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Comment on YSK that in 16 States in the USA has banned Ranked-Choice voting, including 5 that has just banned it in 2025, and 6 of those bans happened in 2024.

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lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

The ballot is the same for all ranked voting methods. The method of determining winner from those ballots varies, and some are clearly worse.

For instance, if a candidate would beat all others 1-on-1 (Condorcet winner), then shouldn’t a decent method always select that candidate as winner? RCV doesn’t do that. Other methods also fail.

This nice table compares voting methods by a wide range of properties. I don’t think it hurts to make a more informed decision before backing a method that will be difficult to change. We got stuck with FPTP through inadequate research, and it’d be great not to repeat that mistake.

While rated voting methods fail the Condorcet winner criterion, by rating instead of ranking candidates they satisfy another set of criteria also worth considering.

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throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

Among ranked voting methods, ranked pairs seems most compelling to me.

I think that’d fail miserably in the real world.

Think about the average voter. They see this ballot:

A vs B?

A vs C?

A vs D?

B vs C?

B vs D?

C vs D?

Yea I think they’re gonna freak out upon seeing this ballot. Right now, the most important goal should be to get rid of the spoiler effect and FPTP, rather than finding the best system.

approval seems pretty good (and extremely simple).

I can see a bit of strategic voting happening.

Let me demonstrate:

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say we have 3 candidates, and no term limits:

Trump, Biden, Sanders

Biden and Sander voters dispise trump, their preference in RCV is (example):

Biden>Sanders>Trump: 30%
Sander>Biden>Trump: 25%
Trump>Sanders>Biden: 23%
Trump>Biden>Sanders: 22%

Okay, so lets say they all approve their top 2:

Biden: 77%
Sanders: 78%
Trump: 45%

Okay we have president Sanders! Congrats, right?

Well, now the trumpers who approved sanders are like: “Hey wait a minute, we made our daddy lose because we approved Sanders”

All the trumpers now have a meeting and decided that next election, they don’t approve Sanders or Biden as a strategic vote.

So now, Election 2 Results:

Biden: 55%
Sanders: 55%
Trump: 45%

Oh great, it’s a tie. The law says that the election have to be re-done to solve the tie:

Now this next election, all people who preferred Sanders first go to a Sanders supporter meeting and started saying: “Lets disapprove Biden so Bernie can win!”

Simultaneously, Biden voters will be like: “Lets disapprove Sanders so Biden can win!”

Next election results:

Trump: 45%
Biden: 30%
Sanders 25%

Congrats, we have a glorified FPTP and spoiler effect yet again!

Now, other election systems could also have strategic voting, but its less likely with, for example, RCV, since you can rank candidates.

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- lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  Yea I think they’re gonna freak out upon seeing this ballot.
  
  I think you missed the first sentence I wrote:
  
  The ballot is the same for all ranked voting methods.
  
  Maybe explaining what you think that means would clear up confusion?
  
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  - throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Ah nvm, I thought the ballot was gonna lok like this:
    
    A vs B?
    
    A vs C?
    
    A vs D?
    
    B vs C?
    
    B vs D?
    
    C vs D?
    
    I misunderstood, I get it now, its all tabulated in the background, same ballot as Ranked-Choice voting.
    
    But my point about the approval voting still stands.
    
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