The main problem with ranked choice voting is that having more candidates still reduces your chances of success. Your second, third, etc votes aren’t counted until your favorite is knocked out. Here’s a simple example:
A - 45%
B - 20%
C - 15%
D - 10%
E - 5%
F - 5%
Let’s say that B and D-F all have C as preferred second, and enough have A as third for A to get >50%. The votes for C won’t ever get counted because A would cross 50% first, even though most people prefer C to A (as in, if the election was just A and C, C would win).
STAR voting solves this by breaking up your vote according to your preferences. So your preference for C over D-F will be counted before anyone is knocked out, and C would likely win the election.
I personally think Approval voting is even better because it’s so simple, you don’t show preferences between candidates, you just pick the ones that are acceptable and the one that’s most acceptable wins.
And this is why I tend to pitch approval voting. You usually get the same results as more complex models, it’s simple to understand, and there’s no scoring model that people can bicker about. You mark the candidates that are acceptable, and don’t mark the candidates that are unacceptable.
I think STAR is technically better, but it’s a harder sell because people need to understand RCV and STAR well enough to understand the differences.
Approval is the same as FPTP conceptually, but with multiple votes thrown in. We already do something similar when there are multiple seats available (e.g. city council) where the top X candidates get the position, but we just set X to 1 for single seats like Senator or President. It’s intuitive, and high numbers for the result is a nice side effect.
Approval should be the default. There’s no good reason not to do it everywhere. “Check anyone you like, most votes wins.” Done. Good results, low regret, no invitations to self-defeating strategery.
Incidentally it’s how presidential elections used to work: every voter wrote two names, and the runner-up became vice president. That ended with the twelfth amendment after a comically inept tie-breaking session needed thirty-five attempts.
Ranked ballots are better but I’m always going to endorse Condorcet specifically because ‘more people wanted this guy’ are what elections are for. RCV finds the first candidate who can scrounge together a simple majority. Condorcet finds anyone who’d beat them. The possibility of someone who’d beat them is all people need to know about why RCV sucks.
Score systems… I don’t see the draw. Intensity of support is individually crucial and collectively impactful, but if everybody counts equally, then the math can’t care. You don’t get to vote harder based on strong feelings. You also shouldn’t be able to throw away half your vote by scoring your favored frontrunner low. STAR does paper over that honesty-punishing shortcoming, but only by expressing what Ranked systems do naturally.
As an off-the-cuff illustration, if C>B>A and B>C>A voters score everyone 3-2-1, but A>B>C voters score everyone 5-3-1, C can be eliminated despite supermajority preference over A. If it’s split about evenly, A averages 1+1+5, B averages 3+2+3, and C averages 3+2+1. The runoff comes down to A and B. B wins, in this case… even if C>B>A ballots outnumber B>C>A ballots.
Approval would be better than we have now but on a personal level I just dislike that I can’t express which I’d my preferred candidate. If Mitt Romney, Trump, Biden, and Bernie Sanders are all running, and I really want Bernie to win, but really don’t want Trump to win, how should I vote? In star voting this is easy. In approval voting I have a tough decision on my hands. Should I also vote for Biden and Romney? My ballot then indicates I am equally happy with these three candidates which is far from true. Or do I vote for Bernie only, knowing he may lose and without my support, the more moderate candidates may also lose to Trump?
It was a hard sell in Oregon. I’m also a STAR proponent. The problem is the average voter is scared by conservative headlines and they already don’t like the idea of mail in voting. Changing the votting system even further would be some Communist conspiracy outside of the Metro area, with a non trivial number in the Metro area believing the same lies.
I live in Utah where I’ve only ever voted by mail, and we’re a very red state. I’ve never had anyone express concern about our mail in voting process, the main concerns are typically over voting machines (which I share, I don’t trust single points of failure with minimal audit capabilities). Mail voting is equitable since you can either drop off a ballot or mail it, they can be tracked to ensure they’re received, and they can be recounted in person.
So the opposition to mail voting seems centralized in areas where Republicans have less control. So it’s obviously BS. How they’re not suffering for this from independent voters is beyond me.
Star voting? I don’t know a lot about it but it sounds promising.
The main problem with ranked choice voting is that having more candidates still reduces your chances of success. Your second, third, etc votes aren’t counted until your favorite is knocked out. Here’s a simple example:
Let’s say that B and D-F all have C as preferred second, and enough have A as third for A to get >50%. The votes for C won’t ever get counted because A would cross 50% first, even though most people prefer C to A (as in, if the election was just A and C, C would win).
STAR voting solves this by breaking up your vote according to your preferences. So your preference for C over D-F will be counted before anyone is knocked out, and C would likely win the election.
I personally think Approval voting is even better because it’s so simple, you don’t show preferences between candidates, you just pick the ones that are acceptable and the one that’s most acceptable wins.
A simpler demonstration:
45% vote A > B > C.
35% vote C > B > A.
20% vote B > C > A.
FPTP says A wins despite 55% of people preferring B or C instead. This is classic vote-splitting.
RCV eliminates B for having the fewest top votes, making the election 45% A>C vs 55% C>A, so C wins. But 65% of people preferred B instead.
Ranked Pairs does 1v1 comparisons: A-B is 45-55, A-C is 45-55, B-C is 65-35. B wins every possible runoff and therefore the election.
… and yeah, Approval would look something like 45% A, 65% C, 100% B. If everybody checked their top two candidates, everybody would vote B.
Thanks for the simple example!
And this is why I tend to pitch approval voting. You usually get the same results as more complex models, it’s simple to understand, and there’s no scoring model that people can bicker about. You mark the candidates that are acceptable, and don’t mark the candidates that are unacceptable.
I think STAR is technically better, but it’s a harder sell because people need to understand RCV and STAR well enough to understand the differences.
Approval is the same as FPTP conceptually, but with multiple votes thrown in. We already do something similar when there are multiple seats available (e.g. city council) where the top X candidates get the position, but we just set X to 1 for single seats like Senator or President. It’s intuitive, and high numbers for the result is a nice side effect.
Approval should be the default. There’s no good reason not to do it everywhere. “Check anyone you like, most votes wins.” Done. Good results, low regret, no invitations to self-defeating strategery.
Incidentally it’s how presidential elections used to work: every voter wrote two names, and the runner-up became vice president. That ended with the twelfth amendment after a comically inept tie-breaking session needed thirty-five attempts.
Ranked ballots are better but I’m always going to endorse Condorcet specifically because ‘more people wanted this guy’ are what elections are for. RCV finds the first candidate who can scrounge together a simple majority. Condorcet finds anyone who’d beat them. The possibility of someone who’d beat them is all people need to know about why RCV sucks.
Score systems… I don’t see the draw. Intensity of support is individually crucial and collectively impactful, but if everybody counts equally, then the math can’t care. You don’t get to vote harder based on strong feelings. You also shouldn’t be able to throw away half your vote by scoring your favored frontrunner low. STAR does paper over that honesty-punishing shortcoming, but only by expressing what Ranked systems do naturally.
As an off-the-cuff illustration, if C>B>A and B>C>A voters score everyone 3-2-1, but A>B>C voters score everyone 5-3-1, C can be eliminated despite supermajority preference over A. If it’s split about evenly, A averages 1+1+5, B averages 3+2+3, and C averages 3+2+1. The runoff comes down to A and B. B wins, in this case… even if C>B>A ballots outnumber B>C>A ballots.
Approval would be better than we have now but on a personal level I just dislike that I can’t express which I’d my preferred candidate. If Mitt Romney, Trump, Biden, and Bernie Sanders are all running, and I really want Bernie to win, but really don’t want Trump to win, how should I vote? In star voting this is easy. In approval voting I have a tough decision on my hands. Should I also vote for Biden and Romney? My ballot then indicates I am equally happy with these three candidates which is far from true. Or do I vote for Bernie only, knowing he may lose and without my support, the more moderate candidates may also lose to Trump?
Fair. I just like the simplicity. STAR voting is nice, I just don’t know if it’ll be a hard sell.
It was a hard sell in Oregon. I’m also a STAR proponent. The problem is the average voter is scared by conservative headlines and they already don’t like the idea of mail in voting. Changing the votting system even further would be some Communist conspiracy outside of the Metro area, with a non trivial number in the Metro area believing the same lies.
I live in Utah where I’ve only ever voted by mail, and we’re a very red state. I’ve never had anyone express concern about our mail in voting process, the main concerns are typically over voting machines (which I share, I don’t trust single points of failure with minimal audit capabilities). Mail voting is equitable since you can either drop off a ballot or mail it, they can be tracked to ensure they’re received, and they can be recounted in person.
So the opposition to mail voting seems centralized in areas where Republicans have less control. So it’s obviously BS. How they’re not suffering for this from independent voters is beyond me.