Ranked Choice Voting

[Aardvark86]

Open forum - what are the thoughts of the group on this?

From my perspective, what's intuitively attractive is that in a general election, it has some incentives toward moderation. What's less attractive is that in primaries (particularly in one-horse political towns), it tends toward the opposite.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Ranked choice voting would also give 3rd parties a better chance as it takes away the need for strategic voting.

I think if you have to have one winner in an election such as for an executive branch. You need ranked choice voting. For legislatures I think you need proportional representation.

 

[alaskanseminole]

Ranked choice voting would also give 3rd parties a better chance as it takes away the need for strategic voting.

I think if you have to have one winner in an election such as for an executive branch. You need ranked choice voting. For legislatures I think you need proportional representation.

For your first point alone, I'd give it some serious consideration.

For those not familiar with it, ranked choice voting (RCV) (think, instant-runoff voting), is an electoral system where voters rank candidates in order of preference instead of choosing just one candidate. Each voter ranks candidats on the ballot in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, etc.).

Then for vote counting, all first-choice votes are tallied. If a candidate receives a majority (more than 50%) of the first-choice votes, they are declared the winner. But iff no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice have their votes transferred to their next choice. THe process continues until a candidate receives a majority of votes and is declared the winner. BOOM!

IMO ranked choice voting ensures majority support for the winner, reduces strategic voting, encourages positive campaigning by incentivizing candidates to appeal to a broader audience, and eliminates the need for separate runoff elections. It should save a lot of time and money too.,

OP, you should have done a poll.

 

[Aardvark86]

Ranked choice voting would also give 3rd parties a better chance as it takes away the need for strategic voting.

I think if you have to have one winner in an election such as for an executive branch. You need ranked choice voting. For legislatures I think you need proportional representation.

Historically, I've been anti-third party because, well, historically our two party system was a reflection of stability. Not so much these days. The legislative angle is also interesting - while I'm not much for simple proportionate representation, I do think that we've reached the point were greater 3d party options will move our current politics back away from the current parliamentary approach.

My local jurisdiction, for another 3 weeks, is Arlington, VA, which is about 80:20 democratic. The county board is five elected individuals (for a population of around 300k), and they are all elected at large (ie, there are no districts). The local democratic party has now implemented ranked choice in their primaries. After two cycles, the effect has been to reinforce the party activist (and in the first case, the more moderate first round winner who had something like 40% of the vote was quickly eliminated in favor of more extreme/party activist types). The result is that the county board is essentially an echo chamber.

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

Historically, I've been anti-third party because, well, historically our two party system was a reflection of stability. Not so much these days. The legislative angle is also interesting - while I'm not much for simple proportionate representation, I do think that we've reached the point were greater 3d party options will move our current politics back away from the current parliamentary approach.

My local jurisdiction, for another 3 weeks, is Arlington, VA, which is about 80:20 democratic. The county board is five elected individuals (for a population of around 300k), and they are all elected at large (ie, there are no districts). The local democratic party has now implemented ranked choice in their primaries. After two cycles, the effect has been to reinforce the party activist (and in the first case, the more moderate first round winner who had something like 40% of the vote was quickly eliminated in favor of more extreme/party activist types). The result is that the county board is essentially an echo chamber.

Ehh the primaries isn't where I think it would shine the best.

The 2 party system wasn't really all that stable. For most of the country's history we've not voted for the person we think will do the best job but instead voted against someone we think will do a bad job.

A long time ago they realized in our country that they don't have to sell you on them as leaders but instead need to sell you on their opponents as a disaster.

Ideally speaking I would really love to have a party with a chance of winning seats that I was sold on.

Ideally we should have 6 to 8 parties with seats in congress and parties to form coalitions to get things done.

Also I think we need to depower the senate, take away from them most lawmaking powers and the power of the purse. Leave the senate for approving or rejecting appointments and some foreign policy and military powers.

 

[B1GDeal]

I'm totally fine with ranked choice. It makes those running have to consider all of the folks they represent and not just the smaller base who eat up their red meat. And, there will be areas where the voters are the base so this won't make as much or a difference, but in a lot of areas... this will keep things more to the middle.

 

[alaskanseminole]

I'm totally fine with ranked choice. It makes those running have to consider all of the folks they represent and not just the smaller base who eat up their red meat. And, there will be areas where the voters are the base so this won't make as much or a difference, but in a lot of areas... this will keep things more to the middle.

So, how do we fix it?

 

[B1GDeal]

I think elimination of term-limits, gerrymandering, ranked choice and equally federally funded campaigns would solve a lot of the issues that we face. But, the politicians aren't going to go for most of this so we are stuck in this cycle.