“According to FEC filings, the Synapse Group has worked for Republican Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination this cycle, as well as GOP candidates for Congress. Synapse has also been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for field and canvassing work by America PAC, the outside spending group started by allies of Musk that has spent millions of dollars this election cycle to boost Trump and oppose Democrats.”
I have no personal experience of explaining ranked choice.
I can imagine calculating ranked choice vote outcomes is probably pretty labour intensive (without computers).
However people generally understand the concept of how someone comes 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a race, and I’m sure most people have thought about a ranked list of their favourite movies or football players, so it’s not some completely alien concept.
That seems pretty simple to me, unless I’m missing something?
And finally whole bunch of countries manage this without any issues …
Coming from a two party country (UK) the only real issue I see is the fragmenting of power and subsequent need to form endless alliances in parliament. (If I voted for the Greens but the Greens need the the votes of another party and end up doing deals is that really representing my vote…)
Look at the Examples section on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting and I think you’ll see it’s probably more complicated than anticipated. And everyone has an opinion on which is the “best” method (which is fair as they are each optimized for different goals).
In theory it shouldn’t be hard to explain, and yep, lots of places all over the world manage it without a problem. But remember in the US we’re so idiotic we can’t even accept the metric system. And a fair numbers of folks are absurdly proud of that fact. We’re also not smart enough to handle health care like everyone else does or provide real parental leave. So while ranked choice voting is objectively superior to first past the post and even aligns with a lot of people’s stated goals for fairness, etc., it’s still a huge uphill climb and many folks will reject it outright without even really thinking about it.
So in summary, it can be done, but not likely to be something you want to run on as a presidential candidate.
All valid points, and I didn’t realise the differences in outcomes based on the various counting methods!
That would be complex to explain to many people I’m sure. However, and I’m possibly biased here, there’s a whole bunch of systems I don’t fully understand (car engines, encryption methods, football tournament knock out rules) but I know they work and tend to accept them and at least understand their limitations and outcomes.
I can totally see how people would reject things they don’t understand, and could be easily pushed in to rejecting a new system.
Also I agree that winning an election based on the change could be hard, and perhaps attempting to introduce this change later would work. Though I’m not sure the big parties (labour and conservatives in UK) really want to change a system that works for them!
The sad thing is that RCV might require a constitutional amendment to make it happen nationwide. See for example https://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/23/maine-high-court-says-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/
I like it but I don’t see it happening without some other major reforms. Hence why I keep hoping for the 127 DC states plan…
This is a good video that gets into the issues of various forms of voting, and argues “approval voting is the best option”.
Because it is the best option. It’s dead simple, it’s easy to give updates mid count, it’s easy to audit, it’s no more expensive than any other form, etc.
This is not to say it’s perfect, but it’s easily the best.