- Ranking a vote is something everyone intuitively understands. What’s your favorite ice cream? What’s your second favorite?
- RCV doesn’t produce majority winners, for example someone who gets 34% in a three-way race doesn’t necessarily win. Instead the person who had 33% in the first round and 51% in the second round might win. This is better.
- RCV can save millions of dollars by eliminating the need for run-off elections AND primaries.
- FPTP voting, that’s the system we have now, encourages strategic voting and candidate manipulation in the extreme. RCV will make it impossible to push candidates out of the race because they are “spoilers.”
- RCV naturally brings together those voters who are voting for candidate A as first choice and candidate B as second choice. RCV tends to reduce vitriol in campaigns because the candidate doesn’t want to alienate the other candidates’ supporters. Instead, she/he wants to be those voters’ second choice.
- Go to FairVote to see how many states and counties are already using RCV. No other alternative voting system has been used as often and with as much success as RCV.
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Indeed
i disagree! the absolute BEST voting system bar none is Score/Range Voting. it’s used for nearly EVERYTHING (except STATE voting) because it works the best for many reasons. please educate yourselves about this — it’s paramount!
(the website is horrid, but there’ is MUCH great info there…)
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you think Score Voting is complicated? SERIOUSLY??? it’s the most used voting system for everything BUT elections! even young boys & girls use it for rating individuals of the opposite (hopefully) sex! OMG man, you MUST be kidding!
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Score/Range Voting vs. IRV…
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Lot of good dialog over the last 24hrs. It does feel like most feel that RCV doesn’t go far enough… enter STAR/AR voting.
I can see BOTH arguments re: the idea of simplicity vs more detailed preference to determine a stronger definition of success vs today’s primary/plurality system.
At this point, thinking about the lowest common denominator - I would side with RCV and it’s simplicity of linear ranking of candidates and dropping off the lowest vote getter to run subsequent recounts until one candidate has a majority.
I do thing STAR/AR is valid and would not be mad if it became the selected mechanism. RCV could end up being a step towards that over time.
I think the Ranked Robin is another potential improvement after RCV came into place. I’d love to see a locality try it and see it gain the same measure of groundswell that RCV is in motion to build today.
I did see a concern with the idea that folks don’t fully complete the RCV ballot. To me, this is similar to folks that vote for “Scooby Doo” or “Elvis” today. If someone only ranks 2 out of 4 candidates and those 2 are dropped, I don’t have an issue with that ballot being set aside just like “Scooby Doo” and “Elvis” would be today.
The argument that “hated” candidates get pushed, because primaries are no longer the practice and the “other side” can vote for a candidate to “stick it to the other party”… If that community is THAT petty, so be it. They have to live with that winning candidate. But, I suspect a candidate that can draw folks from opposing parties is, in effect, a candidate that most in the community can truly agree on. I don’t see how that is a bad thing. In mixed districts, the winning rep should be a rep for all in that district or state.
My two cents… Again, I’m really happy to see the wealth of views and dialog!
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As a voter we get one vote!
Our election system was founded on voters getting one vote. Our vote should not be transferred to our second, third, or fourth choice if our first choice loses.
We as voters need to be informed and decide based on our research who gets our one vote. That is why it is so important and precious.
We should be encouraging voters do more research. How to vote should be secure but easy process. But deciding who we as a voter are going to pay to lead us, to govern us, should not be easy. We are deciding who are going to be our public servants. That process deserves the reverence it is due. Electing people to public service should not be simple, or easy, or lazy. Ranked Choice Voting is epitome of lazy voting.
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Score voting isn’t complicated. But I was quoting/responding to a user who does. Puzzling, considering we use it on Amazon, IMDB, and to rate our experiences dining out. I’m just as baffled as you. 
i apologize, it appeared to me that you were claiming Score voting is complicated, which entirely baffled me. it’s about the only voting system that needs no explanation because it’s the only voting system everyone uses for practically everything. thanks for the clarification! 
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“Vote” just means “voice”. When we say “one person, one vote”, we mean that people get an equal say in the outcome. Earlier this year, I was interested in this subject, so I studied what the Supreme Court had to say about “one person, one vote”, and compiled excerpts from their rulings into a document. Hopefully this clarifies the meaning of “one person, one vote”.
What should be clear is allowing voters to give input on multiple candidates does not violate “one person, one vote”, provided all voters get the opportunity.
That said, there is an argument does RCV violates it, because it only conditionally counts your input on other candidates. The voting methods I support (STAR, Approval, Ranked Robin) always consider all the information every voter puts on their ballot. However, RCV frequently ignores a significant portion of ballot data. This contributes to its chaotic behavior, its inaccuracies, and administrative issues.
As for the concept of “lazy voting”, and wanting voters to be more engaged: Our current choose-one system is actually the epitome of that. I’m not defending RCV, but limiting voters to give input on only one candidate obviously requires less thought. We currently reward voters who abandon independent thought and default to the opinion of a crowd.
If you want voters to do more research, you should also want them providing an opinion on multiple candidates.
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Ranked choice voting is complicated for voters to understand, gives more relative power to voters that mark many boxes, and limits voices outside of the moderate establishment (and new ideas). For a great alternative visit this voting proposal: Proportional Past the Post elections!
Or get an overview video here:
I am very familiar with the RVC option as I work in an election office, directly on my Election Commissioner.
I do not believe that we should pick our leaders like we are ranking our favorite ice cream flavors.
I do weeks of research leading up to election, before casting my one vote for the candidate that most aligns with my values. I am also an engaged voter by paying attention to what committees an elected official is on, who they vote on bills, what bill they propose, who engaged they are with constituents. This is how our founding fathers intended our system to work.
Society and our education system want us to forget that we are in fact a constitutional republic not a democracy. A constitutional republic protects an individual’s right against the majority.
One vote is to constitutional republic as is RVC is to democracy.
And if more people went out and voted in every election their voice would be heard more with their one vote. However, the vast majority of society will complain about their government and their elected officials but not do anything to change it. Such as actually voting.
We will have to agree to disagree. And that is the beauty of our country.
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It hasn’t in SF, Oakland or NYC. We have more recall elections then ever now.
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Indeed. And this is a great argument for Approval voting, STAR voting, or any method that values consensus and accurate representation instead of chasing majority rule.
I also want to make abundantly clear I oppose RCV. And my reasons for opposing it are similar to why I also oppose our traditional system. For one, both systems are inherently majoritarian, pitting one half of the country against the other. They (RCV and our traditional system) treat voters as tokens for politicians. But we need systems that treat voters as the sovereign making the decision, and place trust in their judgement. If I judge that two candidates are equally capable, I should be able to say that. Limiting my ability to assert that reduces my voice from that of a sovereign to that of a token.
When the opportunity arises, open primaries can create chaos and animosity. For example, we saw that in the recent open primaries in the Presidential races where Democrats didn’t need to vote for incumbent Biden, since he had no competition, and so instead voted for Nikki Haley, a war monger, on the Republican side in states that allowed that. Had the Republicans not had a clearly strong candidate, that could have created big problems for the Party.
The Party system is important, and when other Party members can decide the candidate for a Party they are not a member of, its a form of hijacking.
It also ends up with the same chaos as Ranked Choice because the circumstances of the landscape of the candidates can create big problems that no one foresaw.
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The problem, broadly, with the machines, is that the onus is on the CITIZENS to have to go to battle in court over weeks, months or years just to try to get obvious fraud adjudicated. Even if the software is open source, the problems with the entire system are massive and we see situations like invalid voters being removed from the rolls only to magically appear again months later, just in time for an election. Judges don’t want to adjudicate things like software issues, no matter how strong the evidence is.
Until we can get a handle on how to create an AUDITABLE system, we should return to hand counted paper ballots. I participated in a hand counted primary election in Washoe County, NV and it was all fully transparent and completed in just hours. One person offered to pay for an entire election in Washoe County if they used hand counting, and naturally, the Democrat controlled Elections Department refused. Currently our cities are spending MILLIONS on unauditable machines that citizens have to go to court just to see the most basic components to find out why nothing made sense.
If you haven’t watched Harry Haury, I recommend it. He explains what HAVA was originally meant to do, and what has gone wrong, and it is stunning.
Yes! RCV also retains the problem of a spoiler candidate that is inherent in plurality voting. I have asked why RCV is being promoted over STAR but so far crickets…
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A drawback to score/range voting is that everyone “grades” differently. Someone’s 2 is some one else’s 5. But ranking 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice is a much more consistent way to grade. Sometimes I feel like these Star Voting and Approval Voting advocates are sent by DNC to confuse people. Because RCV spells an end to parties. And eventually, that’s what we want. No more political parties running US elections.
What is STAR?
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