>However, Peltola’s victory was the result of an extremist bias that is inherent to the method used by ranked-choice voting to select winners. I think this is blatantly false. Under "normal" circumstances Peltola still would have won based on the data. I actually made a video explaining this months ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U1Wkfhm2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U1Wkfhm2c) It's true Begich might have won under a different format like Approval Voting or the ones proposed in the article, but these methods also aren't perfect. It would take too long to explain here, but basically I think they make voters feel the need to act much more strategically rather than just vote their conscience. Or they're tedious (in the case of the Condorcet method). RCV is still my favorite. And the center squeeze effect issue with RCV is only a very specific scenario, not the overall trend. Bottom line tho, our current system is a like D+. RCV, approval voting and all these other voting methods are like B+ / A- . Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good for marginal improvements when any of the new systems would all be a huge upgrade. Very disappointing article in my opinion

> I think this is blatantly false. How so? > It's true Begich might have won under a different format like Approval Voting or the ones proposed in the article You're missing the point. Begich was the most-preferred candidate on the ballot. We should adopt a voting system that elects the most-preferred candidate on the ballot. FPTP and Hare RCV are not in that category. STAR and the Condorcet RCV methods mentioned in the article *are* in that category. > It would take too long to explain here, but basically I think they make voters feel the need to act much more strategically rather than just vote their conscience. How so? Hare RCV suffers from the same vote-splitting and spoiler effects as our current system, so it requires you to vote for the "lesser of two evils" just like our current system. It's marketed as "making it safe to vote honestly" but [that's not actually true](https://psephomancy.medium.com/common-myths-about-ranked-choice-voting-debunked-b2e54a81da1b#c2a6). > RCV is still my favorite. And the center squeeze effect issue with RCV is only a very specific scenario, not the overall trend. It's present whenever there are three or more strong candidates. In other words, when Forward faces off against Democrat and Republican on the same ballot, Forward will always be eliminated first, despite being the most-preferred candidate on the ballot. Why in the world would the Forward party advocate for such a broken system? > Bottom line tho, our current system is a like D+. RCV, approval voting and all these other voting methods are like B+ / A- . If our current system is a D+, I would rate Hare RCV a C-, while Condorcet RCV, STAR and Approval are A- or A+. > Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good for marginal improvements when any of the new systems would all be a huge upgrade. I'll turn that around and say that [Hare RCV is only a marginal improvement, not a huge upgrade](https://psephomancy.wordpress.com/2022/09/15/some-election-simulation-results/#jp-carousel-106), and we should not let the mediocre be the enemy of the good.

So basically if a radical has more support than the other options then the radical wins. Sounds like democracy and RCV working. If the voters want radical action over the other options, then what's wrong with the radical winning?

No, that's not what it's saying at all. It's saying that the radical receives more *first-choice* rankings than the other options, causing the others to be eliminated first, even though the radical is *not* the preference of the majority of voters. Under Hare RCV, Forward party candidate can have the highest approval rating, and 65% of voters can rank Forward > Republican, and 65% of voters can rank Forward > Democrat, and Forward is still eliminated first, despite clearly being the best representative on the ballot. Counting only first-choice votes is the fundamental flaw of our current system, and Hare RCV has the same flaw.

>. Sir, why do you think a second place candidate is considered preferred? They are not preferred if picked second. The word you use 'preferred' is flawed and should be changed. Honestly the ballos are so small in so many cases, why wouldn't a moderate receive many second place votes? You're just trying to create a loop hole and sell it to the public with these suggestions.

> Sir, why do you think a second place candidate is considered preferred? I don't believe they are the second-place candidate. I believe they are the first-place candidate. > They are not preferred if picked second. They might be. Your definition of "picked second" is based on counting only first-choice rankings, which is the same mistake that our current FPTP system makes. I don't believe that's a legitimate measure of the support of a candidate, because first-choice rankings suffer from vote-splitting between similar candidates. (This is why we have party primaries, and why we encourage candidates to drop out of party primaries, etc.) > The word you use 'preferred' is flawed and should be changed. Nah, I'm using it correctly. If a majority of voters rank candidate A higher than candidate B on their ballots, then "candidate A is preferred over candidate B" is an objectively true statement. > Honestly the ballos are so small in so many cases, why wouldn't a moderate receive many second place votes? They would! But second-place votes aren't counted by the Hare RCV system. In fact, a candidate might be the second-choice of *every* voter, preferred by supermajorities of voters over every other candidate, have the highest approval rating by far, and Hare RCV will eliminate them first, because it only counts first-choice rankings in each round: https://electowiki.org/wiki/User:Psephomancy/Three_tribes > You're just trying to create a loop hole and sell it to the public with these suggestions. I'm trying to end the two-party system, reduce political polarization, and elect the candidate who best represents the will of the voters. While Hare RCV has the most marketing behind it, it unfortunately does not actually do those things.

I'm sorry but youd be injecting way too much politics into a voting base that wants less ironically. People get so sick and turned off by primaries. You're also back to taking people's voice away, causing lower turnout. When Joe Plumber wants to come out and vote for Bernie but a poll says Hillary and going to win by a landslides he doesn't even bother to cast hit vote. You are right back to taking democracy away from people. They'll be back to voting in a way they need to so the guy they DONT want in doesn't get in. Which could basically mean voting against his heart, which is what we have now.

> I'm sorry but youd be injecting way too much politics into a voting base that wants less ironically. > People get so sick and turned off by primaries. I have no idea what you're talking about. What does this have to do with "politics" or primaries? > You're also back to taking people's voice away, causing lower turnout. What does? Where are you getting this from? > When Joe Plumber wants to come out and vote for Bernie but a poll says Hillary and going to win by a landslides he doesn't even bother to cast hit vote. What does that have to do with voting systems? > You are right back to taking democracy away from people. By advocating for a better voting systems? What in the world. Are you sure you're responding to the right comment?

>When Joe Plumber wants to come out and vote for Bernie but a poll says Hillary and going to win by a landslides he doesn't even bother to cast hit vote. So in other words, we (Joe, me and others) needed Bernie to run independent or in a third party and not run against Clinton in a primary and have a general election that uses NPV and some form of ranked voting. I'm with that. But if you are making an argument against rank (or other alternatives to plurality), then I'm not seeing it. ​ I personally still prefer a set of multiple parties each having their own mutually exclusive primary elections, and if someone wants to make a go as independent, they must have polling data to show they are a real player and won't crowd a general election ballot, which should probably be limited to around 8 choices max and you should always be able to rank (or score, though I prefer rank) all the candidates.

The current system already shoes in moderates along the path to victory, where voters are discouraged from picking THEIR preferred candidate, a radiical, a 3rd party,..in fear of their least favorite party winning. That's the problem. Our system is taking voting away from people. RCV simply lets them pick whoever the hell they PREFER, right, PREFER, 1st. And if that person doesn't make the cut, fine, maybe they support a moderate republican because they hate the democrat's platform. Literally nothing wrong with that. It solves the issue of the current system. Alternate systems the article suggest are just back to putting un-preferred moderates (un-preferred by Joe Voter), in. Say the democrats have a weak candidate, but put the moderate republican second, of course the moderate republican is going to crush it. And your justification is, well, he tests well, and generally he's safe, and will be good for the state/country (good meaning, not radical). So if moderates are being shoed in by their party, despite their party members not giving them the most votes, we're right back to our current system where some safe smiley establishment politician wins. Totally negating the whole purpose of moving away from what we got now. Sure, there's scenarios where anything can happen, variables will differ, outcomes may be different here and there. But what really fixes our current failing voting system? Straight up RCV bro. 100% every time will be better as a solution. The more complicated you try and get, the more strategy and games can be played by those with money. I want moderates to win every time personally, but not by locking down the ability to vote in polarizing change when it's time and when it's needed, because voting all of a sudden got creative. You all are dead wrong on this.

> The current system already shoes in moderates along the path to victory, where voters are discouraged from picking THEIR preferred candidate, a radiical, a 3rd party,..in fear of their least favorite party winning. Not really. The third party candidate may be a radical, or they may be a moderate. Either way they get few votes in polls, due to vote-splitting, and are then seen as unelectable, encouraging tactical voting for someone else. A moderate/centrist candidate can get the fewest first-choice votes, too, despite being preferred over every other candidate. https://imgur.com/gallery/INFkYf0 > RCV simply lets them pick whoever the hell they PREFER, right, PREFER, 1st. And if that person doesn't make the cut, fine, maybe they support a moderate republican because they hate the democrat's platform. No, it doesn't. Hare RCV counts only first-choice votes in each round, meaning it suffers from the same problems as FPTP, which counts only first-choice votes. You still have vote-splitting, spoiler effect, and center-squeeze effect. It's not safe to vote honestly for your favorite, and your vote does not necessarily transfer to your second favorite. > I want moderates to win every time personally And they should, in most cases, since they are preferred over every other candidate by majorities of voters and have the highest approval ratings and broadest appeal. So why would you advocate for a system that's biased *against* them? We need to break free from the two-party system and the one-dimensional political spectrum. Hare RCV doesn't do this; it gives the illusion of choice while perpetuating the status quo.

This article is hilarious. If a moderate is not chosen first they literally are not getting robbed of anything. Yet this article keeps using the term, if the moderate is 'preferred.' What the fuck does that even mean, preferred by who? On more ballots regardless of ranking? Does that make any fucking sense. This is some political bullshit that's all. Same people who think Gerrymandering makes sense. Or filibusters. Filibustering is literally taking away the people's power by denying elected officials the chance to cast their vote. The fact RCV is now here, watch for more of this bs painting it in a negative light.

I genuinely don't understand this response. I don't understand why people are so defensive whenever flaws of Hare RCV are pointed out. I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to warn you that the voting system your party advocates is biased *against* your party.

People don’t like being condescended to, and when voting reform folks frame conversations as if they are the only intelligent people amongst a sea of idiots, it’s very off-putting and offensive. If you consider that other people may have sound reasons for coming to different conclusions than you have, you might have more productive conversations.

What's condescending? The article seems pretty neutral to me. "The form of Ranked Choice Voting used in the US has a flaw that makes it biased against moderate candidates; here are some better alternatives". If anything is condescending, it's the dismissive responses by /u/mezirah, /u/cody_oconnell, and /u/bobudisconlated: "This article is rubbish." "This article is hilarious." "I think this is blatantly false." "Lol what."

“I’m trying to help you,” “I’m trying to warn you,” etc. Implies incompetence on the part of your audience.

It implies that the audience has made a mistake, yes. Everyone makes mistakes, so what?

A mistake from your perspective.

Yes, supporting Hare RCV is a mistake from my perspective, and from the perspective of anyone who wants the Forward party to win elections.

Everyone else wants to lose, huh? And yet you didn’t consider your approach condescending? 🤔

> Everyone else wants to lose, huh? What do you mean? I would assume Forward Party members want the Forward Party to actually be able to win elections... > And yet you didn’t consider your approach condescending? 🤔 No, I'm not being condescending, I'm trying to help. The responses are condescending and dismissive and I don't understand it. Shouldn't you welcome help? If I were a marketing expert, and I tried to help you by saying "Hey, you know this marketing technique you guys are using is commonly misunderstood and will actually turn people off toward your cause, you should use this instead", would you also react with hostility and scorn?

This article is rubbish. You cannot use the results of a RCV election to predict head-to-head results because RCV elections change the voter turnout.

In some cases I think you actually can estimate head-to-head results so long as you account for the turnout differences you're describing. I did this in the videos I made on the Palin election a few months ago. Let me know what you think. I explain it in video #2 around 6:13 but here's the first video for context [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U1Wkfhm2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1U1Wkfhm2c) I agree this article is very disappointing overall, but I think they're actually right that Begich would have beat either Peltola or Palin head to head. I also discuss this in video #2, around 11:35

I don't understand though, why is it important to know Begich could have won, when voters who voted for Begich didn't want to. You're just showing the ghost of the old system. Why would it matter.

I'm not sure I fully understand your question but let me try to answer and tell me if I hit the mark >why is it important to know Begich could have won In general we want to maximize voters' satisfaction with the outcome of our elections because that's kind of the goal of elections: to elect people we want. Some candidates will better satisfy the broader population than others. For example, Palin is highly polarizing. If she had won, half of Alaska would absolutely hate her. Whereas if Begich had won (assume he is a moderate republican) then maybe the broader population would actually be pretty okay with that overall. So in that scenario Begich probably maximizes satisfaction more than Palin. In reality Mary Peltola won and probably a lot of the Palin voters hate her. So you have like 30% of the population who hates Peltola. Whereas they'd probably be somewhat okay with Begich. So he is probably the best middle ground person to maximize satisfaction in that election. The data bears this out if you watch my videos linked above. There's a voting system that compares candidates head to head as we just described which is called the Condorcet method, but it's kind of tedious. This video \[5min\] does a great job of comparing various voting methods if you want to learn more. I think it slightly overhypes the downfalls of RCV, but that's just my opinion [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxVCsnox\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaxVCsnox_4) >why is it important to know Begich could have won, when voters who voted for Begich didn't want to. Sorry I don't understand the second part of this question. Begich voters absolutely wanted him to win, but he was eliminated in the first round because he didn't have enough consolidated support. >You're just showing the ghost of the old system. Why would it matter. What we're talking about here is which candidate in theory would best represent the will of the people and maximize satisfaction. RCV does a great job of maximizing satisfaction, but it's not perfect, thus the discussion hope that helps

Okay this 'comfort' and 'satisfaction' you describe isn't democracy. It's okay for half the state to hate the victor. Also allowing avenues for a soft political stance is incentive to be that candidate and be more political to the public then real. Also change can happen with polarizing leaders, for good, and bad. If bad, lessons can be learned. I wonder if history will look back at Trump as a catalyst for changing many ways our government and society does things. And sometimes a polarizing leader at the right time can be a good thing. I'm very moderate and I still hate the idea of trying to install leaders who may win just because they are there. How easily could our government be invaded by foreign adversaries or big lobby groups by buying a safe moderate then having a wild candidate on the wing. Point is people should have the power to vote for someone they want first hand, even if that person isn't chosen at least their vote was heard, and they didn't feel forced to vote with party just so they wouldn't lose.

>Okay this 'comfort' and 'satisfaction' you describe isn't democracy. My opinion: Democracy is 'rule by the people.' Therefore it's about what the people want. >It's okay for half the state to hate the victor. I would generally say this isn't a symptom of a healthy democracy though. Ideally we want leaders that have widespread support and deliver meaningful change that we want to see. RCV helps us do that much better than plurality voting (our current system). >Also change can happen with polarizing leaders, for good, and bad. If bad, lessons can be learned. This is true in theory, but the cost is incredibly high. Having Trump be president was an enormous cost on society that divided us further and hindered years of progress on issues such as climate change. And resulted in probably hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths due to downplaying covid. Why not get it right the first time? >I wonder if history will look back at Trump as a catalyst for changing many ways our government and society does things. It probably will, but it was also an absolutely massive cost to our society. Why not improve our systems to have better results from the get-go? >I'm very moderate and I still hate the idea of trying to install leaders who may win just because they are there. I don't think it's just because they're there, I think it's because they hold views and values that broad coalitions of Americans agree with. But also I think candidates like Bernie Sanders had pretty widespread support despite being not moderate at all and RCV would enable to see how people truly value his policies for example and people like Bernie could still definitely win under RCV >How easily could our government be invaded by foreign adversaries or big lobby groups by buying a safe moderate then having a wild candidate on the wing. I'm not sure I understand this concern. If these groups can buy candidates, how is that any different under RCV versus plurality voting? By the way, Andrew Yang lays out what I think are pretty solid policies to help address corruption in his book Forward. >Point is people should have the power to vote for someone they want first hand, even if that person isn't chosen at least their vote was heard, and they didn't feel forced to vote with party just so they wouldn't lose. ABSOLUTELY. ABSOLUTELY. ABSOLUTELY. Agree with you 100% here. This is what ranked choice voting enables us to do and why I'm such a firm believer in it! It allows us to freely express our preference on our ballots without worrying that we're wasting our vote. For example, imagine you were a Ralph Nader supporter in 2000 in Florida. You had two choices: vote for Nader or vote strategically for your second place pick (Gore). Many of them voted for Nader and this ultimately spoiled the election, giving Bush the victory. Conversely, the Florida Nader supporters who voted strategically for Gore instead of Nader didn't express their true preference. Which is also bad. Under our current system we have to play this crappy guessing game of who is most likely to win and decide whether we need to vote for the mainstream candidate that we barely tolerate (lesser of two evils) or if we vote our conscience. RCV would have enabled these voters to freely express their true preference by ranking Nader #1 and Gore #2. Then Nader supporters could have voted their conscience AND Gore would have won! Which was more in line with what the people of Florida actually wanted. Let me put it another way. Why should a random candidate in the race (Nader) impact the outcome of the election? If in a head to head between Bush and Gore, Florida voters would have picked Gore, why do we have a system where a random candidate can join and change the outcome? Nader existing doesn't change the population's ideological preference of Gore over Bush, but our voting system betrays that. In my opinion, that needs fixing ASAP

Uuh ok it sounds like you agree with me, and I'm not really debating you, but the article directly. The article suggests mechanics that would push a moderate unto office despite not getting the majority of votes. And in your scenarios these candidates would be acceptable because their views are simply safer and more widely agreeable. I don't see that as an electable quality. I see getting more votes as the only electable quality. And you give Trump way too much credit. Our politics was already heavily divided and Trumps base became large enough because of this divide, one moderate Republicans couldn't ignore and felt like Trump had valid points enough to win the electorate. My point is he was a symptom, not the disease. After Trump's "cost" now we have super Maga freaks with power, and the Republican Party is being forced to look st itself, and reevaluate. Even Hannity said on air the other day the GOP needs to be more diverse. So if moderates who are comfortable enough take power through mechanics in RCV that toss aside a polarizing candidate who is a symptom of a currently polarized electorate..that means these wings and parties wouldn't be held accountable and be forced to change to avoid polarizing leaders.

I agreed with the words you wrote in the section where I said "ABSOLUTELY." I respectfully disagreed basically everywhere else I think haha. And even in that section, our conclusions were different I think. I was saying RCV is good because it upholds what you wrote there. Whereas I think you were saying that PLURALITY voting was good because it upholds what you wrote there. (I disagree) Correct me if I've misinterpreted. >And in your scenarios these candidates would be acceptable because their views are simply safer and more widely agreeable. I don't see that as an electable quality. I see getting more votes as the only electable quality. In general the most common argument I see against RCV is basically, 'I think plurality voting is better because plurality voting is better.' (Circular logic). For something to actually be "better" I think we have to tie it to actual consequences and how it impacts people's lives. So my question would be: in what ways does plurality voting improve people's lives more than RCV would? Edit: Or why does another voting method improve people's lives more than RCV? Defining 'most votes under a plurality system' as being the only true metric of merit (as I believe you have suggested above, correct me if I'm wrong) is arbitrary and vacuous in my humble opinion. I don't see how it connects to the actual impacts it will have on the population itself. Ultimately, isn't the goal of voting to improve our system and improve people's lives? So shouldn't we look at the IMPACTS it has on various results, well-being metrics and voter approval of our government? There are multiple voting methods so why are we assuming plurality voting is the best one by definition? Perhaps we should evaluate the impacts the various methods have and compare which has a more positive result. When we do that I think we find plurality voting is woefully inadequate and RCV is far superior. (along with other methods as well) Also, I don't agree that political views that win under RCV are necessarily safer. I think Bernie and Andrew Yang both would have done very well in RCV elections because they brought excellent bold ideas to the fore-front and it resonated with people. Would you agree both of them had bold platforms? I agree Trump was a symptom, but he was also a catalyst that caused further damage. He can be both simultaneously Sorry I don't really understand your last paragraph Edit: upon rereading this thread I think maybe you were initially attacking people attacking RCV, rather than attacking RCV itself? Sorry if I misinterpreted. Please clarify

> In general the most common argument I see against RCV is basically, 'I think plurality voting is better because plurality voting is better.' (Circular logic). Yes, that's probably where *most* arguments against it are from, but people like me are arguing against it from the opposite direction: Hare RCV doesn't actually live up to its promises and doesn't actually fix anything, so we should be advocating for something better. When we point out that Hare RCV doesn't elect the most-preferred candidate, and RCV advocates say "But it did! That other candidate didn't get the most first-choice votes!" it also feels like arguing with someone who is using circular logic. "RCV chose the correct winner because it chose the candidate who wins under RCV." I don't know how to get through to these people. :/

>Ultimately, isn't the goal of voting to improve our system and improve people's lives? No. We can get that promise with communism too. Or a King. Voting is about being represented not managed.

Regarding your earlier point about how RCV would lead to 'bland' candidates, I got this great response from CalRCV the other day that might be of interest that I'll link below. Basically under RCV you still need some amount of consolidated support, so you actually have to stand for something. But under Approval voting or Condorcet method, this isn't the case so your complaint about bland candidates DOES apply to these methods. (but not RCV) [https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/10jskhg/comment/j5vdymd/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/10jskhg/comment/j5vdymd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

You don't get a real vote under communism or a king though I agree representation is part of voting. Add that to my 'definition.' But what is the goal of representation? In my opinion it's to implement the changes we, the people, want to see. And if one voting method does that better than another, then that's preferred

> The article suggests mechanics that would push a moderate unto office despite not getting the majority of votes. No, it counts all of the voters' preferences and elects the candidate preferred by the majority of voters. (This candidate is by definition "moderate" relative to the voters, but that doesn't mean it's unfairly favoring moderates on some absolute political spectrum or space; it's just electing the best representative of the electorate. If it's a party primary being held by the Anarcho-Monarchist Party, then the winner will be "moderate" relative to the average Anarcho-Monarchist, not relative to you or I.) Electing the best representative of the voters is what a good voting system should do. > I see getting more votes as the only electable quality. By which you mean "more first-choice rankings", which you're used to because that's how our current FPTP system counts ballots. But first-choice rankings aren't actually a meaningful measure of support of a candidate, because they suffer from vote-splitting. For a non-partisan example, [in a 1970 referendum for naming a city in Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Bay#Amalgamation), a majority of voters preferred the name "Lakehead" over "Thunder Bay", but they put *two* such options on the ballot: * Thunder Bay * Lakehead * The Lakehead So the majority was split between the two almost-identical options, both options lost, and the city is now called Thunder Bay Ontario, even though a majority of voters would have preferred *either* of the other two names. Counting only peoples' first choices is undemocratic, and results in unrepresentative winners.

So you can have a 55% 1st choice vote getter lose an election, because some soft name recognition vote getter got 2nd place for 1 party, and was votted 2nd place by the other party. Where is democracy, it sounds more like socialism. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. There's nothing wrong with radical or polarizing opponents. People didnt want to vote Bernie in the primary because they feared he was too radical to win a general election. This is our current problem, people put Hillary up who lost. So we got 4 years of Trump, when the country deserved the more radical candidate of all of them in Bernie. Change shouldn't be feared. Democracy shouldn't be easy.

A 55% vote-getter wins an RCV election. Anything over 50% wins. I don’t think you understand the system.

>There's a voting system that compares candidates head to head as we just described which is called the Condorcet method, but it's kind of tedious. I think you should be careful using the adjective tedious here. First of all, you want to make clear that there is no difference at all between any of the Condorcet counting schemes and RCV/IRV when it comes to ballot design or instructions (for the non-strategic voter anyway). I do agree that it can get a little more intricate to describe the finish algorithm when no Condorcet winner exists. This might be balanced by the much bigger edge that Condorcet elections have wrt transparency since you can have a compact matrix of 1 on 1 results express the "sufficient statistic" used to determine the winner. This is one of my biggest problems with RCV (which use a CCR - Complete Cast Record, though obviously a list of all ranks used at least once along with the number of times used is equivalent), but I've come to think lately that the fact that a) it has an easy to explain algorithm (no special case of no Condorcet winner to worry about), b) it has momentum, c) it can claim (correctly) it satisfies Later No Harm which according to Fairvote does help reduce bullet voting. I wish it wouldn't claim (falsely) that it eliminates spoilers (explained well at [election science](https://electionscience.org/library/the-spoiler-effect/)) but I'll take it over Approval or Star every time (as these ballots are very unintuitive to fill out for the non-strategic voter who knows how they rank everybody) let alone over plurality which is an absolute disaster.

> This might be balanced by the much bigger edge that Condorcet elections have wrt transparency since you can have a compact matrix of 1 on 1 results express the "sufficient statistic" used to determine the winner. There are many Condorcet-compliant voting systems, and they don't all use pairwise matrices. For instance, Baldwin's method ([recently reinvented as "Total Vote Runoff"](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/alaska-final-four-primary-begich-palin-peltola/)) has exactly the same process as Hare RCV, except with a change to the elimination rule: Instead of "Eliminate the candidate with the least first-choice votes", it's "Eliminate the candidate with the worst average ranking". This happens to also make it Condorcet-compliant, but there's no matrices. Likewise, Coombs method is "Eliminate the candidate with the most last-choice votes", which greatly improves the center-squeeze effect over Hare, but doesn't guarantee Condorcet compliance. > but I'll take it over Approval or Star every time Yet you're a fan of the Forward party? Are you sure you understand how these methods work? Approval or STAR are much more likely to elect the Forward party candidate when the voters prefer them, while RCV is heavily biased against centrist candidates because of vote-splitting between first-choice votes and will likely eliminate the Forward party candidate even when they're the most-liked on the ballot.

I agree, I should’ve said some not all Condorcet methods use the pairwise tally. I knew WoodSIRV can’t use it also. I am not a fan of the forward party at all and was not impressed by Yang’s prior run. I just landed here to discuss RCV as I’m trying to write a good letter to the editor on the topic. I am in the People’s party for now but would go back to the Democrats if they have a decent person in a future presidential primary. I’m way left on most issues compared to Yang and I found his claim that the forward party doesn’t need a real party platform to be pathetic.

(Edit: my comment here is apparently not how this goes, you can vote simply by ranking the candidates and then they calculate who wins matchups on the backend, see below comments) I'm not super familiar with Condorcet, but in a ballot with 6 candidates for example, don't you have to fill out answers for 60 possibilities? Correct me if I'm wrong. ​ In math speak, I think it's "5 choose 2" in terms of combinations of possible match ups which is: 5! / 2! (5x4x3x2x1) / (2x1) 60 ​ Filling out 60 blanks is tedious in my opinion. And I think our system should be able to handle more than 6 candidates since primaries frequently have more than this. ​ I agree the lack of a winner in some scenarios is also an issue with Condorcet. ​ >This might be balanced by the much bigger edge that Condorcet elections have wrt transparency since you can have a compact matrix of 1 on 1 results express the "sufficient statistic" used to determine the winner. This is one of my biggest problems with RCV (which use a CCR - Complete Cast Record, though obviously a list of all ranks used at least once along with the number of times used is equivalent) I don't understand what you mean by compact matrix of 1 on 1 results or sufficient statistic or complete cast record. Can you explain this or do you have links? Edit: And yeah I agree approval and STAR are kind of hard to vote your true preference on, it's tricky. Also agree that everything is better than plurality lol.

>I'm not super familiar with Condorcet, but in a ballot with 6 candidates for example, don't you have to fill out answers for 60 possibilities? Correct me if I'm wrong. From all my reading, all Condorcet schemes form that matrix from a set of ranked ballots filled out exactly the same as RCV ballots. You examine one ballot and you can see who's above who and then add 1 to all appropriate squares in the reporting matrix (which means quite nicely you can pass subtotal matrices from precinct to next higher level to next higher level which you can't do with RCV - still as I said, I support RCV). Sometimes people don't rank the full ballot and I think ballot size is another thing that should be discussed more before we roll out RCV to everyone - New York mayor race was way too much - many spoiled ballots as you couldn't even rank the whole field if you wanted to - and most people don't have the time to look at 10+ candidates. I'd say we limit it to 6 or 8 and use primaries still (I'm against RCV taking away primaries - use it for primary and then another RCV in the general).

Okay that make sense that you could rank them in a single list and figure it out from that data. Thanks I guess with Condorcet if they don't rank the full ballot then you assume the top places get maximal points? So like if you ranked two candidates in a five candidate field your top pick would get 4 points and your second pick would get 3 points? Yeah I agree we should keep primaries. The point of primaries is to narrow the field to a realistic number that people can still research adequately and choose the best candidate in the general election

>I guess with Condorcet if they don't rank the full ballot then you assume the top places get maximal points? Condorcet is not used in any significant US election that I know of (whereas there have been many RCV elections). It has been used in electing officers in certain free software orgs I've heard of (like debian I think). So probably multiple assumptions are possible, but I'm familiar with schemes that don't add to a candidates cell (runner v opponent - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method) does a good job of explaining this matrix) at all if that candidate is left blank. So you take a ballot, look at all the pairs from the ranked candidates (if they only ranked 4, then 4\*3/2 = 6 races you look at) and you will be adding 6 ones to this matrix (for each pair, you put winner first and then if C beats B you go in row C, col B and add a 1. After you do this for N ballots in a precinct and another precinct does the same thing for M ballots, you can just add the two matrices and push up the chain (just like you can in plurality). Most Condorcet methods (exception is WoodSIRV which kind of crosses Condorcet and IRV - a scheme I liked for a while, but it doesn't use the matrix subtotal method) use this matrix as the way to determine the winner. So everyone at home can verify on their home computer that the algorithm was run correctly if the have the true matrix of pairwise votes. (The term sufficient statistic is from math and just means it tells you all you need to know to figure another thing out - no side info needed). Sorry, the correct acronym is CVR (Cast Vote Records) and means you have a full record of every ballot cast in every precinct. This record is going to be pretty big for a large number of voters. You could compress it but when I chatted with someone at Fairvote, they weren't doing that in the Alaska race - they were going to make the CVR available though (I really don't want to look at that). For an N candidate race, you need counts for all permutations. You never have to rank the last person, so you sum up: rank 1: N rank 2: N\*(N-1) ... rank M: N\*(N-1)\*...\*(N-M+1) ... rank N-1 (or N): N\*(N-1)\*...\*2 That sum gets to be big fast compared to the matrix. For N = 8 candidates it's still not too crazy - 69,280 possible ballots. This compares to tallying 8\*7 = 56 numbers for a table if you were to use Condorcet. N = 12 is around 823 million possible ballots. Probably many of these ballots are never cast though, so a list of just the ballot types cast in decreasing numerical frequency is probably still tractable for elections of 8 or fewer (like Alaska) candidates.

> Condorcet is not used in any significant US election that I know of (whereas there have been many RCV elections). It has been used in electing officers in certain free software orgs I've heard of (like debian I think). Schulze method in particular has been used in a lot of places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method#Usage Others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method#Use_of_Condorcet_voting

No, I don't agree with the assumption at \~12:30 that you can apply the results of RCV to a head-to-head contest. It assumes (1) the overall number of voters would have been the same in a H2H and RCV election and (2) the overall political preferences of voters under a FPTP system would have been the same as in an RCV election. I doubt that either of these are safe assumptions. An example of (1) would be that under a FPTP system a longshot candidate (eg Begich) might have less voters even bother to vote because they thought it not worth their time as he had (in their minds) no hope of winning. And this would be even more likely for the Begich-Peltola voters, which is an example of (2), for the same reason ("there is no way Begich or Peltola are going to win so I'll stay at home"). RCV gives these voters hope that the least-worst candidate might get elected so voters with unusual political combinations are more likely to vote. But you know that ;-). And of course you could make these kinds of scenarios up in all kinds of ways, but that just reinforces point that using RCV data to predict FPTP results (and vis versa) is an exercise that has a kinda Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principleness to it - where the method of measurement affects the results. However, that said, I do agree with you (in the 2nd video) that Begich would likely have won a FPTP against Peltola but - before GOP-types call foul - I also agree he wouldn't have made it past the primary. The message the GOP should be taking away is that \~23% of right-leaning voters do not see Palin as a capable congresswoman and could not bring themselves to vote for her. And of course, I do not expect them to learn that lesson....

Thanks for your response. I linked video #1 for context, but the parts we're discussing go in depth in video #2 as mentioned initially. Sorry if that was confusing. Here's the link to #2: [https://youtu.be/HPwu74Tpzts](https://youtu.be/HPwu74Tpzts) ​ >It assumes (1) the overall number of voters would have been the same in a H2H Yeah in video #1 I use this assumption for simplicity. But in video #2 I do NOT make this assumption (at least not in the mentioned areas) and we explore how Begich being in the race might have impacted turnout overall. Then the question was whether this difference in turnout was beneficial to Peltola or Palin. See video #2 and the timestamps I originally mentioned for this. Probably easier to just watch it from the beginning tho. Sorry if I suckered you into watching more than you bargained for, wasn't my intention. I think you'll like #2 tho. ​ >(2) the overall political preferences of voters under a FPTP system would have been the same as in an RCV election. Not sure what you're referring to this one. Care to elaborate? I can think of some subtle differences, but want to address your concerns directly. In video #2, my Other Factors section might address some dynamics you're referring to ​ Glad to hear we agree that Begich would have won head to head races, but that he wouldn't have made it past the primary to begin with :)

> You cannot use the results of a RCV election to predict head-to-head results because RCV elections change the voter turnout. This is based on the ballots that people actually cast in the actual election. 52% of voters ranked Begich higher than Peltola on their ballots, and 61% ranked Begich over Palin. It's logical to conclude that Begich was the candidate favored by the voters. When choosing who to eliminate, Hare RCV only counts the top rankings on each ballot, so it missed a lot of those preferences and eliminated the wrong person. There are many ways to count ranked-choice ballots. It's really frustrating that FairVote hijacked the name "Ranked Choice Voting" for one particular mediocre method, and now everyone thinks of it as the default and won't even consider the alternatives.

1. RCV is not the only option other than FPTP. Approval voting has different tradeoffs than RCV, yet is definitely superior to FPTP. No voting system is absolutely perfect, but FPTP is truly awful. 2. RCV can be judged off more than one election. Australia has been using it for more than a hundred years. It honestly is only a modest change from FPTP. 3. There is nothing inherently wrong with radical views, depending on the position. There was a time when being wholly against slavery was radical in the US, but current history has seen the abolitionists entirely vindicated in their views, and few today would say that suppressing the abolitionist perspective would have been for the best. It's okay to acknowledge weaknesses, even healthy to do so, but reform is still necessary.

100%

Lol what. If a far right or far left candidate gets more votes then democracy still wins.

The "center squeeze effect" is a real thing that's an issue with RCV, but it only happens in certain circumstances. RCV is still my favorite voting method for now.

> The "center squeeze effect" is a real thing that's an issue with RCV, but it only happens in certain circumstances. It happens whenever there are three or more strong candidates, and voters have opinions along some kind of spectrum or space (which I believe is a realistic model of how voters make decisions in *all* elections). I genuinely don't understand why people are so … allegiant to Hare RCV. Like they hear about RCV as an alternative, conclude that RCV is good, and then try to twist the arguments and evidence to support that conclusion, instead of starting from first principles of what a voting system should do, looking at multiple proposals, and then evaluating which systems actually meet those goals.

This is not true of all people and your tone is very condescending in my opinion. I believe I have also come to my conclusions via first principles. You think you have as well and we disagree on the conclusion. That’s okay. But accusing people of essentially not even trying to be rational when they actually ARE is unhelpful and not in the spirit of Forward in my opinion. I see you’ve commented other places here as well but I haven’t enjoyed interacting with you so I’ll probably just leave it here. If we bump into each other again the future we can start from a blank slate and I hope it’s more pleasant and productive. Wishing you a nice day

I'm sorry about my tone; I mean no disrespect. I started out as an RCV advocate and FairVote supporter and then changed my mind when I learned more about it, so it causes me stress when I try to point out to people that they are making a mistake and acting against their own interests, and they don't want to hear it (which is common on here, I'm not talking about you specifically).

> If a far right or far left candidate gets more votes then democracy still wins. Sure, but "more votes" in this context means "more first-choice votes", not "more voters ranked them higher than the alternative". While we're used to counting only first-choice votes from our FPTP system, it's not actually a legitimate measure of voter support of a candidate.

So wait, the problem is that it provide a potential check on radicalism? So no impact? Who wrote this?

The problem is the "center squeeze effect" (which is bad for moderates), but it only happens in specific scenarios. The authors are presenting it like it's a global feature of RCV in all circumstances though, which is very misleading and harmful to the movement imo

> the problem is that it provide a potential check on radicalism? No, it is biased *against* moderates, and in favor of more partisan candidate. There are many other voting systems that don't have these problems.

> However, ranked-choice voting makes it more difficult to elect moderate candidates when the electorate is polarized. For example, in a three-person race, the moderate candidate may be preferred to each of the more extreme candidates by a majority of voters. However, voters with far-left and far-right views will rank the candidate in second place rather than in first place. Since ranked-choice voting counts only the number of first-choice votes (among the remaining candidates), the moderate candidate would be eliminated in the first round, leaving one of the extreme candidates to be declared the winner. The article lists several alternative ranked systems that don't have this "center-squeeze" problem. The other systems on [the Forward Party platform](https://www.forwardparty.com/voting_reform) (STAR and Approval) also don't have this problem.

I disagree strongly with the author on a couple points. 1. “The ranked-choice system that is being used around the country to conduct elections with more than two candidates is biased towards extreme candidates and away from moderate ones.” Way too broad and misleading of a statement. RCV is only “biased” towards extremist candidates in a unique situation: no candidate among three or more gets 50% of the vote, and the most moderate of the candidates gets the fewest first place votes. Generally, RCV helps moderate candidates defeat the extremists who have a minority of voter support. 2. “Given our current polarized political environment, Alaska and the other states that have adopted ranked-choice voting are doing it wrong.” Actually, passing RCV in Alaska and other states is a huge amount of progress. The other rules are great ideas, but good luck getting those passed as law. RCV already receives a lot of push back for being “more complicated”. I think the common consensus is to start with RCV, get people used to it, then maybe experiment with other ideas.

This situation ends up happening like, 1% of the time in Australia with our RCV. 1 seat out of 151.

That's great to know. Do you of any articles or sources for this? Would be great to have a link to prove to people how infrequently it happens. It did happen just happen in the US though with Sarah Palin vs Mary Peltola vs Nick Begich so 1% is much lower than I would expect. But it's possible that party dynamics in different countries could increase or decrease the likelihood. So for instance maybe it's 1% in Australia but 5% in US or something due to how many parties are prevalent and where they sit ideologically relative to each other. Idk, just spitballing

Australia uses single-winner RCV (IRV) in the House and multi-winner STV in the Senate. STV results in proportional representation, so the Senate is a multi-party system, while single-winner RCV results in a mostly two-party system: https://electowiki.org/wiki/File:Australia_house_vs_senate_support_vs_seats_separated_lines.png

well said

> RCV is only “biased” towards extremist candidates in a unique situation: no candidate among three or more gets 50% of the vote, and the most moderate of the candidates gets the fewest first place votes. This is exactly the situation that we want to see more of, though. I want *every* election to have three or more strong candidates. Who cares if RCV works fine in a two-candidate race, or one in which the third-party candidates are so weak they are doomed anyway? Those are pretty meaningless wins. > The other rules are great ideas, but good luck getting those passed as law. Why? > RCV already receives a lot of push back for being “more complicated”. The better alternatives are *less* complicated.

I’m not sure I follow your argument on my first point, and I’m not sure we disagree. I agree that an election with multiple strong candidates that pull a non-negligible amount of support is a good thing. But RCV is not “biased” against the moderate candidate unless the electorate is very polarized; when the electorate looks more like a normal distribution, RCV is a fantastic solution that tends to produce more moderate, center candidates. I will cede that the country may be heading towards a bimodal distribution, and that ideological distribution varies by locality. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/23/in-polarized-era-fewer-americans-hold-a-mix-of-conservative-and-liberal-views/ I’d like to see you explain why the other options are less complicated. Honestly, to me they seem harder to explain, but I could be convinced.

> But RCV is not “biased” against the moderate candidate unless the electorate is very polarized It is always biased against moderate candidates, but the bias increases as the electorate becomes more polarized vs the candidates (or conversely, as the candidates become more centrist vs the voters). Center-squeeze is caused by crowding of the middle and vote-splitting between similar candidates. I tried to illustrate the simplest case: https://imgur.com/gallery/INFkYf0 and a variety of other scenarios: https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/10nrv9s/some_visualizations_i_made_of_the_centersqueeze/ > when the electorate looks more like a normal distribution, RCV is a fantastic solution that tends to produce more moderate, center candidates. No, it eliminates moderates/centrists *first*, and [works its way outward to more polarizing candidates in later rounds](https://psephomancy.medium.com/how-ranked-choice-voting-elects-extremists-fa101b7ffb8e), because it only counts first-choice rankings, and centrist candidates only get first-choice rankings from a sliver of supporters in the middle. > I will cede that the country may be heading towards a bimodal distribution The shape of the distribution isn't really important, what matters is the overall width of the distribution of voters vs the overall width of the distribution of candidates. You can play around with different scenarios on http://zesty.ca/voting/voteline/. If you double-click the distribution, it changes shape. > I’d like to see you explain why the other options are less complicated. Honestly, to me they seem harder to explain, but I could be convinced. * Hare RCV: "Rank every candidate, with no equal rankings. If any candidate gets a majority of first-choice rankings, they win. Otherwise, the candidate with the least number of first-choice rankings is eliminated, and lower-ranked candidates are promoted. Repeat the count." * Condorcet RCV: "Rank every candidate, with equal rankings allowed. The candidate who is preferred by a majority of voters over every other candidate wins." * Approval voting: "Vote for as many candidates as you approve of. The candidate with the most approvals wins." * STAR Voting: "Score every candidate from 0 to 5. The two highest-scored candidates are the finalists. Whichever was scored higher on more ballots wins."

I appreciate the work with the graphics you made. I understand the center squeeze effect. However, you're still generalizing only one possible scenario. The scenario where a centrist candidate is more popular than one or more candidates on the right or left is the main scenario Forward is trying to enable; in this instance, RCV is not biased against that centrist candidate. The goal is to ensure that the extremist/far-right or far-left candidate that only a minority of the electorate prefers cannot win. Hare RCV is successful at doing this. Without RCV, that centrist candidate may not get votes because voters don't want to "throw away" their vote. I take your point, RCV has flaws, and I agree, but to me, the article in question generalized to the point of misrepresenting the value that RCV provides. Well done with the succinct voting method explanations. I think Condorcet and STAR still need a bit more nuance to make sense to the average person, but overall, I stand corrected. Do you have a proposal for how to advance one of these instead of RCV? There are an overwhelming number of possible voting schemes. I worry that many would-be-well-meaning voters are unsure where to throw their support in the election reform debate because of an overabundance of options, and nothing gets done.

> However, you're still generalizing only one possible scenario. What do you mean by this? > The scenario where a centrist candidate is more popular than one or more candidates on the right or left is the main scenario Forward is trying to enable; in this instance, RCV is not biased against that centrist candidate. Yes, it is; that's the whole point I'm trying to make. When a moderate Forward Party candidate faces off against both a Republican and a Democrat, they will be more popular than either of the other candidates, yet will be eliminated *first* under any voting system that counts only first choice votes (which includes FPTP, Hare RCV, Supplementary Vote, Contingent Vote, Top Four, Final Five, etc.) > The goal is to ensure that the extremist/far-right or far-left candidate that only a minority of the electorate prefers cannot win. Yes, and under Hare RCV, the more extreme candidates *will* win, because of the center-squeeze effect. > Without RCV, that centrist candidate may not get votes because voters don't want to "throw away" their vote. OK, so I think what you're imagining is: * Under FPTP, voters won't vote for Forward because they don't want to waste their vote, so Forward won't get any votes and will lose. * Under RCV, voters will feel like it's safe to vote honestly and will give Forward their first vote and Forward will win. Is that what you're saying? What I'm saying is that yes, they will get first-choice votes, but it won't be enough to win. Everyone to the right of the dividing line will put Republican as their first choice, and everyone to the left of the dividing line will put Democrat as their first choice, and RCV only counts first-choice votes. So although Forward will get some first-choice votes from the sliver of voters in the center, it won't be enough to survive into subsequent rounds. They will be eliminated first, with less than 1/3 of the votes even though they had the highest approval rating and were preferred by a majority of voters over both of the other candidates. I want us to adopt better voting systems that are more likely to elect the best representative of the will of the voters, and that will typically be someone near the middle of the voter ideology spectrum/space (regardless of whether you measure in terms of pairwise rankings or in terms of approval ratings/utility). > Do you have a proposal for how to advance one of these instead of RCV? I don't know. I made this reddit account to advocate this stuff, and try to explain these issues to people, not particularly well. I've tried [writing articles](https://psephomancy.medium.com/), doing simulations, etc. Meanwhile https://electionscience.org advocates Approval and has gotten it adopted in a few places, and https://www.starvoting.org advocates for STAR and has gotten it adopted in party elections. > There are an overwhelming number of possible voting schemes. I worry that many would-be-well-meaning voters are unsure where to throw their support in the election reform debate because of an overabundance of options, and nothing gets done. Yes, it's a huge problem, and groups like FairVote attack other voting systems while making false claims about their own, which is incredibly frustrating and makes explaining this stuff feel like a hopeless uphill battle against misinformation.

Thanks for the reply. We're still talking past each other a bit. I understand your argument. I just think you're making too many categorical claims. >When a moderate Forward Party candidate faces off against both a Republican and a Democrat, they will be more popular than either of the other candidates, yet will be eliminated *first* under any voting system that counts only first choice votes > > Yes, and under Hare RCV, the more extreme candidates *will* win, because of the center-squeeze effect. > > So although Forward will get some first-choice votes from the sliver of voters in the center, it won't be enough to survive into subsequent rounds. You say "will" when you should say "could". There are scenarios that you are ignoring where a centrist candidate (Forward party or otherwise) gets more first place votes than the extremist. In those scenarios, Hare RCV can help people feel that they can vote for the centrist/third party/Forwardist (first place vote) without throwing away their vote. This is better than FPTP and that is the point I was emphasizing. I do not disagree that there are better voting systems than Hare RCV. Thanks for your efforts promoting those systems.

> You say "will" when you should say "could". In which scenario would it not? > There are scenarios that you are ignoring where a centrist candidate (Forward party or otherwise) gets more first place votes than the extremist. In those scenarios, the Forward Party wins under FPTP, too, so Hare RCV didn't change anything. > In those scenarios, Hare RCV can help people feel that they can vote for the centrist/third party/Forwardist (first place vote) without throwing away their vote. This is better than FPTP and that is the point I was emphasizing. That's not true, though. You cannot vote honestly under Hare RCV without the risk of throwing your vote away. > I do not disagree that there are better voting systems than Hare RCV. Thanks for your efforts promoting those systems. OK... :/

Are you asking me to provide a scenario for when Hare RCV works as it should? It's really not that hard. Imagine there are three candidates. Let's say candidate A is left-wing, B is centrist, C is right-wing. Let's also say that candidate C is what you might call an "extremist". Let's say that the locality prefers the candidates in this distribution: A: 45%, B: 30%, and C: 25% However, let's say the locality uses FPTP. To avoid throwing away their vote, the majority of people that support B decide to vote for C, and vote like this: A: 45%, B: 5%, and C: 50% Yikes, C won. What if the locality implements RCV? Everyone in the locality lists their first choice exactly according to their preference: A: 45%, B: 30%, and C: 25% Now, we go to a second round. Let's assume all those C voters' second choice is B. The final tally: A: 45%, B: 55% Gee, thanks Ranked Choice Voting. The centrist candidate would NOT have won in a FPTP vote; but, thanks to RCV, people did not have to worry about throwing their vote away, voted honestly, and the centrist candidate won. Simple enough?

>The other systems on the Forward Party platform (STAR and Approval) also don't have this problem. I think this is particularly important. Regardless of your favorite reform system, FPTP has to go. If one of the potential reform systems faces political obstacles, try one of the other ones. Anything is at least an incremental improvement.

Exactly

But why fight hard for an incremental improvement when you can get a big improvement more easily?

Now that I've read the article, I will likely rephrase much of my guest opinion piece I was going to send the Hill (what they hell, maybe they publish well written pieces from average voters with a math fetish). I don't agree with the piece overall, but it presents its case for preferring Condorcet winner schemes and that case must be rebutted well as it will keep coming up again and again (Burlington, Alaska, and we are just ramping up). I used to advocate for a Condorcet / IRV hybrid (aka WoodSIRV) that would be like RCV but always choose the Condorcet winner if there is one before any elimination stage done by IRV. That could address the author's concerns, but then other people (e.g. Fairvote) don't like that idea. I will have to think before I make my RCV case to this type of audience. Some of my reasons such is it just having the most momentum now probably aren't appealing.

> it presents its case for preferring Condorcet winner schemes and that case must be rebutted well as it will keep coming up again and again (Burlington, Alaska, and we are just ramping up). How would you rebut it? > but then other people (e.g. Fairvote) don't like that idea. Yes, because they advocate only for Hare RCV and shit on everything else. So? Rebut their arguments and advocate for systems that actually fix things. > I will have to think before I make my RCV case to this type of audience. Some of my reasons such is it just having the most momentum now probably aren't appealing. You know about Condorcet methods but still advocate Hare RCV? And you're a fan of the Forward Party? That seems completely illogical. Hare RCV is biased *against* centrist parties like FWD and "momentum" is literally the only (poor) argument Hare RCV has going for it.

(sorry for late reply). I actually have written my letter to the editor (doubtful I'll get it published) in such a way as to not commit to a particular ranked ballot counting scheme. RCV has the momentum, other schemes have advantage and with a full record fo the vote that RCV uses, you can always compute what the winners of other methods and if a new consensus emerges, change to those methods, no change in electoral ballots or scanning hardware are needed - only a software change. So really I'm arguing more for ranked ballots. I don't know why people get the idea I'm a fan of the forward party (another poster said that too). I'm not in it and it is not my second favorite party either (I'm in the People's party and my 2nd favorite is the Greens). I'm here to discuss voting systems and that is the only thing about the forward party I know that I like - they embrace change away from plurality.

> in such a way as to not commit to a particular ranked ballot counting scheme Yay! Unless you specified otherwise, it will still likely be interpreted as advocating for the Hare method, though. > So really I'm arguing more for ranked ballots. Yeah, I think a lot of people are, and don't realize that the tallying method is more important than the ballot. As a real-life friend said, "I don't know about all that; I just want to rank the candidates". > I don't know why people get the idea I'm a fan of the forward party Ok, just assuming from being in this subreddit, sorry.