranked-choice (used in San Francisco, by the way) can lead to looney results. There are special cases where the population's clear 2nd choice, by any normal measure, can win as first choice with a lot of the lower-ranking votes thrown in the mix. It's a system that, I believe, sounds good in theory but has some real logical problems in practice.
I like it. But, given time and money I'm sure our innovative politicians will find a way to corrupt it.
The problem with ranked choice, at a basic level, is how much weight to put on each rank. That seems... completely arbitrary. Oh a third place vote is 1/3 the value of a 1st place vote? RLY? Doesn't each voter have their own take on how much their 3rd place vote is worth? Whereas "I vote for this person, and I don't vote for any of the others" is very clear to everyone involved. Maybe we need some expert help... Spoiler
Looks great in theory and I like it. Sadly, you guys are overestimating the cognitive abilities of a significant segment of our electorate. That ballot would make some heads explode.
But that is a desired outcome. If you reach 50%+, you are the clear winner. If you don't, that's because you aren't wanted by more than 50% of the voters. So then, a "runoff" system (automated here) is used to select the next choice - i.e. if there is a real run-off, who is now going to get 50%+? Look at it the other way with the current status quo system with no run-off. I'll take an extreme case - I have 10 candidates and each of them get around 10% of the vote, but one of them has 11%. The 11% won. Well, really? Is that really reflective of what the voters want? Absolutely not. That is a real danger -- elected official can game this for their own benefit.... I don't know how big of an issue, but I'll still take the risk given the current situation where the largest % of the population have really only two choices in most elections if they want their vote to really count.
I like this idea however it is impractical unless its done digitally. The sample ballet listed above would get confusing quick when there are dozens of people on the ballot. I believe the overall issue will be the chaos to manipulation adoption. Florida gets a lot of flack for their inept voting methods and its only because they are a swing state. California and New York would be much worse. Introduce this to the mix ..... Do the ranking method, remove party affiliation from ballots and allow voters to do digital verification would go a very long way.
Add a gag on electioneering until six weeks before election, and limit the campaign budgets to public funds and and I'm in 100%.
Do that and people will vote for President like they vote for County Clerk -- "Nunez? We need more hispanics in government!" "Perry? I think I remember that name." "Carrie? That's not a serious-sounding name like Robert!"
For all the efforts to register for and "get out" the vote, there doesn't seem to be much interest in producing informed voters that take the time to understand who and what they are voting for, and I think that's way more important. I cringe every time I see the celebrity montage telling the general public to vote. I would much prefer they do the public a favor and tell them to read a League of Women Voters Guide and make careful decisions on every line on the ballot or don't bother. Democracy requires informed voters. It's not that hard to read a League of Women Voters guide -- I learned this my freshman year in high school from my Debate teacher. Since the dawn of women's suffrage, the League of Woman Voters have published a non-partisan guide to every election in the United States in an effort to counter the claim that women weren't informed enough to make an informed decision in the voting booth. They ask every candidate for every office a series of questions and publish the answers. There are always some that don't bother to reply, and no matter who they are, I never vote for anyone that does that.
In an era where hyper-partisanship is weakening our democracy more and more, a legislative solution that discourages negative campaigning and encourages candidates to reach out to multiple constituencies (instead of playing only to their base), is a huge win. We need more of this.
