They booed former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who currently leads in polling in some swing states. They rejected Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent candidate who is polling at 15% in some polls.
Would you say that those elections were as polarized as our presidential elections are? Do you see my concern regarding all voters choosing their own party first, third-party second, and opposing party third? If first choice is split nearly 50/50, wouldn’t that put the third-party candidate at the top?
No? Under the usual American implementation of RCV only the highest ranked candidate on a ballot gets the vote from that ballot. If no one has a majority of the remaining votes the person in last place is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to the individual ballot preferences. So if the American presidency was ~50/50 red v blue as first choices (with a few people picking third party candidates) whichever third party candidate that took last place would get eliminated. In fact, mathematically speaking, if red and blue each got at least 1/3 of the first place cuts votes, one of them must be the eventual winner and the other must take second place.
There are other systems that could cause chaos with your suggested rankings, but they’re generally not considered serious methods exactly because they are chaotic under reasonable circumstances.
Yeah, FairVote is… Okay. In terms of objective vs political, they tend to be as political as they can get while still being objective. They used to actually say a few things that weren’t exactly true, but opponents kept calling them out on it so they quit as far as I know. Wikipedia would be a better source, though be aware that proponents of any system will try to sneak in promotional language. But, at least on Wikipedia there’s also people trying to keep things objective.
These are what I would consider the most relevant articles if you’re looking to understand the realistic options in America.
I would say that you don’t actually need to read any of these articles particularly closely. They can get very technical. You can just skim them for the parts you find interesting.
Would you say that those elections were as polarized as our presidential elections are? Do you see my concern regarding all voters choosing their own party first, third-party second, and opposing party third? If first choice is split nearly 50/50, wouldn’t that put the third-party candidate at the top?
No? Under the usual American implementation of RCV only the highest ranked candidate on a ballot gets the vote from that ballot. If no one has a majority of the remaining votes the person in last place is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to the individual ballot preferences. So if the American presidency was ~50/50 red v blue as first choices (with a few people picking third party candidates) whichever third party candidate that took last place would get eliminated. In fact, mathematically speaking, if red and blue each got at least 1/3 of the first place cuts votes, one of them must be the eventual winner and the other must take second place.
There are other systems that could cause chaos with your suggested rankings, but they’re generally not considered serious methods exactly because they are chaotic under reasonable circumstances.
That makes much more sense. I grossly misunderstood the basis of RCV. Thanks!
Edit: You sent me down a rabbit hole. lol
https://fairvote.org/archives/alternatives-to-rcv/
Yeah, FairVote is… Okay. In terms of objective vs political, they tend to be as political as they can get while still being objective. They used to actually say a few things that weren’t exactly true, but opponents kept calling them out on it so they quit as far as I know. Wikipedia would be a better source, though be aware that proponents of any system will try to sneak in promotional language. But, at least on Wikipedia there’s also people trying to keep things objective.
These are what I would consider the most relevant articles if you’re looking to understand the realistic options in America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting (called RCV in the US)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems
I would say that you don’t actually need to read any of these articles particularly closely. They can get very technical. You can just skim them for the parts you find interesting.
I’m most interested in the mechanics and potential sway types of each model. I’ll check them out. Thanks again!
Cheers!