Posted on 09/01/2022 7:38:40 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
As I have been saying, it is damned hard to beat both the Democrat and the GOPe/Vichy Republicans. And with a strong, attractive Democrat candidate, it is probably impossible.
I expect to see a lot more of this come November.
The GOPe would rather the Democrats continue destroying the nation than have any MAGA candidate win a seat. The Vichy Republicans being anybody’s dog that will pet them simply go along to get along.
Regarding federal elections, the problem is not the voting method, but voters who have never been taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had intended for those powers to be understood.
Insights welcome.
It’s the best way to get the rankest candidate. Dumbass banana republic elections have more serious consequences than normal elections.
Yes, period.
If you want to know why, because it is sold as having MORE choices, but having “more choices” means we have less discernment in those choices!!
It’s just ignorance on a grander scale!!
Republicans got 111K votes versus 75K for the Democrat. And yet it's the Democrat who got elected. What a scam!
Ranked choice allowed Nick Begich to run as a well funded "spoiler" against Sarah Palin, and to divide the Republican vote. A dirty trick if I've ever seen one, and it was enabled by ranked choice.
Sarah Palin is about 12 years past her political expiration date. I hadn’t even heard her name very much in recent years except for those times when her train wreck of a family was in the news. And I thought she had moved to Arizona, too.
I would suggest that political parties as they are constituted in the U.S. are incompatible with democracy.
And that is the crux of one of our major problems.
The political parties, as currently established in America, are the basis of American totalitarianism. They wall off the institutions of government and the political process from the people. The only interested party in government that has no say in the government is the people…and that is because of our establishment political parties keeping all governmental power to themselves.
Yes.
I agree. I would argue that within the parties there needs to be checks and balances. Republicans are in fits because of the precinct committee project. Democrats are almost top-down, so don’t know how they reform that.
No.
Many of Ron Begich’s voters would not have voted for Palin and a significant number of his voters would have voted for Pelota. The results would have been the same.
As for him being a spoiler, how? 17k of his voters CHOSE Pelota as their second choice. 11K didn’t care who was second.
There was something wrong with the Palin candidacy.
> There was something wrong with the Palin candidacy.
Im not sure we can draw any conclusions other than “Palin didn’t win”. There’s too many shenanigans possible, so great uncertainty when analyzing causes.
IMHO ranked choice should be eliminated, because it provides another dimension of inexplicable phenomena.
You are right. I am running on the “vote fraud was insignificant” mode. But, assuming that is correct we learned that 18K of Begich’s voters would not vote for Palin as a second choice and that 11K of those actually voted for a Democrat. That indicates an issue.
Ranked Choice Voting is the equivalent of putting the bingo balls back in the tombola until the right ones come out!
has any republican ever won a rank-choice vote?
That is the supposed idea. However, as we know, the political parties have the most money so they still put forth their partisan candidate. Lesser known, possibly less extreme people won’t get the name recognition and advertising out there that is needed.
This only serves to dilute and game the system. It’s crap.
All ANYONE needs to know about this IS that the person spearheading this move works for SOROS!! Do a search on rank choice voting and how it was started!!
Our Framers’ system corralled the horrid effects of factions/political parties pretty well.
But, the 17th Amendment blew their careful plan to pieces.
Tookem two weeks to figure out how to cheat Sarah out of the Congress.
I hope she stays in the game!
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