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‘What Is Broken in American Politics Is the Republican Party’
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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The main problem with ranked choice voting is that having more candidates still reduces your chances of success. Your second, third, etc votes aren't counted until your favorite is knocked out. Here's a simple example:
Let's say that B and D-F all have C as preferred second, and enough have A as third for A to get >50%. The votes for C won't ever get counted because A would cross 50% first, even though most people prefer C to A (as in, if the election was just A and C, C would win).
STAR voting solves this by breaking up your vote according to your preferences. So your preference for C over D-F will be counted before anyone is knocked out, and C would likely win the election.
I personally think Approval voting is even better because it's so simple, you don't show preferences between candidates, you just pick the ones that are acceptable and the one that's most acceptable wins.
Approval would be better than we have now but on a personal level I just dislike that I can’t express which I’d my preferred candidate. If Mitt Romney, Trump, Biden, and Bernie Sanders are all running, and I really want Bernie to win, but really don’t want Trump to win, how should I vote? In star voting this is easy. In approval voting I have a tough decision on my hands. Should I also vote for Biden and Romney? My ballot then indicates I am equally happy with these three candidates which is far from true. Or do I vote for Bernie only, knowing he may lose and without my support, the more moderate candidates may also lose to Trump?
Fair. I just like the simplicity. STAR voting is nice, I just don't know if it'll be a hard sell.
It was a hard sell in Oregon. I'm also a STAR proponent. The problem is the average voter is scared by conservative headlines and they already don't like the idea of mail in voting. Changing the votting system even further would be some Communist conspiracy outside of the Metro area, with a non trivial number in the Metro area believing the same lies.
I live in Utah where I've only ever voted by mail, and we're a very red state. I've never had anyone express concern about our mail in voting process, the main concerns are typically over voting machines (which I share, I don't trust single points of failure with minimal audit capabilities). Mail voting is equitable since you can either drop off a ballot or mail it, they can be tracked to ensure they're received, and they can be recounted in person.
So the opposition to mail voting seems centralized in areas where Republicans have less control. So it's obviously BS. How they're not suffering for this from independent voters is beyond me.