Yes, I understood what it said. I am asking why would you do it that way? Why start with the people that picked the last place candidate? In other words, suppose there are 7 candidates. Why should the 2nd place choices of the people who picked the 7th place finisher be the ones that decide the winner while ignoring the 2nd place choices of everybody else?
-
Be sure to read this post! Beware of scammers. https://www.indianagunowners.com/threads/classifieds-new-online-payment-guidelines-rules-paypal-venmo-zelle-etc.511734/
"Ranked choice voting"
- Thread starter KG1
- Start date
The #1 community for Gun Owners in Indiana
Member Benefits:
Fewer Ads! Discuss all aspects of firearm ownership Discuss anti-gun legislation Buy, sell, and trade in the classified section Chat with Local gun shops, ranges, trainers & other businesses Discover free outdoor shooting areas View up to date on firearm-related events Share photos & video with other members ...and so much more!
Member Benefits:
Yes, I understood what it said. I am asking why would you do it that way? Why start with the people that picked the last place candidate? In other words, suppose there are 7 candidates. Why should the 2nd place choices of the people who picked the 7th place finisher be the ones that decide the winner while ignoring the 2nd place choices of everybody else?
BehindBlueI's
Grandmaster
- Oct 3, 2012
- 25,897
- 113
Idon't think so.Spacebarisntworking.
Trump gets 51%. Done, no different than now.
Trump gets 49%. Clinton gets 49%. Johnson gets 2%.
Trump and Clinton keep their votes. Johnson is eliminated. Johnson voters #2 pick is now counted. If enough have Trump as #2 pick to put him in majority, he wins.
BehindBlueI's
Grandmaster
- Oct 3, 2012
- 25,897
- 113
I might agree with this type of voting if one permanent choice on the ballot was "None of the Above is Acceptable."
That is another "how" answer that really doesn't answer my "why" question. I guess I am not explaining it very well.
Hypothetical scenario:
Candidate A gets 25% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate B as their second choice.
Candidate B gets 20% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate A as their second choice.
Candidate C gets 15% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate A as their second choice.
Candidate D gets 12% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate C as their second choice.
Candidate E gets 11% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate C as their second choice.
Candidate F gets 9% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate C as their second choice.
Candidate G gets 8% of the vote, the people who voted for him/her list Candidate C as their second choice.
Since we start with the last place finisher and work back towards the top, Candidate C will end up winning the election with 55% of the vote once the 2nd place votes of candidates D-G are added to his/her 1st place votes. This is in spite of the fact that Candidate A was the first choice of the most people and also had the highest combination of 1st and 2nd choice votes (60%).
Obviously, this is an unlikely scenario, but it seems to me that a system that could produce this result is not a very well thought out system. It just makes no sense to me that once you start going to the 2nd place choices that you start with the people that voted for the last place candidate. Those are the people that voted for the candidate that was most likely to be a fringe candidate, why should they be the ones deciding the election?
Another way of putting it; suppose this election had come down to Maine as the deciding state and suppose Trump and Clinton tied. They then go to the Jill Stein voters for their second choice because she came in last, but ignore the Gary Johnson voters because her votes put Clinton over the top. It doesn't make sense to me.
Last edited:
hoosierdoc
Freed prisoner
good point. It would basically eliminate a manual recount. But don't worry, we can trust the computers
Why? Okay. This is a long read, but please bare with me here and consider this post when you have the time.
So first, what's wrong with the current system? Our system which is a form of First Past the Post (FPtP), has some fundamental flaws that CGP Grey explains pretty well in this video.
[video]https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo[/video]
Now, our system isn't purely FPtP. A plurality of votes doesn't necessarily elect a candidate under our system because a candidate must win a majority of electoral votes. If not a majority, the choice goes to congress to decide. But our system in effect produces the same problems that FPtP system does, such that we can treat it the same.
Almost all the bad things about FPtP voting described in the video happened in this election. We got stuck with what a majority of people believed were bad candidates and this election was more about picking the least evil candidate than any election in my lifetime. I most value individual liberty, and I had to vote for a candidate who I don't believes shares that value. But the other candidate is worse. So...
And of course, if your favorite candidate won, maybe you're thinking, So WTF? Who cares? It produced the result I wanted. Well, this time. Your candidate wining makes it a glorious system now. But when it makes your candidate lose, it sucks. It sucked when Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
If my candidate loses I'd rather it be because that's what most Americans actually want, rather than the circumstances which one party was better able to game the system over the other. I think a ranked order system in which voters could have ranked all the eligible candidates from all the parties, in one election, Obama would not have been president.
***
So to describe what is better about Maine's ranked choice voting. I think the video that CGP Grey did on alternative vote explains it pretty well. From what I've read Maine's system, it sounds like an "Instant Runoff" system, which is what CGP Grey calls "alternative vote".
[video]https://youtu.be/3Y3jE3B8HsE[/video]
The math behind instant runoff makes it superior to FPtP, because it eliminates the two biggest flaws with FPtP. But it's still not ideal. CGP Grey mentioned the problem of no Condorcet winner. That essentially means that an election should produce a winner who would beat all other candidates head to head. Getting more into the math, a Condorcet winner has a relationship to all other candidates that is transitive. In other words, if A > B and B > C then A > C. But with both our system and instant runoff, it is possible that the election could produce a result where A > B, B > C, but yet C ends up winning.
I have no doubts that if Bernie Sanders would have somehow prevailed over the DNC's efforts to scuttle him, we'd have a ****ing socialist as the next president. And I really don't believe that would have represented a majority will of the people.
Transitivity is why I required that you rank all of the available candidates most favored to least favored. Candidates were scored much like the rankings for college sports. Because all candidates are ranked in order, the candidate who has the most points is mathematically superior to all other candidates, and therefore produces a Condorcet winner.
I think the videos, taken together, do a fair job at explaining the pros and cons of each system, and explains why instant runoff is at least better than FPtP. But while touching on the worst part of FPtP, the videos don't really explain the electoral moster that results from our system.
He touched on how, in our system, the most winning strategies usually involve negative campaigns. Campaigns run in our system aren't most interested in promoting the actual values of the candidate. They don't need to promote their own values to their own base, because those voters have already made up their minds. So the winning strategy is to con the "swing" voters into fearing the other candidate more than their candidate.
And those kind of elections are a farce because they're based on a con from both sides. And with our voting system, the primaries can be an even bigger farce. They can produce either result of a milquetoast candidate like Romney, or a fringe candidate like Trump. Then the general election is either conning the base to think the candidate is as extreme, or conning the middle to think the candidate isn't as extreme.
I want to vote for the person I most want to be elected. I don't want to have to continue voting strategically against the one of exactly two candidate who sucks most. And that's the problem that ranked choice of whichever flavor, solves. We have that problem because FPtP creates the spoiler effect spoken of in the videos.
I'm not delusional about this though. The mock ranked order system that I did in the primaries is complicated. To make it practical the way we vote would have to change both legally and practically. The electoral college, if we kept it, would have to change. It's simply the ideal voting system. We can't always reach the ideal and must often settle for what is practical.
I think the constitution, at least the parts which require the electoral college, aren't going to change in my lifetime. But because of the leeway given to states in how they decide how their electors go about voting, more states could adopt some form of ranked choice voting. But that still doesn't resolve the problems with the EC, which are, that the EC does not adequately protect the values of the more rural states.
So first, what's wrong with the current system? Our system which is a form of First Past the Post (FPtP), has some fundamental flaws that CGP Grey explains pretty well in this video.
[video]https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo[/video]
Now, our system isn't purely FPtP. A plurality of votes doesn't necessarily elect a candidate under our system because a candidate must win a majority of electoral votes. If not a majority, the choice goes to congress to decide. But our system in effect produces the same problems that FPtP system does, such that we can treat it the same.
Almost all the bad things about FPtP voting described in the video happened in this election. We got stuck with what a majority of people believed were bad candidates and this election was more about picking the least evil candidate than any election in my lifetime. I most value individual liberty, and I had to vote for a candidate who I don't believes shares that value. But the other candidate is worse. So...
And of course, if your favorite candidate won, maybe you're thinking, So WTF? Who cares? It produced the result I wanted. Well, this time. Your candidate wining makes it a glorious system now. But when it makes your candidate lose, it sucks. It sucked when Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
If my candidate loses I'd rather it be because that's what most Americans actually want, rather than the circumstances which one party was better able to game the system over the other. I think a ranked order system in which voters could have ranked all the eligible candidates from all the parties, in one election, Obama would not have been president.
***
So to describe what is better about Maine's ranked choice voting. I think the video that CGP Grey did on alternative vote explains it pretty well. From what I've read Maine's system, it sounds like an "Instant Runoff" system, which is what CGP Grey calls "alternative vote".
[video]https://youtu.be/3Y3jE3B8HsE[/video]
The math behind instant runoff makes it superior to FPtP, because it eliminates the two biggest flaws with FPtP. But it's still not ideal. CGP Grey mentioned the problem of no Condorcet winner. That essentially means that an election should produce a winner who would beat all other candidates head to head. Getting more into the math, a Condorcet winner has a relationship to all other candidates that is transitive. In other words, if A > B and B > C then A > C. But with both our system and instant runoff, it is possible that the election could produce a result where A > B, B > C, but yet C ends up winning.
I have no doubts that if Bernie Sanders would have somehow prevailed over the DNC's efforts to scuttle him, we'd have a ****ing socialist as the next president. And I really don't believe that would have represented a majority will of the people.
Transitivity is why I required that you rank all of the available candidates most favored to least favored. Candidates were scored much like the rankings for college sports. Because all candidates are ranked in order, the candidate who has the most points is mathematically superior to all other candidates, and therefore produces a Condorcet winner.
I think the videos, taken together, do a fair job at explaining the pros and cons of each system, and explains why instant runoff is at least better than FPtP. But while touching on the worst part of FPtP, the videos don't really explain the electoral moster that results from our system.
He touched on how, in our system, the most winning strategies usually involve negative campaigns. Campaigns run in our system aren't most interested in promoting the actual values of the candidate. They don't need to promote their own values to their own base, because those voters have already made up their minds. So the winning strategy is to con the "swing" voters into fearing the other candidate more than their candidate.
And those kind of elections are a farce because they're based on a con from both sides. And with our voting system, the primaries can be an even bigger farce. They can produce either result of a milquetoast candidate like Romney, or a fringe candidate like Trump. Then the general election is either conning the base to think the candidate is as extreme, or conning the middle to think the candidate isn't as extreme.
I want to vote for the person I most want to be elected. I don't want to have to continue voting strategically against the one of exactly two candidate who sucks most. And that's the problem that ranked choice of whichever flavor, solves. We have that problem because FPtP creates the spoiler effect spoken of in the videos.
I'm not delusional about this though. The mock ranked order system that I did in the primaries is complicated. To make it practical the way we vote would have to change both legally and practically. The electoral college, if we kept it, would have to change. It's simply the ideal voting system. We can't always reach the ideal and must often settle for what is practical.
I think the constitution, at least the parts which require the electoral college, aren't going to change in my lifetime. But because of the leeway given to states in how they decide how their electors go about voting, more states could adopt some form of ranked choice voting. But that still doesn't resolve the problems with the EC, which are, that the EC does not adequately protect the values of the more rural states.
Whether you like it or not, the future of voting will be electronic. Probably can't stop that train. And since all votes would need to be kept somehow, it's just a matter of pumping the raw votes through an algorithm.
I'm fine with electronic voting as long as it is transparent. The interface and especially the algorithm to tally the votes should be open source. The whole system needs to produce a clear, physical, audit trail so that the results can be easily audited and re-tallied in a re-count. Such a system would be superior to the many manual systems which we've had in the past.
I'm not sure anyone is pushing for this in the general elections, but only in the primary elections where the field is thick and somewhat like minded voters and candidates.
The thought is this also leads to nicer campaigns - Kangs doesn't want to **** off Kodos supporters because he's hoping that they will list him as their 2nd choice.
Of all the 10 ideas presented by Freaknomics, I find this one to be the most practical.*
I guess there's a couple of ways to do rankings, I thought it was more of a points system, like 1st gets 7 points, 2nd gets 4, and 3rd gets 1, or something like that.**
* It's a good episode, but some ideas are kind of dumb but make you wonder...
** It turns out that yes, this is one way for doing it.
Yeah. I tried explaining it to my 80 year old MIL. The voting interface would have to be stupid easy, which would pretty much require a GUI. And put a computer screen in front of many older folks and they're just not gonna get it.
I remember back when I worked as a support engineer in a factory, helping out with teaching the older workers how to use a PC, when we switched from manual systems to computer systems. As I was showing them how the pointer on the screen moves with their mouse, they just couldn't get it. I'd tell them, move your mouse to the left and notice how the cursor follows it left. Now right. Now up. Heh, when I said "up", several people in the class lifted their mouse up off the table.
I should have said, move it forward. It's like I said above in my TL'DR post. Ranked voting is fairer and more mathematically representative. But it is less practical.
However, those people don't typically vote in the primary elections.
And how hard is to select 1st, 2nd, 3rd?
Whether you understand the mechanics and statistics about how those ranking affect the outcome, it's not hard for the voter. What may be hard is how it's implemented on the ballot machines. The UI would need to be well designed.
Yeah, I didn't read the whole Wikipedia article, but there's a lot of methods, each with a set of pros & cons.
Furthermore, it seems like a lot of the discussion here is about Trump / Hillary / Johnson and I just don't see the merits of altering at the top level (or any level) in general elections. It's a two party system and I'm fine with that for now.
Where this is useful is all of those hotly contested primary races where there's five or more candidates, and I'm talking about more than just president. Personally, I'm sick of all the negative campaigning - I saw too much of it during the primary for the congressional seat. If you want to be my number two choice, don't **** me off by running negative adds against my number one choice.
Instead of just appealing to a fringe 20%-30%, you will have to be more moderate, more rational to get elected.
About that. Let's make sure we're saying it correctly. The people who voted for someone who is mathematically eliminated, their second place vote goes to that candidate. It simulates a runoff election. In a typical runoff election, we'd vote for one of a bunch of candidates. If no candidate wins a majority the top two vote-getters run again against each other. The one who gets a majority of those votes in the second election wins. In that case, people do vote twice. And in that case the person they end up voting for might be their second or second to last choice.
And as far as appealing to moderates, that's kind of the system we have now anyway, except that the only way for a more fringe candidate to win is to lie about it. Both sides have a base of voters. So the trick for a more fringe candidate is to pretend he's a moderate, while claiming the other candidate is more fringe the other way, to appeal to those in the middle. That's what Obama did in 2008 and 2012 against true moderates.
And the other scenario, when there is a true moderate running, he has to pretend to be more extreme to win the primary and solidify his base. Then for the general campaign, he has to convince the middle that he really IS moderate, while not offending the base that nominated him. That's what happened in 2008 and 2012 on the Republican side with the moderate nominees against a candidate who pretended to be a moderate.
So do we want a system that inherently requires candidates to misrepresent themselves to get fringe candidates elected because it occasionally works for our fringe?
The old people who have a difficult time figuring out technology aren't stupid. They just spent their prime in a different time. That makes it a challenge to have a fair voting system which includes a diverse electorate.
We aren't talking about technology. Is ranking your choices a difficult concept for the elderly?
No. Just executing everyday life requires people to rank stuff. That concept by itself isn't difficult. Now as much as I tend to like to dis my MIL, she's not really stupid. But she has voted in elections for ~60 years, and for all of which she's voted for exactly one person for POTUS. So that's a challenge to get people to expand their mindset to rank the available candidates. Younger people might find that an easier transition. That doesn't make old people stupid.
Another challenge, how do you create a simple interface that everyone understands the same way, which allows people to reliably rank their choices. That's more difficult to do with a manual system. And having a GUI creates another set of issues for people who haven't used computers. That's where the technology part of it comes in.
Site Supporter
Staff online
-
Cameramonkeywww.thechosen.tv -
d.kaufmanStill Here
Members online
- F1Fanatic
- stack23
- swamptick
- daddyusmaximus
- Thor
- Reece'sPieces
- Lee11b
- gassprint1
- Meatstick
- Merk
- printcraft
- Dirtebiker
- MC1983
- WillH
- wildcatfan
- HHollow
- PowderApe
- HPRtech
- wesleyoliver95
- teratorry
- Dudelittle
- BowhuntnHoosier
- Wfulton
- Cameramonkey
- MrSmitty
- Plumbous
- indyblue
- Njorris
- snorko
- HKFaninCarmel
- MAG58
- Big Hank
- Averageguy
- jsclimbs
- invent11
- Basher
- Ingomike
- rvb
- ChooterMcGavin1973
- 10mm
- Colt556
- pokersamurai
- pharmboy
- gcoop
- Glock_22
- Phil502
- teufelmacht
- user11230706
- WebSnyper
- d.kaufman
