NPR:
Amid growing frustration with both major political parties, voters are open to some big changes.
A new poll, commissioned by supporters of election reforms and shared with NPR, shows there is significant support for upending winner-take-all U.S. House… Continue reading
The post “Voters are sick of the 2-party system. A new poll shows they’re open to big changes” appeared first on Election Law Blog.
True. Ranked choice is progress. My problem with it is that still makes polarizing politics an advantage.
Example: 3 candidates run, A is leftwing, B is more center (leftwing or right leaning), C is right wing. A and C both get 40% of rank 1 votes because they benefit from the polarized atmosphere, B only gets 20% of rank 1, so they are eliminated and their voters are run off to either A, C or dropped if they didn’t pick a second candidate.
Say after runoff A has 44%, and C has 45%. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter. The winner doesn’t even have support of the majority of voters and polarized politics continues to be an advantage. But if you look at those who voted for A or C as their first choice, of the 40% for A 25% had B as their second, and of the 40% for C 18% had B as their second. So 43% of the voters gave a ranked 2 vote for B and 20% gave a ranked 1.
Approval voting is similar to ranked choice where you vote for every candidate you would be happy with. But you don’t rank them and there is not elimination and runoff. You just give 1 vote to every candidate you would approve of and the highest wins. So let’s look at the results with approval voting.
A has 44% approval. C has 45% approval. And B has 63% approval. B is the clear winner, despite being the first eliminated in Ranked Choice.
If the goal is to have a representational government that is approved of by the governed, where oppositional polarizing politics and manipulation holds less sway, then Approval voting is the goal to shoot for.
Few people want B over their extreme I think. They want their lesser desired B vote to run off to A. Approval disproportionately advantages the middle, least desired by all parties.
Well first, the middle is where it should be pushed if representational goverment is the goal. They should represent the most people. Not the most popular minority group on election day. Not your politics over everyone else’s no matter what. But also, it can work in favor of the the more extreme candidate too when the electorate feels like the more central, safer option has the better chance and vote accordingly.
Example, the Socialist candidate is charismatic, popular, and has good ideas, but the term socialism leaves people uneasy or unsure if they can get enough support. So under Ranked Choice, many hedge their bets and vote Democrat as their first rank and the socialist as their second. 12% for as first rank for the socialist, 55% for the democrat, and 33% for the republican. After runoff, the socialist is elminated and dems win. But with approval, 45% of the 55% of dems actually approve of the socialist. Now the socialist has 57% support. The results then entirely hinge on on how many socialist first voters also support dems.
In such a case, shouldn’t they have voted 1 social 2 dem? Approval voting is fine, it allows cross aisle winners which are impossible now, but definitely has the chance of being a weak middle that’s always walking on eggshells.
I personally wish we used issue voting: each candidate takes a test, then you take a test, and an algorithm matches your answers with the candidate to avoid a huge number of problems with media driven campaigns.