Ranked choice voting faces cloudy future after election setbacks
Ranked choice voting faces cloudy future after election setbacks
Voters: We need to break the two-party, FPTP system.
Progressives: Ok, so how about ranked choice voting?
Voters: Not like that! <rushes to polls to enshrine FPTP >
Voters, later: Why doesn't anything ever change?
Nothing ever changes because the vast majority of the American public doesn't actually want it to change. The 2024 election is proof of that. People don't want change. They want something to complain about.
"And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties."
Problem: In Portland, yes, a majority of voters did vote for the state wide ranked choice ballot measure... but 20% of voters completely SKIPPED the ranked choice races for Mayor and City Council.
They had an option of ranking their top 6 choices and did not choose any.
That seems like a indictment of the candidates, not RCV.
No single election outcome should be used as counter-argument to RCV as a whole.
This is why approval voting is my preference: easy to vote, easy to count, and still works if ths voter doesn’t know a thing about it and just marks one candidate
You could still mark one candidate in Portland's RCV.
If they genuinely don’t have a preference, is it a bad thing if they refrain from effectively voting at random?
For one person? No. For 1/5th of the voting population? It's a travesty.
Especially in the city council race...
These are photos of my ballot, I live in District 1. District 1 has NEVER had representation on the city council before.
This is why we voted to change the system of government, the city now has 4 districts, each district gets 3 councilmen.
Voters had a chance to rank their top 6 choices to elect 3 people per district and 20% of voters went "Nah!"
That’s too many positions to research for just one race. Five to six would probably be about the right amount of candidates for a single seat RCV.
I think [open] primaries still have a place to help weed out the field and narrow in on specific candidates.
Fortunately, the research wasn't that hard because it's super easy to eliminate the looney tunes candidates.
Ex. this guy:
Still, stunning how many first round votes he got...
p.s. "Michael Necula"? Mike Neck? Spot the vampire running for office!
I like RCV, but the Portland example makes a good case for STAR voting.
What is the Portland example?
See my comments below...