Posted on 12/25/2023 9:52:12 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Elected officials across the political spectrum and local Democratic and Republican parties are fighting against ranked-choice voting (RCV) as the election system will be considered by voters in multiple states next year.
RCV is an election process being introduced in states across the country, but is facing pushback from both sides of the political aisle, including efforts to ban it. With RCV, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then a runoff system is triggered. When voters cast their ballots, they rank each candidate in order of first-to-last.
If one candidate doesn't reach the 50% plus-one vote threshold, then the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes is eliminated, then second-choice votes from those who voted for the last-place finisher are reallocated among the remaining candidates and tallied – in a process that continues until a candidate receives the majority of the vote.
RCV proponents argue that the system results in representative outcomes and majority rule, incentivizes positive campaigning, allows for more voter choice, and saves money when replacing preliminaries or runoffs, according to pro-RCV organization FairVote.
(Excerpt) Read more at justthenews.com ...
The first prob w/this is you have to rank ALL candidates, including those of parties you may not like, and rank accordingly. For most, the ranking of all but the top couple of candidates will be arbitrary.
I.e. The ticket will not just have a bunch of R and D candidates, but independents or even other parties. Recognize that there will be multiple Rs, Ds, and Is.
Let’s say, you are usually for R, against D, and dismiss out of hand the I’s. So you go list your R candidates only on the ballot.
If it turns out all the R’s lose, since you did NOT rank ALL candidates, you now have no vote in the D vs I runoff.
The next election, you’ve got it beaten into your head you need to rank ALL, but how to do? How good of a comparison are you going to make against all those candidates you’re not really interested in? Something may come up in the elimination rounds that changes your mind per the lower choice candidates, especially since those folks will garner more media attention in the runoff days.
So, a big problem w/RCV is that it forces voters to rank ALL candidates PERFECTLY based on a certain set of available candidates, which is not going to happen.
The reality is that the voter’s choice of ranking will change depending on who is left on the battlefield. The only chance to preclude that is to make a PERFECT ranking of candidates up front because the eliminations are handled automatically.
But there is no way to do that. Let’s say I’m going for the independents. My ranking may change depending on who actually gets the most votes.
I.e., say there are 2 Rs, 2 Ds and 2 Is. Of the Is, R voters generally would prefer I #1 but D voters generally would prefer I #2. Let’s also say, I like both sides of the aisle to “foster a spirit of cooperation”.
So say I really want an I and my favorite is #1, I’ll tolerate an R, and I don’t like the Ds. I also think the R will beat the Ds easy.
So I vote for my I #1 but to my surprise, a D takes the most votes. Had I actually known in advance that would be the case, I would’ve selected I #2 as my top choice since the Ds hate I #1 so much.
Even though I “learned my lesson” last time and ranked all candidates, I am still screwed.
So the ultimate problem w/RCV is that not only must you perfectly rank all candidates, you must also be PSYCHIC -knowing in advance who tops it in the first round. Indeed, you have to know the full sequence in which elimination will occur.
How is this constitutionally legal? Assigning my vote to another person cancels my choice!
bipartisan concerns“
BS the rats are pushing this hard. The only “concern” they have is they won’t get it through before people wake up. Ranked voting saved Murkowski and killed Palin.
Republicans are still winning occasionally -- and, that must be stopped.
I know I'm being a little sarcastic; but, I believe that RCV is just a ruse to make sure a Democrat wins.
We landed with a 2 party system where neither party actually stands for anything, and neither party really represents the people, and yet they own all the elected seats.
We got stuck with ranked choice voting here in what used to be Alaska. We had a clear choice at first between a flaming democrat (Peltola) and a conservative (Begich). Then on the last possible day to file that disengenous cheerleader Palin jumped in in another attempt to be relevant. Owing to the mechanics of RCV this resulted in Peltola winning the seat formerly occupied by Don Young. BTW Peltola was strongly supported by our famous RINO Murkowski.
Great answer to my question. Thanks!
Voting for a Democrat would be a RANK CHOICE.
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