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Majority of Americans continue to favor moving away from Electoral College
(www.pewresearch.org)
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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It'd be nice to go beyond and have some sort of ranked voting while we're at it. Essentially being forced to pick between two parties or risk having your vote being wasted sucks.
I don't know how the american system works, but voting for small parties should not considered a wasted vote. It helps the party even if they don't get elected
It's worse than wasted. It's effectively a half-vote for the major candidate you like the least.
Works in places with coalition governments.
If a party receives 5% of the popular vote, they start to receive funding from the FEC. That hasn't happened in a while for a third party.
Well then people should organize. I don't understand why americans only vote for two parties if they don't like either of them
First past the post incentiveses two party systems, which is why people are desperate for ranked ballot, or something that can allow other parties to exist.
Because in first past the post voting, whomever gets the score first, wins. Combine that with mostly voting against a specific party, and you're railroading people into a de facto two-party system when people vote for the "best bet against _____".
45% of the country doesn't vote at all, so.
Part of that is due to the feeling that one's vote doesn't matter. IMO having the president be elected by popular vote would bring a lot more people to the polls.
Yup. In states that are not swing states, why would those voters even bother?
But even if a party gets, say, 5% of the vote and gets funding, that level of vote splitting can influence who gets a seat now. That might be fine and dandy when the short term doesn't matter too much, but right now, the stakes are very high in the US, since the right straight up wants to dismantle democracy, kill trans people, and completely ban abortions.
Those are high stakes just to likely get some more funding for a third party (much less win even a single seat).
IMO any political pressure that could go towards pushing third parties should first to towards electoral reform. Only then can third parties be voted for without putting a lot of people at risk.
Not in America. In America it's an utter waste. The elections are too close.
Unpopular opinion: ranked choice voting will do little to solve the USA's democracy issues.
For starters, there are plenty of countries that do use FPTP and still have plenty of third parties in their parliaments (Canada, UK, Taiwan, Australia off the top of my head). So FPTP does not inherently preclude third parties - rather, the USA simply doesn't have any culture of multilateralism. I'd say this is mostly a byproduct of various cultural phenomena - the wealth gap, corporate media ownership, private campaign financing, win-or-lose mindset, etc.
But the greater issue is that RCV doesn't really ensure proportionality. As long as you have a single winner from each district, there will be distortions between the proportion of parties for whom people vote and the ultimate parliamentary body. For example, even if you implemented RCV across the entire USA today, I'm pretty sure most legislative bodies would still be entirely dominated by a single party because of gerrymandering and single-member districts.
So if you want to fix the USA's core issue, what you really need is a more proportional system - either have fewer, larger districts with multiple representatives from each one, or adopt something like MMP which is what Germany has (where you also cast a party vote to declare your preference for which party you most want represented in parliament and distribute proportionally along this tally across all voters). Not only does this make the final representation more fair, but it also does a much better job of making all votes matter, instead of only the lucky few in swing states or the rare competitive Congressional race.
But RCV on its own won't do much. It is still a small improvement, and if you have the opportunity to adopt it, I say go for it. But at best, I think it would take decades, or maybe even generations, before it starts to improve things.
Also, while I know this doesn't pertain quite so much to Presidential elections as the electoral college is used for, the USA is also fairly unique in that it has a directly elected head of government with much more power than other countries that also have a directly elected head of state. This is also a part of the problem - the executive branch is supposed to be the weakest of the 3 Federal branches - but it's a discussion for another time.
Canada and UK third parties are still smaller parties, they have no possiblity of electing a head of state.
While also true in Australia, we have preferential voting as well and whilst smaller parties dont have the numbers or votes to become the ruling parties you can vote 1 for a smaller party and 2 for a major party so the smaller party gets a funding boost for future campaigns.
And also if enough people vote for a smaller party them a larger party may have to team up with a smaller party to get the majority numbers to hold government.
Then the smaller party may have a bit of clout to get some of their values and opinions into parlimertary debate or passing bills meaning we get a wider variety of input than the major party line and its members falling into line to vote with their peers blindly.
Same as I wrote on the other sibling comment. I think these countries all have terrible electoral systems. But the point is, they're still ahead of the USA in terms of the fact that they will still have an awareness and understanding of third parties, whereas >90% of Americans are just programmed to believe there are only 2 options.
As a thought experiment, ask yourself what would happen if you could wave a magic wand and make every city, state and national legislative election use RCV over FPTP. Do you really think anything would change? I'm pretty sure 95% of the results would be exactly the same. Like I said above, RCV may make things better 20+ years from now, but there's also a very good chance that so few people actually use their second options that it nothing ends up changing at all. This is why I think multi-member districts or MMP are better solutions.
Are you forgetting Ross Perot almost won? There is constant talk of Trump starting a third party, libertarian and green parties get a fair amount of attention, and not to mention the fact that the two major parties actually consist of many smaller factions in a coalition. There's a reason primaries happen, and often congressmen vote against the majority of their party and votes are split on other lines than party lines. Most people are smarter than is popular to say on the internet, they just understand voting the lesser of two evil is their best option right now from a certain perspective. I prefer to vote third party to increase the viability of third parties in later elections.
Look at third parties and their success in the UK and Canada.
The last general election in the UK was 2019. Conservatives got 43.6% of the vote but 56.2% of the seats. Labor got 32.1% of the votes and 31.1% of the seats.
The biggest national third party, the Liberal Democrats, got 11.6% of the vote but a mere 1.7% of the seats.
In comparison, look at regional third parties. The Scottish National Party got 3.9% of the vote and a whopping 7.4% of the seats. Irish regional parties like Sinn Feinn and the Democratic Unionist Party got a combined 2.3% of the seats with a combined 1.4% of the seats.
Previous elections have been quite similar. In 2015, the far right UKIP won only a single seat after getting a whopping 12.6% of the vote.
Canada is quite similar. The Bloc Quebecois consistently gets more votes than the national New Democratic Party, despite having gotten less than half as many votes.
Understood, all of these countries have terrible electoral systems, that was not my point. My point is that Americans only have a culture of voting for one of two parties, so switching to ranked choice voting will likely change nothing at all, because Americans already practically never even consider alternate options. Hell, I doubt even 10% of them could even name a third party, so why would they consider voting for them all of a sudden just because of the switch to RCV? They're constantly blasted with the same message that you have one of two options, so chances are that they'll just pick one and ignore the rest, just like they do now.
It might give independents more of a voice.
Parties work a bit differently in the US vs e.g. Israel.
In Israel, party insiders choose their politicians. If you want different candidates than an existing party is offering, you have to make your own new party with your own new list.
By contrast, in the US, parties run primary elections where voters pick the candidates. The specifics depend on the state, but in most states the election is held for registered members of that party.
Americans aren't idiots. Most know third party candidates don't do well in plurality elections. So smart progressives, alt-right etc. politicians don't run as a third party candidate against mainstream Democrats and Republicans. Instead, they primary an incumbent Democrat or Republican, like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or join the primary when the incumbent retired like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Somewhere like Israel, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Joe Manchin would be in two very different parties. In the US, they're in the same party.
In places where RCV is passed, you absolutely see more candidates running and getting decent percentages of the vote. Because that isn't a terrible strategy any more. Someone like AOC might have run as a Progressive or something rather than primarying the Democrat.
I contest your usage of Canada as an example. While it's certainly not as polarized as the US, the effects of FPTP are still prominent. There's a ton of vote splitting at the federal and provincial levels. Eg, conservatives rule Ontario despite the majority of people voting for one of the two left-er leaning parties, since the two parties basically split the left vote down the middle, while conservatives only have one party.
I do completely agree that propositional voting is waaaaay better than ranked choice, though. Personally, I will take almost anything over FPTP, but some form of PR is vastly superior, as you noted.
But at least with ranked choice, people can start to vote for another party without it feeling like a penalty. As a Canadian, I basically have to vote strategic. I don't get to vote for my favourite party because of FPTP. Ranked choice would at least remove that issue.
I think the two party system of the US is basically where FPTP systems are all at risk to end up, especially since voting strategically gradually results in that. But the US GOP is so crazy that it's almost a necessity for any progressive to vote strategically, whereas at least in Canada, things aren't quite as bad, which makes it easier for people to take the risk of voting for who they really want to.
For anyone living in Utah, a bill to enable Ranked Choice voting will be in November 2023.
So anyone there please register to vote sooner rather than later.
Currently people are being told it's too confusing and too liberal, so they really could be more young people votes to help the cause.
RCV is a rebrand of the voting method IRV, which was used by many cities in the early 20th century. Due to inconsistent results, it was repealed. So, unfortunately, conservatives have a leg to stand on when they attack RCV.
For clarity: their specific attacks take things to the extreme and often have some racist underpinnings, but there is a kernel of truth to attacking specifically on the method itself.
That is why I support something like STAR voting, it doesn't suffer from many of RCV's issues
I wish your ballot measure luck however, because at the end of the day it still is, mildly better than FPTP
I wish for something like STAR as well, but much like voting now it's all about the lesser of two evils between current voting and anything besides the current voting method haha
Well the thing about that is, RCV has been repealed in 6 states and counting for producing poor results. And it's also given right wing groups like the heritage foundation a foothold to attack it. I'm actually seeing negative RCV sentiment on the ground when I talk to people about STAR so their message is spreading. When I explain STAR and how it fixes several of RCVs issues they come around to it, so it may in fact be better to push that instead of tag along with RCV if it's going to end up being a waste of political capital
Neat! I am all for that? What are the left or rights views on STAR currently?
I don't see it being on the radar of the major parties at the moment. RCV is in the spotlight so far. But that can change very soon because in Eugene, Oregon this week they are finishing up getting STAR on the ballot for their elections, then they're also pushing for it to appear on the state ballot in May. The effort is led by non-partisan groups like the equal vote coalition.
So far my conversations with both sides of the aisle have been fruitful, and I hope that is how it continues
Not "while we're at it" - RCV is the real change we need.
Approval/STAR would be even better, but I'd take RCV over FPTP
RCV will do nothing to break the duopoly in America. RCV will basically allow you to vote for the Democrats or Republicans without bubbling their name on your ballot.
Contrary to what is stated, RCV falls apart as soon as more than 2 parties become viable. It suffers from the spoiler effect.
RCV, like plurality voting, only reflects your preference for one candidate at a time. In fact, it's relatively accurate to say that RCV is just plurality with (literally) extra steps (rounds).
One of the better ballot changes we can make is to move to something like STAR voting, which can capture the nuance of magnitude of preference for ALL candidates at once.
However, changing voting method alone is not enough. Proportional representation and expanding the number of elected officials are two powerful ways to introduce new ideas and break up power structures.
And, of course, campaign finance reform such as democracy vouchers
I don’t think I get it.
As I imagine it it would be: Republicans HATE Democrats. Democrats HATE Republicans. If all Democrats rank the R candidate dead last and Republicans do the same for the D one, their votes pretty much nullify each other, and whatever third party that got less First-choice votes but also way less Last-choice votes has a better chance at winning. Isn’t that how it should work?
Mostly. Yes, RCV tends to elect compromise candidates, ones who may not be anyone's first choice, but that most people can live with. I think Joe Biden is a good example of this. Everyone was rah-rah for some else during the primaries: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee... but Joe Biden has broad tepid appeal.
I prefer score ballots over ranked ballots, expressing magnitude of preference is important!
Ranked choice specifically is one of the worst ranked ballot options out there and I hope we can push for something else
Isnt that what ranked choice is? Expressing magnitude by ranking your choices?
No, it's not.
Given ballot options of Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans, I'd rank them 1, 2, and 3, respectively. However, when expressing my feelings about the election: I love the Socialists, dislike the Republicans, and prefer the Democrats slightly over the Republicans.
This nuanced opinion isn't captured on a ranked ballot.
With a score ballot, like STAR voting, I'd give the Socialists 5 stars, the Democrats 1 star, and the Republicans 0 stars. This method not only captures my preferences but also the depth of my feelings for each party. This is then reflected in both the final score and the automatic runoff step of tabulation.
Ah. Gotcha. That makes sense, thanks for explaining!
Reminds me of the Blackadder episode where Baldrick won by 16,000 votes, even though there was only one voter:
Let's just cut out the middleman and go straight to direct voting.
Vote directly on the issues that matter to you. Representative democracies only exist to protect the ruling class.
Ranked choice still doesn't solve the winner-takes-all situation that is the presidential election. Instead it should be appointed by a group of competent people, who in turn are voted in by something like ranked choice or whatever.
The original intent from the Constitution was that the winner was president and the second place was vice president. Since the vice president also is the tie breaking vote in the Senate, that doesn't sit very well with the president. So they changed it to the running mate system.
The group your talking about would essentially be the cabinet? Right? They get approved by Congress. So indirect approval by the people.
The cabinet doesn't appoint the president, so no. More like Congress members members get voted in by ranked choice, and they vote on someone to represent the country in international affairs.