Is Ranked-Choice Voting Anti-Democratic?

At first glance, the idea of “ranked choice” voting seems like a pretty good idea. Voters rank candidates in order of preference rather than picking just one. If no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, the remaining ballots “are reallocated from the lowest-performing finishers to second or third choices,” according to Politico. The process continues until one candidate has received 50% of the vote.

What this means in the real world is a delayed result as the process of tabulating votes can continue for three or even four rounds. Alaska appears ready to announce the winner of their special election for their one House seat — two weeks after the votes were cast. I’m tempted to use the old quote misattributed to Stalin about the voters not counting in an election, just those who count the votes.

I think voting should be simple, fair, and relatively easy. And I think that vote counting needs to be as simple as possible in order to avoid problems. Ranked choice voting is a problem waiting to happen.

But the argument that ranked choice is more “inclusive” and forces candidates to appeal to a broader slice of the electorate in order to appear on more second and third-choice ballots doesn’t make any sense. In fact, as Sean-Michael Pigeon of NRO points out, the opposite is likely to happen.

While majoritarian systems push candidates to the middle, the reverse happens in proportional elections. Votes in party primaries are allotted proportionally, so single-issue and fringe candidates can stay in the race much longer. For example, John Kasich siphoned votes from more popular candidates in the 2016 GOP primary even though he had no chance of winning.

I would say that it’s a problem, because it gives Democrats an advantage to keep shifting their votes to candidates that survive.

It wouldn’t be supported by Democrats if it didn’t operate to their advantage.

Some places have runoff elections, if a candidate doesn’t get 50% plus 1 in the first round. They should just have runoff elections, in my opinion, rather than this ranked choice business.

Why did it take Alaska two weeks to count the votes? I understand it adds a layer of complexity to have ranked choices that need to be tallied. But I suspect this creates time for shenanigans behind the scenes.

Ranked Choice Voting guarantees the “moderate” candidate always wins.

Republicans will put their 1st choice with a second choice and third choice.

Democrats will put their 1st choice, then put the GOP 2nd and 3rd choices as their 2nd and 3rd choices.

The GOP’s top choice loses because Democrats vote for the GOP 2nd and 3rd choices.

Remember to tell people NO ON RANKED CHOICE VOTING!

Maybe Alaskans just didn’t like Sarah Palin. She pandered to the school unions against school choice. There are plenty of supposedly good guys against whom you have to hold your nose when you get too close. Ronnie Ray-Gun met with Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterand & Hulmut Schmit to drive the stake into “Fordism” (High Tariffs & High Wages for American workers) to ship factories & jobs off to China. Ike refused to recognize returning Wehrmacht sad-sacks as POWs, dumping them on the overflow plains of the Rhine, putting fences & guards around them & letting up to a million die of starvation. Churchill presided over the intentional famine policy over 2.3 million starving Punjabis in order to stabilize the Australian wheat market. Big stinkers in history. Little Sarah is a nice person. So what.

Consider, by definition, 50% of Americans have below average intelligence. People below one standard deviation from the mean have difficulty making complex decisions, such as choosing between two or more undesirable choices. These are undesirable choices because they already picked their desired choice for the number one ranking. Even then, their first choice can be between multiple undesirable choices. This is no fault of their own, they simply lack the cognitive ability to make a desirable decision.

There is something to be said about keeping it simple. It has worked for centuries.

Of course it is anti-democratic.

Most people are confused by more complex ballots like this. Many thousands did not make a second choice because they didn’t understand it. That’s the only reason Sarah lost.

Democrats are famous for criticizing much less confusing ballots as “anti-democratic,” such as the “butterfly ballot” in the 2000 Florida election. Suddenly, ballots aren’t an issue for them.

“It wouldn’t be supported by Democrats if it didn’t operate to their advantage.”

That is absolutely correct. With maybe the sole exception of Alaska and maybe a few other municipalities out there, RCV is almost exclusively found in Democrat-controlled cities.

The fact that it’s so strongly backed by Democrats has little to do with fairness as they put it. it’s about gaming the system for their benefit. Simply put, if the democrats favor an idea like this, it’s gotta be bad!

Whine, whine, snivel, snivel.

Mary Pelota got more votes than Sarah Palin on the first round - 75K vs. 58K. Using “first past the pole” she still would have won.

Nick Begich got 53K votes. Since no candidate got over 50%, and his was the smallest total, his votes went to the voters’ second choices with with Palin getting 27K and Pelota getting 17K. 11K of his votes were “exhausted” meaning that the voters didn’t chose a second candidate.

So, “Worked as Designed.”

What the ranked vote revealed is that Sarah Palin was not the second choice of over half of Nick Begich voters. We need to ask why. We also need to ask why Pelota got such a high initial vote.

Of course, if this had been a Democrat losing with a second Democrat candidate, there would be a lawsuit demanding all of the exhausted votes be applied the Democrat total.

It’s a sham that allows someone other the #1 vote getter to win the election.

Either the #1 vote getter should win outright or, if he/she only get’s a plurality, there should be a runoff of the top 2 vote getters.

It’s got the chance of breaking the duopoly. It definitely ends the “don’t vote 3rd party, that’s wasting your vote”. Now you can vote 3rd party as your 1st choice and put the duopoly candidate you find less repugnant 2nd or 3rd.

The fact is we’ve got something wrong. The 2 parties combine for about 2/3 of registered voters, and about 50% approval, and yet 99.9% of elected office. That math ain’t right.

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