Ranked Choice Voting

Post Reply New Topic

Interesting newer idea that I've seen mentioned; Googled today, and here's one page I found:

https://www.fairvote.org/rcv#how_rcv_works

Seems like it might give independent and third party candidates more representation.

Seems more like a nose-dive into Socialism.

Ranked choice voting is a solid idea that is an improvement on single non-transferable vote systems by making tactical voting much less important, but by far the most important aspect of an electoral system (assuming it is free and fair) is proportionality. A proportional non-ranked system is far superior to a non-proportional ranked system.

To illustrate the difference, imagine there are three parties, A, B, and C, who compete in 50 evenly sized seats. In half these seats, 45% of the voting population support A, B gets 35%, and C gets 20%. In the other half, A and B are switched.

In traditional “first past the post”, votes for C do not affect the result. A and B each get around half the seats.

In a ranked-choice, non-proportional system, C supporters can choose whether they prefer A or B. So when C is eliminated, C supporters still get to express a preference and can influence the result. C still gets no seats though.

In a proportional system, A and B each get 40% of the seats and C gets 20%, reflecting their share of the vote.

On a second point - “score voting” is generally preferable to merely ranked voting. It’s both more expressive and more monotonic

Some good reading:
https://electionscience.org/library/score-voting/
https://rangevoting.org/Monotone.html

I like the presidental voting system we have in Poland:

Any person above 35 can try to register as a candidate.
To become a candidate, they needs to complete signs of 100 000 citizens (slightly over 0.25% of population) approving that person's candidacy.
Then there is the first round of the elections. Each voter chooses one candidate. If one candidate received support of more than 50% voters, they becomes the president.
If all the candidates received below 50%, the two with the highest support enter the second round. People vote again. As now there are only two options, either gains over 50% and becomes the president.