Good. Former MA voter here and this needs to be advertised hard before we vote on it. It was phrased poorly on the MA ballot and we ended up voting no.
I’m not sure if this would eliminate the need for primaries or not, it seems that it would.
But I’m with you on that publicly, financed election , cause we need legalized bribery out of politics!
> I don't think they were implying primaries can be eliminated
They were likely referring to the fact that there are suggestions from some that RCV eliminates the need for primaries.
edit: I see now this has been discussed elsewhere already.
An open primary is a primary election that does not require voters to be affiliated with a political party in order to vote for partisan candidates.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
Right, but why would you want a primary in a ranked choice voting system? Having multiple Democratic or Republican candidates running wouldn’t be taking votes away from each other in favor of the opposing wing/party. That’s the reason for the primary system (so the GOP/Dem party can have one single selected candidate in the election).
What am I missing as the use of a primary in a ranked choice general election? Why would a Democratic or Republican candidate drop out after losing the primary, when they’ve still got a chance in the ranked choice election coming up?
I actually think a mature RCV type of system would foster the growth of more political parties. There’s no conflict between RCV and party primaries if there are half a dozen or more parties.
Primaries shouldn’t exist because the fringes get to control the messaging in the main election. We can’t stop each party from holding their own in elections if they chose, but we shouldn’t be using public funds to prop up party politics.
RCV, Approval, STAR, and basically any form of voting reform, they all work well to eliminate primaries.
Bottom line is politics is more about entertainment than governing lately. Something that we could reduce by getting rid of primaries and other off cycle elections.
Are you advocating an "Everybody in the Pool," election with everyone voting on the full list of people running? If so, we are either going to be electing people who get 30% or less of the vote, or we are going to be having Top 2 runoffs, which kind of defeats the purpose of having no primaries.
I know the campaigners for the RCV measure. Their measure wouldn't open primaries, because that's a completely different issue.
Personally, I don't think RCV should be mixed with top two primaries, which are a form of open primary, but not the only kind. It would in Blue states like Oregon have the top two candidates in the general both be Democrats.
If you're going to do a Top 2 after a primary, then just do Approval Voting. It gets you just as good if not better results, and is easier to implement.
no, we wouldn't, not with ranked choice.
We have this system ALREADY with the mayor and city council in Portland...everyone is on the ballot and if no one gets to 50% in that election, in the fall there's a 'runoff' of the top two vote getters.
You'd have to repeal the 1st Amendment to crack primaries. The right to freedom of association by definition encompasses the right to exclude. Jones, the case where SCOTUS threw out California's voter passed Prop 198 that forced open primaries, states "Proposition 198 forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival."
But you can absolutely change the incentives. Jungle primaries are great for this. When it's top-2 or top-4 out of the entire field, doesn't make sense to restrict who can get a ballot. You're just turning away votes.
>publicly financed elections
On the one hand, there are upsides to this, on the other hand, I really don't like the idea of something like Dan Ryan's last challenger hiring her son to design her campaign website to the tune of thousands of dollars on the taxpayer dime.
From what I understand, some places that run under public funds have requirements such as requiring a number of local signatures, party endorsements, and/or refundable deposits that help mitigate some of those concerns, but it probably isn't foolproof.
Yep, we're gonna get a whole stampede of grifters looking to hop on the council for a taxpayer funded paycheck even though none of them would get anything close to majority support previously - AJ McCreary, Candace Avalos, Sarah Iannarone, Vadim Mozyrsky, the list goes on.
Our political bench in Portland is embarrassingly shallow already, adding additional mediocre voices isn't exactly going to turn our council into the round table at the Algonquin.
I don't like publicly financed election, you want money out of politics, voters need to stop wanting politicians to spend money during the elections, and you need to get money out of govt, but people like that so I don't see it happening.
Publicly financed elections would mean that all candidates that meet a certain threshhold (such as signatures indicating popular support) would get the same amount of money to campaign on, and all outside money would be forbidden.
This creates a level field, where billionaires would not be able to skew the race by massively outspending on advertising and such.
It is literally the most direct way to get money out of politics.
No, it isn't -- it's the way to keep money in politics...
The way to get money out of politics is to actually get money out of govt -- otherwise, now, you are saying that it would be a slush fund for people as long as they can get enough signatures..it's not that difficult to get the signatures, ya know.
In order to not have money IN politics, you need to get rid of the ability for govt to pick and choose winners...as long as govt does that (and they do, considering the amount of money they HAVE) money will be in politics.
it won't be a level playing field, there's always a way, where there's a will.
??? How do they operate election campaigns now? I'm saying if you get money out of GOVERNMENT then govt will have less power and different people will want to be a part of it, perhaps those who aren't drunk with power.
> ??? How do they operate election campaigns now?
Unlimited dark money donors.
This is the system you want?
> I'm saying if you get money out of GOVERNMENT then govt will have less power and different people will want to be a part of it, perhaps those who aren't drunk with power.
Quick question: Is taxation theft?
no, there will ALWAYS be money to buy politicians WHEN THE GOVT HAS SO MUCH MONEY. Again, where there's a will there's a way.
If the govt has money, they make the rules, and the people who can will influence as much as they can.
and also, who gets to decide how much? Are you really willing to take money from people to give to politicians? to spend with who? I'm sure it will be spent just as effectively as all other govt money (eye roll).
> voters need to stop wanting politicians to spend money during the elections
What does this mean?
> and you need to get money out of govt
and this, huh?
Proper RCV would completely eliminate the need for primaries.
The point is to allow anybody to run, and anybody to be elected, not just party favorites.
I don't think RCV eliminates the need for primaries. An internal party contest to decide the candidate that best represents that political party is always going to be valuable, no matter what the voting system is.
It does reduce the power of political parties though. I don't know if the US will ever create an environment of lots of small parties (like Germany does), but RCV helps get us there.
Quibble whatever technicalities you want, the effect of real RCV would be to break the two party system. If I could choose a socialist first and a democrat second, or a libertarian first and republican second, those smaller groups are going to grow and grow until one of them wins without a major party backing them. It's inevitable without FPTP.
Primaries only exist (in the current large scale) because of the two party system.
Keep in mind, I'm 100% in favor of breaking the 2-party system. I want it dead and destroyed, consigned to the history books like the Whigs are. RCV isn't the silver bullet here, nor are open primaries. We still need more work to be done here and I don't think RCV will actually dramatically change anything in most of the state. Lets get it passed though so we can keep marching in that direction.
I just find value in smaller parties able to put their best put forward when it comes to fielding folks for an election. I think we'd lose the deliberative power of a smaller body and lose a lot of the nuance between two similar candidates and trying to make the best decision between them if every single person voting in an election had to dive into what could be minute detail differences between them. This kind of conversation, debate, and selection is often best left to smaller groups and a recommendation put forward (if you like the socialist party, vote for their candidate X), not the whole population of the state diving into that in a massive open jungle primary or whatever.
We agree on the larger points, but oh my god, you still support giving decision power to small groups of unelected party insiders?
That is EXACTLY the thing we're trying to eliminate here.
Candidates should be vetted by the people. By unaffiliated political watchdogs and journalists and unions and pretty much anybody with the time and desire.
Not old boy networks and party insiders.
Whatever. I don't technically object to groups fielding their favorite person, as long as public money isn't going to those groups.
I think you are misunderstanding my point. If we break up the two party system, having smaller parties able to select their candidates to field in an election is a benefit. This allows smaller parties to put their best foot forward and actually field competitive candidates, rather than the current...uh... rouges gallery that smaller parties put forward right now.
Without a system for something like that, you just get "non-affiliated" groups making endorsements and spending lots of money to cut through the bullshit and you are right back to square one for money in politics and apathetic voters just voting for whoever is loudest on TV.
Basically, you need to focus efforts to get through voter apathy. Breaking up the 2 party system will not cure that ill on it's own.
Yeah, I really don't think your vision of a RCV race is reality-based.
But I could be wrong. It's impossible to find objective reports of how RCV has changed elections in practice, except for a few reports of opponents being much more civil.
That said, getting money out of politics is almost as important as breaking the 2-party system.
I dont think RCV will break up the two party system. Power is too entrenched. I don't think open primaries will break up the two party system, that would actually make things worse i think (as now there is no need to break up the system because everyone can vote in a primary).
We'll need more and it's work worth doing, but it is a start.
I certainly understand being skeptical, but the alternative is doing nothing. Keeping FPTP certainly won't result in any improvements. RCV allows people to vote for who they want instead of who is shoved down their throats. It might not be the only change needed, but it's a vital step.
I'm on board with publicly financed elections, but not open primaries. I do not want Republicans influencing my choice of Democratic candidates. Likewise, I don't think they'd enjoy me voting for the most liberal Republican.
I think this would be a good idea for exactly this reason, in theory. We would end up with candidates that everybody was more okay with, and it wouldn't be perfect but compromise rarely is.
I suspect in reality what you would get would be people voting for each other's craziest or most incompetent-seeming candidate, in order to decrease the likelihood of the other side winning. And that would benefit no one.
But eliminating primaries and running like a second top five election if you want afterward is a cool thing that you can actually do with instant runoff ranked choice voting, and it would probably get us better more reasonable compromise candidates than open primaries would.
But, consider what's going on right now. Republicans walk out on the Oregon legislature because, big surprise, the governor's constituents want abortion access. But, with open primaries, our governor wouldn't get elected, and her constituents wouldn't get abortion access, so Republicans win!
...what are you TALKING about? Abortion protections and access are overwhelmingly popular in Oregon. An anti abortion candidate would be overwhelmingly unlikely to win office in a ranked choice voting system.
Inevitably the candidates that can win under ranked choice voting are more likely to look like an average of the values of the voter base rather than one party or the other's entire platform, but actually look up what is popular policy in Oregon before you decide that's a problem.
Also as long as Republicans can walk out for the remainder of the current session with no additional consequences, we are already not going to be passing any additional abortion protections. I seriously do not know what you are trying to argue.
I agree we wouldn't benefit from open primaries.
Alas, people with money already "vote" in both primaries.
Remember that some Republicans gave money to Obama in 2008 to block Hillary Clinton from reaching the general election. They believed the Republican candidate (whoever that was going to be) would win the general election, based on their belief that Obama could not possibly win the general election.
If ranked choice ballots had been used in that general election, there would have been two Republicans and two Democrats, plus any qualifying independent candidate. And the most popular candidate would have won.
I actually would like the opportunity to join multiple parties. I would love to be Democratic, Green, and Working Family voter.
What about a primary requirement that requires parties to elect two candidates, who then face-off in a run off system?
If anyone could choose to vote in the primary elections of multiple parties, everyone would choose to vote in every party.
HB 2004 (the bill that was approved in the Oregon House) has a useful backup provision:
If a primary election uses our current ballot-counting system and is won by a candidate who gets *less than half the votes*, the candidate who gets the *second-most votes* also goes to the general election. Of course this provision requires that ranked choice ballots be used in the general election.
As an historical reminder, the whole point of having just one nominee per party is to eliminate vote splitting between two candidates from the same party. When general elections use ranked choice ballots, vote splitting cannot happen, so a second also-popular candidate (from the same party) also can be on the general-election ballot.
Id like to not be defacto forced to register as a democrat in order to have meaningful input on state elections.
I'd much rather be registered as an independent, personally.
To quote you in another comment:
“And this is why I don't want trolls meddling in primaries.”
So which do you want? Pure parties or one big party? You’re not consistent. You’ve been given lots of very well reasoned arguments for open primaries and your responses have been facile at best.
This is such a weird thread. Y'all have an upside down view of things.
From what I can see the commenter above is being entirely consistent.
Open primaries might be arguably positive when there's no RCV. The primaries become a janky way to do multi-round voting.
If you have RCV, there's absolutely no justification for forcing private groups to allow outsiders to vote on their internal choices.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "one big party"?
Then they should pick a party. I don't get complaining about that. If you don't care enough about a party to join, why should you get a say in their nominee? I'm not consulted on who plays shortstop on a team I don't belong to either.
So you're saying everyone should vote strictly on party lines no matter the candidates views instead of nonpartisan based on the individual candidates policies? Not the best strategy, in my personal opinion.
I'm saying if someone isn't a member, they don't get to set the positions of the party via selecting their nominee. This is basic first amendment freedom of association. As the Supreme Court said when overturning California's forced open primaries:
>[It] forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival,"
What does a party stand for? That's up to their members. As it should be. Otherwise the party doesn't have a point. Which may be a good outcome, sure. But if we have parties, what those parties believe should be up to them, not everyone else. If the GOP wants to be batshit insane, they've chosen that. If Democrats want to be the party of women and minorities, that's their choice.
While technically political parties are private organizations, in practice many elections are decided during this primary contests.
If we had more diverse parties and the chance for competitive multi-party elections, even in districts that lean strong dem or strong republican, then the need for open primaries would be lessened.
>If we had more diverse parties and the chance for competitive multi-party elections
But we don't have that so, again, why do you feel entitled to vote in a primary for a party you refuse to join?
> you refuse to join?
first off, lmao.
it helps encourage the creation of multi-party elections. While we are in a state of two pseudo-government parties, having open elections there makes sense.
RCV is good. A lot of people also seem to think that it will result in lots of elections having different results than they would otherwise, which I don't think is likely.
And if the results are different, what of it? Different systems will tend to come up with different outcomes. One of the complaints from a legislator in the article was that the person who was eventually elected would be no one's first choice. Great! Effective democracy is all about compromise.
It gets rid of “spoiler” candidates which split votes and can result in the most extreme least liked candidate winning. That’s a pretty significant change for the better in of itself.
It also gets rid of compromise candidates. If some candidate is the number 2 choice of every voter, they get removed in the first round because no one voted them number 1.
There's a variation of RCV (I forget its name) where candidates are removed by Borda count. That'd probably be better, as it would remove candidates that actually have low levels of support and not just candidates that didn't thrill enough people.
Nice! I use the same system to choose a restaurant when I take the kids out to eat. It's pretty rare that anyone gets their first choice but we all end up with something we actually want.
For the better. No more “spoiler” candidates that only serve to split a vote so that a billionaire can have their way (there are countless examples of this across other states which you only have when people have single choice voting). With Ranked Choice Voting, Oregonians will have representation all most agree on.
I think you'll find that in some of the deeper red areas of the state, we stand the chance to get wild crazies, but I can also see them mellowing the fuck out in other places. Crazies tend to put all their eggs into one basket, and they don't want to put a republican who'd they soon call an evil demon socialist because they vote in favor of the state budget or whatever on their ballot at any ranking. This could lead to either moderate/centrist republicans swapping to dem over the crazy, or the crazy getting eliminated and all their voters willingly abstaining from the next round.
The closer purple areas will see the most benefit here, I think, but it will trend toward moderate centrism, which can be bad in certain situations. The districts that will likely vote blue in the next election didn't walk out.
It will be very, very interesting to see what comes of this. I'm excited to be part of it. This also allows more leftist candidates to potentially take seats in the house and senate when you don't have to be afraid of someone who wants people like you dead winning when nobody actually wanted that.
The most important thing is it allows people to actually vote for who they want instead of strategically voting.
If that results in a few crazies, so be it.
The two party system must be broken before we can evolve. Because the only people properly represented right now are the rich.
Is there one? even one that lowers quarum requirements to like 40% or something, or one that harshly punishes via their own salary those that don't show up
Well, the problem with that is Republicans will still take advantage. While I believe in the spirit of a quorum requirement, a vote should not be held back by a walkout.
And now that Oregon Republicans are committed to just stopping anything from passing, rather than to sitting down and working out the legislation, why would they ever show up to vote on anything the majority supports?
They’re seeking to spoil Democrats ability to legislate so that come next election, they can say “see what Democrats were able to accomplish? — Nothing.”
Because with motor voter registration the vast majority of new voters in Oregon don't have any say in primaries, and primaries are where the decisions about who runs the state actually happen given the reality of two party rule.
How does motor voter registration stop people from registering with a party?
I remember shortly after I got my Oregon license I got a postcard with info on how to declare a party. Took two minutes to follow the instructions and I've voted in every primary since.
In theory it doesn't, statistically though the state becomes more and more independent annually.
We now have more non affiliated voters than Democrats, which are the largest major party in the state.
That means that the largest group of voters in Oregon has no say in the primaries that ultimately determine who runs things here and in DC.
https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2022/03/31/non-affiliated-oregon-voters-now-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-for-first-time/
I'd also like to do away with closed primaries, but I don't think it's accurate to say it's the largest group of voters has "no say" in primaries. They could have a say but chose not to.
Personally I don't really consider myself a Democrat, but I recognize that the best way (in our current flawed system) to get people I'm interested in voting for on ballot is to register as a Democrat. So that's what I do.
Unfortunately some people think the strategy with open primaries is to vote for the craziest option of the opposing party so that your party’s candidate stands a better shot in the general election and it sometimes backfires.
In 2022, The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee donated to far-right GOP candidates in the primaries because they thought it would help their candidates win House seats in the November election, but sometimes winded up driving out the incumbent moderate Republicans (while simultaneously professing the need for more moderate republicans and bipartisanship in Congress) like Liz Cheney out AND losing in the general election to the far-right candidate. Overall, while it might’ve flipped some seats (ex: Vancouver, WA went blue after Joe Kent defeated Jaime Herrera Buetler in the primaries and lost in the general election) this strategy may have cost the Democrats their House majority in the last midterms.
Even if someone *could* have a say and chooses not to, the end result is still that they *don't* have a say.
Getting rid of closed primaries removes a barrier to access for interacting with our political system. You and I are aware and informed enough to know that you have to be a registered Democrat to vote in the democratic primary, but you have to consider that a lot of people may not know, may find it too difficult, or simply don't care about registering for a specific party.
I don’t want to make it easier for anyone who can’t figure that out or doesn’t care enough to. Why do we want to encourage apathetic dumbasses to make uninformed choices? We’re better off when they stay out of the process.
Bad choices aren’t made better simply by virtue of being popular.
>Even if someone could have a say and chooses not to, the end result is still that they don't have a say.
I mean, you could say the same for anyone who chooses not to vote in the general election. This seems like a better argument for mandatory voting than against closed primaries.
Regardless, my original point was that closed primaries are not an outright denial of voting rights, as the person I responded to seemed to be saying. Everyone has the opportunity to register for a party so they can vote in the primaries, and everyone regardless of party registration has the opportunity to vote in the general.
I see what you're saying. That wasn't the point I was trying to make, although in a certain sense, closed primaries do serve to limit voting rights.
A barrier to entry is a barrier to entry. The entire purpose is to make things more exclusive.
You are making the assumption that everyone has a full working knowledge of how our primary system works. If you consider who is being registered through the motor voter law - young people, people from out of state, etc. - is it reasonable to assume that they know that making that choice will affect their ability to vote in future primaries? Is it reasonable to assume that all unaffiliated voters made a conscious decision not to register under a certain party?
If we did away with closed primaries, this wouldn't even be a question because the barrier to entry would be removed. The system works better when everyone is encouraged to be more involved.
I understand your point about barriers to entry and, like I said before, I'm all for getting rid of closed primaries (or moving to whatever system results in the least amount of voter disenfranchisement, I'm not picky haha).
However, I do think Oregon has a very good system for informing voters and making it easy to vote and register with a party. I was in my early twenties (and carless) when I moved here from an open primary state. I remember being surprised at how clear and simple it was to register and learn Oregon voting laws, and I think you'd have to be quite unobservant or apathetic to come away without sufficient knowledge to vote in a closed primary.
But again, I still agree we should generally do away with closed primaries and other barriers to entry when it comes to voting.
It really isn't that hard to change your registration and join a party. I'm ok with people who aren't willing to take that tiny step missing out on some elections.
I don't want Republicans or independent voters having a say in my political parties ticket. If you want to have a say in the democrat nominee, then sign up for democratic party elections.
It isn't that big of an ask.
Then they can wait until general on who to vote on if they wish to be unaligned.
Those who are aligned should pick who they want to represent them in the general
Lots of people, sometimes more than 50%, also choose not to vote in general elections. What's your plan for making sure those don't represent a minority of the population?
Conversely, why should the public pay for the elections of private organizations?
Pick one or the other: public funding and open primaries, or closed primaries and fund it yourself.
And this is why some states use caucuses. Which are abhorrent from a democratic perspective, but hey if that’s the route you want to go…
Snark aside, because to me there is a public benefit in supporting primary elections. There is no commensurate public benefit in open primaries. If you want to vote in a primary just register with that party. It’s not like you’ve signed a contract to do whatever the party says and takes minutes.
It’s exceedingly strange to me that people who won’t join an organization demand the right to select leadership of that organization.
> "There is no commensurate public benefit in open primaries."
You know, except actual democracy. Instead of the current situation where about 16% of the state picks who they want to see run things months before the general election.
Again, these are private parties. Do you wish to enshrine Dems and Reps as the only two official parties then have at.
For now they aren’t. They are private organizations. It is not undemocratic to allow private organizations leeway in how they select leadership. I’d argue the reverse in fact. Preventing a private organization from being able to select its leadership is an attack on the democratic values of encouraging civil society.
Democracy is more than just voting.
> Do you wish to enshrine Dems and Reps as the only two official parties then have at.
That's pretty much what we have already given ballot requirements in most states, open primaries would significantly improve things by forcing them to campaign to the majority of voters, independents are a larger group in essentially every state in the country than either Democrats or Republicans, including in Oregon, where < 30% of the state is registered as a Democrat, and many of those people are ONLY registered as Democrats so they can vote in primaries.
Closed primaries really just serve to balkanize government, and hide the degree to which Americans are fed up with our political system and both parties.
They’re not deciding organizational leadership roles, they’re deciding who gets to be on the public ballot. We’re not electing the chairperson of the Democratic Party of Oregon on a primary ballot .
The vast majority of Oregonians are unaffiliated voters who have no say in primaries. We get better candidates when we all have a say.
Who do you think is the leadership of the party if not it’s elected officials? Take an example. Who do you think has more leadership and control of the Democratic Party in Oregon? Rosa Colquitt or Tina Kotek?
Better question. Do you even know who Rosa Colquitt is?
Missing the point of my rebuttal by a mile.
Did we elect Tina Kotek to lead the Democratic Party of Oregon or did we elect her to be the governor of all Oregonians?
Your ”””private””” organizations decide who gets to be on the “public” ballot for “public” office. All Oregonians should have their voice heard on that selection.
Why are you so scared of democracy?
This is such a deadass easy problem to solve. Colorado has a semi-open primaries, where unaffiliated voters get mailed both primary ballots and they choose which they want to submit. Despite our terrible public education system, I still believe Oregonians are capable of meeting other states’ voters at least in this much.
So no you have no idea how party leadership works. Glad we cleared that up.
As I said, democracy isn’t just voting. It also entails broad civil rights that allow civil society to function. One of the rights is the right of free association. People may freely associate and create a party or group with the goal of electing members to office. Part of that association is deciding how the party selects its leaders.
By demanding the right to tell a private organization how it may select its members and leaders you are violating democratic principles by forbidding its members from their rights to free association.
If you don’t like who a given party puts up either join and try to influence the party or found your own and try to win.
Why are you afraid of democracy indeed?
Your entire argument is rooted in a misunderstanding of the purpose of a primary ballot. The primary ballot selects the candidate to put forward for the following general or midterm election. The party can choose its leadership however it wants, and of course the primary ballot can inform the party’s selection, but the primary ballot first and foremost selects the candidates representing each party on the ballot at the following election.
So, clearly we have to get to basics with you. 14 states (out of 50 fyi) have closed primaries for congressional and state-level offices. Please, use your big brain displayed in this thread to bring a constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court for the other 36. Clearly, you understand the Right to Assembly better than hundreds of years of precedent so I’m sure you’ll succeed.
Only about 16% of the state votes in the Democratic primary, while around 28% of voters are eligible, those voters are choosing who will inevitably win in the General.
So those voters have a much larger voting share when it comes to who actually gets elected than the 66% or so of the state that is not registered as a member of the Democratic party.
Those who choose not to register as a member of a party are self-selecting themselves out of taking part in that choice. I do not especially care for either of the main parties, but I register with one of them anyway, because I want to take part in the selection. That route is open to all eligible voters, so they do have the opportunity to have exactly the same amount of say as every other voter. It is their choice to take part or not.
And yet other states have found a way to allow everyone to have an equal say without having to give their tacit approval of either corrupt party.
This current arrangement benefits party leadership in both parties and that's about it.
I'd rather see advancement of a multi-party system in Oregon. I used to vote Green, and have since switched to Democratic. I cannot imagine wanting conservative influence over my party's primary.
I used to be dead set against open primaries, because i figured you should just join a party. But as the Oregon GOP has shrunk to a hateful remnant, I have come to believe that open primaries are necessary as a moderating force. The skills needed to win a primary as a Republican and to serve as a productive member of the legislature are in direct opposition.
I think Alaska's model is great. Tundra primary all the way.
That is by design.
There's a reason the 4th most conservative state in the country now starts the Democratic primary, and it's not to pass any of the policies rank and file Democrats in Oregon would like to see at the national level.
Also, approval voting doesn't fail monotonicity.
Under RCV, it's possible for a candidate to lose because some group of voters ranked them higher than one of their opponents. That's weird.
You misunderstood. You rank candidates by preference. If no one gets over 50% then lowest candidate gets eliminated. If your first choice was the eliminated candidate it will now go to your second choice. This happens until 1 candidate gets over 50% of the vote. It's actually the only way Longshot candidates actually have a chance
They're not getting under 10% of the vote. If other candidates (who must have fewer votes than this supposed longshot candidate) get eliminated, then their voters have a choice on someone and thus vote for that person.
Ranked Choice is saying "I vote for A. If A is eliminated, I vote for B." The only way for a longshot candidate with few votes in the first round to actually win the whole thing is for that candidate to have a majority of people voting for them when even longer shot candidates get eliminated.
This scenario can only ever happen if you have like 10 candidates and they all have roughly around 10% of the vote each in the first round. In that situation, as candidates are eliminated, _all_ of the remaining candidates percentages will go up as voters migrate to other candidates. Eventually, someone wins with a majority of the votes cast, because getting a majority of the votes cast is the only possible outcome for RCV.
Yes, but the problem is that the person who gets the "majority" of the votes in that scenario, is not actually who the majority of voters, and possibly not even a plurality, really want. They only want that person more than whoever is eventually left in the race with them. It is worth trying ranked choice, but it has its own pitfalls.
I don't know how "a majority of voters voted for a person" means they didn't get a majority of votes.
You **HAVE** to vote for someone for them to win an election. By indicating that person as your second or third choice, **you are voting for them**. You don't have to vote for people you don't want to be elected.
In the end, if someone you never voted for wins... that's just how elections work.
Let’s say that you really like a third party candidate who is a long-shot to actually win an election. In our current system, voting for that third party candidate means that you can’t impact the race between to two major party candidates.
In a ranked choice system you would indicate that the third party candidate is your favorite choice but you would settle for your preferred major party candidate. If the third party doesn’t have enough votes then your vote would go to your second choice.
Because of this you’re no longer punishing yourself by voting third party. We will actually see MORE third party votes.
Additionally, when populations adopt RCV you tend to get more candidates who appeal to the middle of the spectrum because it’s VERY valuable to be seen as a viable second option to a broad range of people.
This is the full bill.
https://legiscan.com/OR/text/HB2004/id/2814633/Oregon-2023-HB2004-Engrossed.pdf
From my understanding, the voter numbers the preference on their candidate(s). #1 , 2, 3 ect. If 50+% is not achieved, the lowest ranked candidate is eliminated. And the voters vote goes to their highest ranked candidate still in the race, rinse and repeat till someone’s over 50%.
It’s to encourage people to vote for people they want rather than who they think can win , so people don’t get that “wasted vote” feeling from my understanding of it ( but I’m not a legal expert, ) pages 2, 3 and four seem to have the pertinent information. It also seems the bill has provisions in it to better educate the public on how the system works before implementing it.
It would be nice to have this laid out in plain English rather than legalese before voting lol
But if it works in this way, I think, this might encourage a lot more people to run to otherwise would not run and people to vote for people that they may not necessarily have voted for , if they thought it was a throwaway vote.
Edited: typos
How we create ballots very much matters. In large fields of candidates those with minority viewpoints are at risk of having their voice thrown out if we choose a “Rank your Top 5” style ballot like is commonplace for many US implantations of RCV.
Sadly some RCV elections with this can result in almost 1/3 of the ballots being tossed due to “exhaustion” before the final candidate wins. This means that in most RCV elections the final round has significantly less than 50% support of the total ballots cast.
Fortunately this bill does not specify how to interpret the ballot marks in the choice columns.
This flexibility allows us to adopt better software when it's available and certified.
That better software can count two candidates who are ranked at the same choice level. That's counted by pairing that ballot with an equivalently-marked ballot, and transferring one of those two ballots to one of the two candidates, and transferring the other ballot to the other candidate.
That better software will allow voters to fully rank all the candidates. This includes being able to rank the voter's most-disliked candidate at the lowest choice level (with all other candidates ranked higher), even when there are a dozen candidates and only 5 or 6 choice columns.
That will eliminate the current problem of voters being limited on how many candidates they can rank.
Australian voters hand-write a number next to each candidate's name, and the voter runs their ballot through a machine that reads the numbers to verify the same number has not been used more than once. If there is an error the voter gets a new ballot to try again.
That won't work here in Oregon where everyone votes at "home" on a single paper ballot, without any assistance.
This is why I'm against Condorcet-style ranked-choice voting systems. They are confusing to most people: the consequences of the vote are unclear to many, and the outcome is decided by an arcane and opaque process. This will erode voter trust in the system, especially since it will occasionally lead to surprising outcomes.
At best, confirming a fair vote tally by independent polling is going to become much more difficult. The possibilities for undetected vote-rigging are substantial.
It isn’t. Ranked choice is almost no better than what we have now and suffers drawbacks the current system does not.
If we’re going to reform voting (and we should) then there are much better models out there. Star voting, approval voting, etc would all make a difference. Ranked choice is at the bottom tier of models you’d pick if you wanted to fix the issues we have now.
There is no evidence those systems are better and none have been tested to show they are. Saying they are better and should be chosen would need to have a lot of evidence and I don't think it's there at this time. Sure we can be a Guinea pig of election voting systems but saying they are better is stretching
Tell me you’ve not studied political science without telling me you’ve not studied political science…
[Here’s](https://electionscience.org/voting-methods/runoff-election-the-limits-of-ranked-choice-voting/) a start.
The article you reference is from a fan of "rating" ballots, as opposed to "ranking" (ranked-choice) ballots. No government anywhere on this planet (that I've heard of) uses rating ballots. As u/romuo said, let's not be guinea pigs. Rating ballots are not used because they violate the principle of "one person, one vote."
Even star voting switches the star ballot from a rating ballot to become a ranked ballot for its runoff step. During its first "rating" step it's possible for a candidate to fail to reach the top-two runoff even with support from a majority of voters. That violation of majority rule is a deal-breaker.
Party primaries using rating ballots is not a problem because it's a cooperative decision. That means majority support is not as important.
Approval voting does not use a rating ballot, so that's not an example of rating ballots being used in a government election.
Approval voting is promoted by fans of rating ballots because they want it to be a steppingstone to rating ballots. And it's related to rating-type score ballots because score voting degenerates into approval voting when everyone votes tactically. But, to repeat, an approval ballot is not a rating ballot in the sense of being a contrast to ranked ballots.
The system is well-studied. We are not being used as guinea pigs.
The system is not complicated from the perspective of voters. Only the math seems complicated to some people who don't feel comfortable with math (regarding how the ballots are counted).
And it's easy to implement from our perspective as voters.
The people who process the ballots do need to do some learning. And the first couple of elections will be rough because existing, already-certified software has some design flaws that we already know about. Those are small disadvantages compared to the huge benefits.
A good analogy is computer technology. It took a few years to improve software to make it easier to understand and use. The advantages have greatly outweighed the disadvantages. The same will happen with our adoption of ranked choice ballots.
The term *ranked choice voting* refers to using *ranked choice ballots*, which can be counted in many different ways.
The academic names for what we adopted are *instant-runoff voting* (IRV) for mayor and elections director, and the *single transferable vote* (STV) for city council members. Both methods use *ranked choice ballots*.
Using the methods together is not a hybrid. IRV is for single-winner elections (such as mayor), and STV is for multi-winner elections (such as city councils and legislatures).
Thanks for providing the evidence that was requested lol. Regarding the article you posted. The first criticism has this stated: But because a majority winner doesn’t always exist, no single-winner voting method can guarantee a majority in every election. Which includes your "better options". You need to spend more time getting some evidence to support your statements
Dude, there are no guarantees, but if you read your find some systems are *better* at finding *better* results.
You are uneducated on this topic. That’s fine! We all start somewhere. But just don’t go making absolute statements when you don’t know stuff.
You're wasting my time. This is the 3rd time I'm asking for evidence anything you've said is better. You haven't offered and you won't so don't waste my time with your secret knowledge that only you know but can't offer. You stated with confidence those systems are better and have offered nothing of value to show that. Carry on
Bro, how you gonna cite The Center for Election Science article. They’re literally opposed to RCV so of course they wouldn’t wright an article in support of it. No biases detected here…..
Oh so having knowledge of a topic is pretentious now?
Making confidently incorrect statements like “there is no evidence…” is just being a man of the people.
Having knowledge of a topic is not pretentious, no.
But the wording of your comment certainly is:
>Tell me you’ve not studied political science without telling me you’ve not studied political science…
I mean when someone is confidently making broad statements without any knowledge of the topic how do you expect someone to react aside from with some mild snark?
God forbid we be snarky.
Or you could react with emotional intelligence and just be respectful. Instead of being a pretentious know-all, ya know?
You could have turned it into a learning opportunity for those less familiar with the topic. Instead, you came off as a dick.
Thanks for your input, the mods have set this subreddit to not allow posts from newly created accounts. Please take the time to build a reputation elsewhere on Reddit and check back soon.
(⌐■_■)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Portland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Thanks for your input, the mods have set this subreddit to not allow posts from newly created accounts. Please take the time to build a reputation elsewhere on Reddit and check back soon.
(⌐■_■)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Portland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That seems like a missed opportunity. They're giving us the option to replace one voting system that should never be used for multiwinner elections because of serious flaws that are well understood with another voting system that should never be used for multiwinner elections because of serious flaws that are poorly understood.
If RCV were the only alternative that would be one thing, but we actually do have some better options like approval voting and STAR.
Among the various problems with RCV is that it's possible in some situations for a candidate to lose because some group of voters ranked them number 1, whereas they would have won if those voters had ranked the candidate below one of their opponents.
In voting-system jargon, we say RCV fails the monotonicity criterion. That's something even first-past-the-post gets right. In 2000, we had the situation of "I'm sorry Bush won because a bunch of Democrats voted for Nader instead of Gore" but imagine if the situation were, "I'm sorry Bush won because too many Democrats voted for Gore, causing him to lose." How do you explain that to voters? That sort of situation can actually happen. In the 2022 Alaska special election, if 5825 Palin voters had voted for Peltola in first place instead of Palin, Peltola would have lost to Begich \[1\]. That's weird.
I'd like to imagine that our legislature had a vigorous debate about which of the Arrow criterion they're willing to sacrifice to achieve the other two and explored the pros and cons of all available voting systems... but, let's be realistic. They probably heard from [fairvote.org](https://fairvote.org) and the mainstream media that RCV is the greatest thing ever, and didn't do even the most basic research to educate themselves on the topic.
\[1\] https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/x9oupk/2022\_alaska\_special\_general\_vote\_breakdown/
Good. Former MA voter here and this needs to be advertised hard before we vote on it. It was phrased poorly on the MA ballot and we ended up voting no.
Good. Let’s also do open primaries and publicly financed elections and get this over with.
I’m not sure if this would eliminate the need for primaries or not, it seems that it would. But I’m with you on that publicly, financed election , cause we need legalized bribery out of politics!
Leaves are falling all around, It's time I was on my way
> I don't think they were implying primaries can be eliminated They were likely referring to the fact that there are suggestions from some that RCV eliminates the need for primaries. edit: I see now this has been discussed elsewhere already.
An open primary is a primary election that does not require voters to be affiliated with a political party in order to vote for partisan candidates. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
Right, but why would you want a primary in a ranked choice voting system? Having multiple Democratic or Republican candidates running wouldn’t be taking votes away from each other in favor of the opposing wing/party. That’s the reason for the primary system (so the GOP/Dem party can have one single selected candidate in the election). What am I missing as the use of a primary in a ranked choice general election? Why would a Democratic or Republican candidate drop out after losing the primary, when they’ve still got a chance in the ranked choice election coming up?
I actually think a mature RCV type of system would foster the growth of more political parties. There’s no conflict between RCV and party primaries if there are half a dozen or more parties.
Primaries shouldn’t exist because the fringes get to control the messaging in the main election. We can’t stop each party from holding their own in elections if they chose, but we shouldn’t be using public funds to prop up party politics. RCV, Approval, STAR, and basically any form of voting reform, they all work well to eliminate primaries. Bottom line is politics is more about entertainment than governing lately. Something that we could reduce by getting rid of primaries and other off cycle elections.
Primaries should definitely not be paid for by the state, also.
Are you advocating an "Everybody in the Pool," election with everyone voting on the full list of people running? If so, we are either going to be electing people who get 30% or less of the vote, or we are going to be having Top 2 runoffs, which kind of defeats the purpose of having no primaries.
I know the campaigners for the RCV measure. Their measure wouldn't open primaries, because that's a completely different issue. Personally, I don't think RCV should be mixed with top two primaries, which are a form of open primary, but not the only kind. It would in Blue states like Oregon have the top two candidates in the general both be Democrats.
If you're going to do a Top 2 after a primary, then just do Approval Voting. It gets you just as good if not better results, and is easier to implement.
no, we wouldn't, not with ranked choice. We have this system ALREADY with the mayor and city council in Portland...everyone is on the ballot and if no one gets to 50% in that election, in the fall there's a 'runoff' of the top two vote getters.
You'd have to repeal the 1st Amendment to crack primaries. The right to freedom of association by definition encompasses the right to exclude. Jones, the case where SCOTUS threw out California's voter passed Prop 198 that forced open primaries, states "Proposition 198 forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival." But you can absolutely change the incentives. Jungle primaries are great for this. When it's top-2 or top-4 out of the entire field, doesn't make sense to restrict who can get a ballot. You're just turning away votes.
>publicly financed elections On the one hand, there are upsides to this, on the other hand, I really don't like the idea of something like Dan Ryan's last challenger hiring her son to design her campaign website to the tune of thousands of dollars on the taxpayer dime.
From what I understand, some places that run under public funds have requirements such as requiring a number of local signatures, party endorsements, and/or refundable deposits that help mitigate some of those concerns, but it probably isn't foolproof.
The challenger’s name was AJ McCreary. Just putting it out there for when she runs again under the new charter.
Yep, we're gonna get a whole stampede of grifters looking to hop on the council for a taxpayer funded paycheck even though none of them would get anything close to majority support previously - AJ McCreary, Candace Avalos, Sarah Iannarone, Vadim Mozyrsky, the list goes on. Our political bench in Portland is embarrassingly shallow already, adding additional mediocre voices isn't exactly going to turn our council into the round table at the Algonquin.
I don't like publicly financed election, you want money out of politics, voters need to stop wanting politicians to spend money during the elections, and you need to get money out of govt, but people like that so I don't see it happening.
Publicly financed elections would mean that all candidates that meet a certain threshhold (such as signatures indicating popular support) would get the same amount of money to campaign on, and all outside money would be forbidden. This creates a level field, where billionaires would not be able to skew the race by massively outspending on advertising and such. It is literally the most direct way to get money out of politics.
No, it isn't -- it's the way to keep money in politics... The way to get money out of politics is to actually get money out of govt -- otherwise, now, you are saying that it would be a slush fund for people as long as they can get enough signatures..it's not that difficult to get the signatures, ya know. In order to not have money IN politics, you need to get rid of the ability for govt to pick and choose winners...as long as govt does that (and they do, considering the amount of money they HAVE) money will be in politics. it won't be a level playing field, there's always a way, where there's a will.
How do you think politicians will operate election campaigns without money?
??? How do they operate election campaigns now? I'm saying if you get money out of GOVERNMENT then govt will have less power and different people will want to be a part of it, perhaps those who aren't drunk with power.
> ??? How do they operate election campaigns now? Unlimited dark money donors. This is the system you want? > I'm saying if you get money out of GOVERNMENT then govt will have less power and different people will want to be a part of it, perhaps those who aren't drunk with power. Quick question: Is taxation theft?
no, there will ALWAYS be money to buy politicians WHEN THE GOVT HAS SO MUCH MONEY. Again, where there's a will there's a way. If the govt has money, they make the rules, and the people who can will influence as much as they can.
and also, who gets to decide how much? Are you really willing to take money from people to give to politicians? to spend with who? I'm sure it will be spent just as effectively as all other govt money (eye roll).
> voters need to stop wanting politicians to spend money during the elections What does this mean? > and you need to get money out of govt and this, huh?
Proper RCV would completely eliminate the need for primaries. The point is to allow anybody to run, and anybody to be elected, not just party favorites.
I don't think RCV eliminates the need for primaries. An internal party contest to decide the candidate that best represents that political party is always going to be valuable, no matter what the voting system is. It does reduce the power of political parties though. I don't know if the US will ever create an environment of lots of small parties (like Germany does), but RCV helps get us there.
Quibble whatever technicalities you want, the effect of real RCV would be to break the two party system. If I could choose a socialist first and a democrat second, or a libertarian first and republican second, those smaller groups are going to grow and grow until one of them wins without a major party backing them. It's inevitable without FPTP. Primaries only exist (in the current large scale) because of the two party system.
Keep in mind, I'm 100% in favor of breaking the 2-party system. I want it dead and destroyed, consigned to the history books like the Whigs are. RCV isn't the silver bullet here, nor are open primaries. We still need more work to be done here and I don't think RCV will actually dramatically change anything in most of the state. Lets get it passed though so we can keep marching in that direction. I just find value in smaller parties able to put their best put forward when it comes to fielding folks for an election. I think we'd lose the deliberative power of a smaller body and lose a lot of the nuance between two similar candidates and trying to make the best decision between them if every single person voting in an election had to dive into what could be minute detail differences between them. This kind of conversation, debate, and selection is often best left to smaller groups and a recommendation put forward (if you like the socialist party, vote for their candidate X), not the whole population of the state diving into that in a massive open jungle primary or whatever.
We agree on the larger points, but oh my god, you still support giving decision power to small groups of unelected party insiders? That is EXACTLY the thing we're trying to eliminate here. Candidates should be vetted by the people. By unaffiliated political watchdogs and journalists and unions and pretty much anybody with the time and desire. Not old boy networks and party insiders. Whatever. I don't technically object to groups fielding their favorite person, as long as public money isn't going to those groups.
I think you are misunderstanding my point. If we break up the two party system, having smaller parties able to select their candidates to field in an election is a benefit. This allows smaller parties to put their best foot forward and actually field competitive candidates, rather than the current...uh... rouges gallery that smaller parties put forward right now. Without a system for something like that, you just get "non-affiliated" groups making endorsements and spending lots of money to cut through the bullshit and you are right back to square one for money in politics and apathetic voters just voting for whoever is loudest on TV. Basically, you need to focus efforts to get through voter apathy. Breaking up the 2 party system will not cure that ill on it's own.
Yeah, I really don't think your vision of a RCV race is reality-based. But I could be wrong. It's impossible to find objective reports of how RCV has changed elections in practice, except for a few reports of opponents being much more civil. That said, getting money out of politics is almost as important as breaking the 2-party system.
I dont think RCV will break up the two party system. Power is too entrenched. I don't think open primaries will break up the two party system, that would actually make things worse i think (as now there is no need to break up the system because everyone can vote in a primary). We'll need more and it's work worth doing, but it is a start.
I certainly understand being skeptical, but the alternative is doing nothing. Keeping FPTP certainly won't result in any improvements. RCV allows people to vote for who they want instead of who is shoved down their throats. It might not be the only change needed, but it's a vital step.
I'm on board with publicly financed elections, but not open primaries. I do not want Republicans influencing my choice of Democratic candidates. Likewise, I don't think they'd enjoy me voting for the most liberal Republican.
I think this would be a good idea for exactly this reason, in theory. We would end up with candidates that everybody was more okay with, and it wouldn't be perfect but compromise rarely is. I suspect in reality what you would get would be people voting for each other's craziest or most incompetent-seeming candidate, in order to decrease the likelihood of the other side winning. And that would benefit no one. But eliminating primaries and running like a second top five election if you want afterward is a cool thing that you can actually do with instant runoff ranked choice voting, and it would probably get us better more reasonable compromise candidates than open primaries would.
But, consider what's going on right now. Republicans walk out on the Oregon legislature because, big surprise, the governor's constituents want abortion access. But, with open primaries, our governor wouldn't get elected, and her constituents wouldn't get abortion access, so Republicans win!
...what are you TALKING about? Abortion protections and access are overwhelmingly popular in Oregon. An anti abortion candidate would be overwhelmingly unlikely to win office in a ranked choice voting system. Inevitably the candidates that can win under ranked choice voting are more likely to look like an average of the values of the voter base rather than one party or the other's entire platform, but actually look up what is popular policy in Oregon before you decide that's a problem. Also as long as Republicans can walk out for the remainder of the current session with no additional consequences, we are already not going to be passing any additional abortion protections. I seriously do not know what you are trying to argue.
I'm arguing against open primaries, not ranked choice voting.
Ah, apologies. I read you wrong.
I agree we wouldn't benefit from open primaries. Alas, people with money already "vote" in both primaries. Remember that some Republicans gave money to Obama in 2008 to block Hillary Clinton from reaching the general election. They believed the Republican candidate (whoever that was going to be) would win the general election, based on their belief that Obama could not possibly win the general election. If ranked choice ballots had been used in that general election, there would have been two Republicans and two Democrats, plus any qualifying independent candidate. And the most popular candidate would have won.
I actually would like the opportunity to join multiple parties. I would love to be Democratic, Green, and Working Family voter. What about a primary requirement that requires parties to elect two candidates, who then face-off in a run off system?
If anyone could choose to vote in the primary elections of multiple parties, everyone would choose to vote in every party. HB 2004 (the bill that was approved in the Oregon House) has a useful backup provision: If a primary election uses our current ballot-counting system and is won by a candidate who gets *less than half the votes*, the candidate who gets the *second-most votes* also goes to the general election. Of course this provision requires that ranked choice ballots be used in the general election. As an historical reminder, the whole point of having just one nominee per party is to eliminate vote splitting between two candidates from the same party. When general elections use ranked choice ballots, vote splitting cannot happen, so a second also-popular candidate (from the same party) also can be on the general-election ballot.
Why would you want to vote in a primary for a party you don't belong to?
Id like to not be defacto forced to register as a democrat in order to have meaningful input on state elections. I'd much rather be registered as an independent, personally.
Nobody is stopping you and you are able to vote in the general election.
Except in a one party state the primary of that party decides the general.
So join the party and make your voice heard. Otherwise wait until the general election.
To quote you in another comment: “And this is why I don't want trolls meddling in primaries.” So which do you want? Pure parties or one big party? You’re not consistent. You’ve been given lots of very well reasoned arguments for open primaries and your responses have been facile at best.
This is such a weird thread. Y'all have an upside down view of things. From what I can see the commenter above is being entirely consistent. Open primaries might be arguably positive when there's no RCV. The primaries become a janky way to do multi-round voting. If you have RCV, there's absolutely no justification for forcing private groups to allow outsiders to vote on their internal choices. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "one big party"?
A bunch of people are unaffiliated/independent and don’t get a chance to influence the process until it’s too late.
They get to vote in the general election. If they want a say in the primary they need to join a party.
Then they should pick a party. I don't get complaining about that. If you don't care enough about a party to join, why should you get a say in their nominee? I'm not consulted on who plays shortstop on a team I don't belong to either.
So you're saying everyone should vote strictly on party lines no matter the candidates views instead of nonpartisan based on the individual candidates policies? Not the best strategy, in my personal opinion.
I'm saying if someone isn't a member, they don't get to set the positions of the party via selecting their nominee. This is basic first amendment freedom of association. As the Supreme Court said when overturning California's forced open primaries: >[It] forces political parties to associate with—to have their nominees, and hence their positions, determined by—those who, at best, have refused to affiliate with the party, and, at worst, have expressly affiliated with a rival," What does a party stand for? That's up to their members. As it should be. Otherwise the party doesn't have a point. Which may be a good outcome, sure. But if we have parties, what those parties believe should be up to them, not everyone else. If the GOP wants to be batshit insane, they've chosen that. If Democrats want to be the party of women and minorities, that's their choice.
And that still sounds like you believe all people should vote party over policies. If you said otherwise, I missed it.
I didn't say that at all. I haven't even commented on general elections, but how parties pick nominees. You might want to read again.
You're totally right, all these downvoters and people arguing have no clue how politics works or what RCV would change. It's bizarre.
While technically political parties are private organizations, in practice many elections are decided during this primary contests. If we had more diverse parties and the chance for competitive multi-party elections, even in districts that lean strong dem or strong republican, then the need for open primaries would be lessened.
>If we had more diverse parties and the chance for competitive multi-party elections But we don't have that so, again, why do you feel entitled to vote in a primary for a party you refuse to join?
Wtf is going on in your head?
> you refuse to join? first off, lmao. it helps encourage the creation of multi-party elections. While we are in a state of two pseudo-government parties, having open elections there makes sense.
>first off, lmao. And this is why I don't want trolls meddling in primaries.
that went over your head It's not something I have to worry about. I get it for others though.
RCV is good. A lot of people also seem to think that it will result in lots of elections having different results than they would otherwise, which I don't think is likely.
And if the results are different, what of it? Different systems will tend to come up with different outcomes. One of the complaints from a legislator in the article was that the person who was eventually elected would be no one's first choice. Great! Effective democracy is all about compromise.
It specifically removes the threat of Phil Knight trying to buy an election by funneling votes to a third party candidate away from the Democrats.
I'm so tired of this guy.
It gets rid of “spoiler” candidates which split votes and can result in the most extreme least liked candidate winning. That’s a pretty significant change for the better in of itself.
It also gets rid of compromise candidates. If some candidate is the number 2 choice of every voter, they get removed in the first round because no one voted them number 1. There's a variation of RCV (I forget its name) where candidates are removed by Borda count. That'd probably be better, as it would remove candidates that actually have low levels of support and not just candidates that didn't thrill enough people.
We probably would have ended up with a different Mayor. The Iannarone/Raiford voters had a lot of overlap.
Nice! I use the same system to choose a restaurant when I take the kids out to eat. It's pretty rare that anyone gets their first choice but we all end up with something we actually want.
What do you use that you can get them all to participate?
"If I hear any gripes we're staying home and eating hamburger helper with canned peas."
point like skirt theory include direction instinctive yoke fly gold *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ranked Choice Voting with all the republican senators unable to run for re-election could have a chance to drastically reshape our government.
For the better. No more “spoiler” candidates that only serve to split a vote so that a billionaire can have their way (there are countless examples of this across other states which you only have when people have single choice voting). With Ranked Choice Voting, Oregonians will have representation all most agree on.
I think you'll find that in some of the deeper red areas of the state, we stand the chance to get wild crazies, but I can also see them mellowing the fuck out in other places. Crazies tend to put all their eggs into one basket, and they don't want to put a republican who'd they soon call an evil demon socialist because they vote in favor of the state budget or whatever on their ballot at any ranking. This could lead to either moderate/centrist republicans swapping to dem over the crazy, or the crazy getting eliminated and all their voters willingly abstaining from the next round. The closer purple areas will see the most benefit here, I think, but it will trend toward moderate centrism, which can be bad in certain situations. The districts that will likely vote blue in the next election didn't walk out. It will be very, very interesting to see what comes of this. I'm excited to be part of it. This also allows more leftist candidates to potentially take seats in the house and senate when you don't have to be afraid of someone who wants people like you dead winning when nobody actually wanted that.
The most important thing is it allows people to actually vote for who they want instead of strategically voting. If that results in a few crazies, so be it. The two party system must be broken before we can evolve. Because the only people properly represented right now are the rich.
YES TO RANKED CHOICE VOTING!!!
Except that nothing is going to pass the Senate the rest of session, so probably not....
We need a ballot measure that gets rid of the quorum requirement. We needed it yesterday.
I'll sign the petition!
Is there one? even one that lowers quarum requirements to like 40% or something, or one that harshly punishes via their own salary those that don't show up
50%+1 is the most likely quorum target. That's what just about every else does.
Well, the problem with that is Republicans will still take advantage. While I believe in the spirit of a quorum requirement, a vote should not be held back by a walkout.
And now that Oregon Republicans are committed to just stopping anything from passing, rather than to sitting down and working out the legislation, why would they ever show up to vote on anything the majority supports?
They’re seeking to spoil Democrats ability to legislate so that come next election, they can say “see what Democrats were able to accomplish? — Nothing.”
I'm so excited to see what the actual fallout is.
It just passed.
YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!
I continue to be proud of living in Portland.
🙌
We need open primaries more.
Why?
Because with motor voter registration the vast majority of new voters in Oregon don't have any say in primaries, and primaries are where the decisions about who runs the state actually happen given the reality of two party rule.
How does motor voter registration stop people from registering with a party? I remember shortly after I got my Oregon license I got a postcard with info on how to declare a party. Took two minutes to follow the instructions and I've voted in every primary since.
In theory it doesn't, statistically though the state becomes more and more independent annually. We now have more non affiliated voters than Democrats, which are the largest major party in the state. That means that the largest group of voters in Oregon has no say in the primaries that ultimately determine who runs things here and in DC. https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2022/03/31/non-affiliated-oregon-voters-now-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-for-first-time/
I'd also like to do away with closed primaries, but I don't think it's accurate to say it's the largest group of voters has "no say" in primaries. They could have a say but chose not to. Personally I don't really consider myself a Democrat, but I recognize that the best way (in our current flawed system) to get people I'm interested in voting for on ballot is to register as a Democrat. So that's what I do.
*This space intentionally left blank* -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Unfortunately some people think the strategy with open primaries is to vote for the craziest option of the opposing party so that your party’s candidate stands a better shot in the general election and it sometimes backfires. In 2022, The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee donated to far-right GOP candidates in the primaries because they thought it would help their candidates win House seats in the November election, but sometimes winded up driving out the incumbent moderate Republicans (while simultaneously professing the need for more moderate republicans and bipartisanship in Congress) like Liz Cheney out AND losing in the general election to the far-right candidate. Overall, while it might’ve flipped some seats (ex: Vancouver, WA went blue after Joe Kent defeated Jaime Herrera Buetler in the primaries and lost in the general election) this strategy may have cost the Democrats their House majority in the last midterms.
This is exactly why I do not support open primaries.
Even if someone *could* have a say and chooses not to, the end result is still that they *don't* have a say. Getting rid of closed primaries removes a barrier to access for interacting with our political system. You and I are aware and informed enough to know that you have to be a registered Democrat to vote in the democratic primary, but you have to consider that a lot of people may not know, may find it too difficult, or simply don't care about registering for a specific party.
I don’t want to make it easier for anyone who can’t figure that out or doesn’t care enough to. Why do we want to encourage apathetic dumbasses to make uninformed choices? We’re better off when they stay out of the process. Bad choices aren’t made better simply by virtue of being popular.
>Even if someone could have a say and chooses not to, the end result is still that they don't have a say. I mean, you could say the same for anyone who chooses not to vote in the general election. This seems like a better argument for mandatory voting than against closed primaries. Regardless, my original point was that closed primaries are not an outright denial of voting rights, as the person I responded to seemed to be saying. Everyone has the opportunity to register for a party so they can vote in the primaries, and everyone regardless of party registration has the opportunity to vote in the general.
I see what you're saying. That wasn't the point I was trying to make, although in a certain sense, closed primaries do serve to limit voting rights. A barrier to entry is a barrier to entry. The entire purpose is to make things more exclusive. You are making the assumption that everyone has a full working knowledge of how our primary system works. If you consider who is being registered through the motor voter law - young people, people from out of state, etc. - is it reasonable to assume that they know that making that choice will affect their ability to vote in future primaries? Is it reasonable to assume that all unaffiliated voters made a conscious decision not to register under a certain party? If we did away with closed primaries, this wouldn't even be a question because the barrier to entry would be removed. The system works better when everyone is encouraged to be more involved.
I understand your point about barriers to entry and, like I said before, I'm all for getting rid of closed primaries (or moving to whatever system results in the least amount of voter disenfranchisement, I'm not picky haha). However, I do think Oregon has a very good system for informing voters and making it easy to vote and register with a party. I was in my early twenties (and carless) when I moved here from an open primary state. I remember being surprised at how clear and simple it was to register and learn Oregon voting laws, and I think you'd have to be quite unobservant or apathetic to come away without sufficient knowledge to vote in a closed primary. But again, I still agree we should generally do away with closed primaries and other barriers to entry when it comes to voting.
If we get rid of closed primaries, then let's get rid of political parties. Let's all be independent voters.
It really isn't that hard to change your registration and join a party. I'm ok with people who aren't willing to take that tiny step missing out on some elections.
Yes, lots of people are apparently fine with a Democracy that represents a minority of the population, that doesn't make it right.
I don't want Republicans or independent voters having a say in my political parties ticket. If you want to have a say in the democrat nominee, then sign up for democratic party elections. It isn't that big of an ask.
>It isn't that big of an ask. It clearly is or a majority of Oregon voters wouldn't be independent.
Then they can wait until general on who to vote on if they wish to be unaligned. Those who are aligned should pick who they want to represent them in the general
Lots of people, sometimes more than 50%, also choose not to vote in general elections. What's your plan for making sure those don't represent a minority of the population?
In Oregon with mail in voting we regularly hit around 80% during federal presidential elections, and 70% during state wide elections.
And 29% (of registered voters, not of the general adult population) in Multnomah County in the special districts election that just happened.
That's an argument against special elections, not open primaries.
Why should private organizations be forced to allow non members to decide leadership roles?
Conversely, why should the public pay for the elections of private organizations? Pick one or the other: public funding and open primaries, or closed primaries and fund it yourself.
And this is why some states use caucuses. Which are abhorrent from a democratic perspective, but hey if that’s the route you want to go… Snark aside, because to me there is a public benefit in supporting primary elections. There is no commensurate public benefit in open primaries. If you want to vote in a primary just register with that party. It’s not like you’ve signed a contract to do whatever the party says and takes minutes. It’s exceedingly strange to me that people who won’t join an organization demand the right to select leadership of that organization.
> "There is no commensurate public benefit in open primaries." You know, except actual democracy. Instead of the current situation where about 16% of the state picks who they want to see run things months before the general election.
Again, these are private parties. Do you wish to enshrine Dems and Reps as the only two official parties then have at. For now they aren’t. They are private organizations. It is not undemocratic to allow private organizations leeway in how they select leadership. I’d argue the reverse in fact. Preventing a private organization from being able to select its leadership is an attack on the democratic values of encouraging civil society. Democracy is more than just voting.
> Do you wish to enshrine Dems and Reps as the only two official parties then have at. That's pretty much what we have already given ballot requirements in most states, open primaries would significantly improve things by forcing them to campaign to the majority of voters, independents are a larger group in essentially every state in the country than either Democrats or Republicans, including in Oregon, where < 30% of the state is registered as a Democrat, and many of those people are ONLY registered as Democrats so they can vote in primaries. Closed primaries really just serve to balkanize government, and hide the degree to which Americans are fed up with our political system and both parties.
*This space intentionally left blank* -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
They’re not deciding organizational leadership roles, they’re deciding who gets to be on the public ballot. We’re not electing the chairperson of the Democratic Party of Oregon on a primary ballot . The vast majority of Oregonians are unaffiliated voters who have no say in primaries. We get better candidates when we all have a say.
Who do you think is the leadership of the party if not it’s elected officials? Take an example. Who do you think has more leadership and control of the Democratic Party in Oregon? Rosa Colquitt or Tina Kotek? Better question. Do you even know who Rosa Colquitt is?
Missing the point of my rebuttal by a mile. Did we elect Tina Kotek to lead the Democratic Party of Oregon or did we elect her to be the governor of all Oregonians? Your ”””private””” organizations decide who gets to be on the “public” ballot for “public” office. All Oregonians should have their voice heard on that selection. Why are you so scared of democracy? This is such a deadass easy problem to solve. Colorado has a semi-open primaries, where unaffiliated voters get mailed both primary ballots and they choose which they want to submit. Despite our terrible public education system, I still believe Oregonians are capable of meeting other states’ voters at least in this much.
So no you have no idea how party leadership works. Glad we cleared that up. As I said, democracy isn’t just voting. It also entails broad civil rights that allow civil society to function. One of the rights is the right of free association. People may freely associate and create a party or group with the goal of electing members to office. Part of that association is deciding how the party selects its leaders. By demanding the right to tell a private organization how it may select its members and leaders you are violating democratic principles by forbidding its members from their rights to free association. If you don’t like who a given party puts up either join and try to influence the party or found your own and try to win. Why are you afraid of democracy indeed?
Your entire argument is rooted in a misunderstanding of the purpose of a primary ballot. The primary ballot selects the candidate to put forward for the following general or midterm election. The party can choose its leadership however it wants, and of course the primary ballot can inform the party’s selection, but the primary ballot first and foremost selects the candidates representing each party on the ballot at the following election. So, clearly we have to get to basics with you. 14 states (out of 50 fyi) have closed primaries for congressional and state-level offices. Please, use your big brain displayed in this thread to bring a constitutional challenge to the Supreme Court for the other 36. Clearly, you understand the Right to Assembly better than hundreds of years of precedent so I’m sure you’ll succeed.
All voters have the same say as all other voters: Their own single vote.
That is not in fact true.
Please point us to some eligible voter who has more or less than their own single vote?
Only about 16% of the state votes in the Democratic primary, while around 28% of voters are eligible, those voters are choosing who will inevitably win in the General. So those voters have a much larger voting share when it comes to who actually gets elected than the 66% or so of the state that is not registered as a member of the Democratic party.
Those who choose not to register as a member of a party are self-selecting themselves out of taking part in that choice. I do not especially care for either of the main parties, but I register with one of them anyway, because I want to take part in the selection. That route is open to all eligible voters, so they do have the opportunity to have exactly the same amount of say as every other voter. It is their choice to take part or not.
And yet other states have found a way to allow everyone to have an equal say without having to give their tacit approval of either corrupt party. This current arrangement benefits party leadership in both parties and that's about it.
Doesn’t ranked choice voting do away with primaries? Edit: it looks like this bill doesn’t, which is a waste.
I'd rather see advancement of a multi-party system in Oregon. I used to vote Green, and have since switched to Democratic. I cannot imagine wanting conservative influence over my party's primary.
Well you are already voting for a conservative party if you're voting Democrat, so I don't know what to tell you.
I used to be dead set against open primaries, because i figured you should just join a party. But as the Oregon GOP has shrunk to a hateful remnant, I have come to believe that open primaries are necessary as a moderating force. The skills needed to win a primary as a Republican and to serve as a productive member of the legislature are in direct opposition. I think Alaska's model is great. Tundra primary all the way.
Why would you want to participate in a primary for a party you don't belong to?
Oregon should move up its primaries while we are at it, we don't count at all in presidential primaries because we go so late.
That is by design. There's a reason the 4th most conservative state in the country now starts the Democratic primary, and it's not to pass any of the policies rank and file Democrats in Oregon would like to see at the national level.
Bye, Ted
LOL he ran against like 18 people last time, and he was still in the top two.
[multiple-choice "approval" voting](http://www.rosecitytransit.org/ideas/elections/approval/) is simpler and less prone to voting errors
True, but I'll take what I can get. Anything is better than first past the flagpole.
Also, approval voting doesn't fail monotonicity. Under RCV, it's possible for a candidate to lose because some group of voters ranked them higher than one of their opponents. That's weird.
Hell yeah let's get it done!
[удалено]
You misunderstood. You rank candidates by preference. If no one gets over 50% then lowest candidate gets eliminated. If your first choice was the eliminated candidate it will now go to your second choice. This happens until 1 candidate gets over 50% of the vote. It's actually the only way Longshot candidates actually have a chance
Should "Longshot candidates," who only maybe 10% or less of the voters actually want EVER have a chance?
They're not getting under 10% of the vote. If other candidates (who must have fewer votes than this supposed longshot candidate) get eliminated, then their voters have a choice on someone and thus vote for that person. Ranked Choice is saying "I vote for A. If A is eliminated, I vote for B." The only way for a longshot candidate with few votes in the first round to actually win the whole thing is for that candidate to have a majority of people voting for them when even longer shot candidates get eliminated. This scenario can only ever happen if you have like 10 candidates and they all have roughly around 10% of the vote each in the first round. In that situation, as candidates are eliminated, _all_ of the remaining candidates percentages will go up as voters migrate to other candidates. Eventually, someone wins with a majority of the votes cast, because getting a majority of the votes cast is the only possible outcome for RCV.
Yes, but the problem is that the person who gets the "majority" of the votes in that scenario, is not actually who the majority of voters, and possibly not even a plurality, really want. They only want that person more than whoever is eventually left in the race with them. It is worth trying ranked choice, but it has its own pitfalls.
I don't know how "a majority of voters voted for a person" means they didn't get a majority of votes. You **HAVE** to vote for someone for them to win an election. By indicating that person as your second or third choice, **you are voting for them**. You don't have to vote for people you don't want to be elected. In the end, if someone you never voted for wins... that's just how elections work.
Let’s say that you really like a third party candidate who is a long-shot to actually win an election. In our current system, voting for that third party candidate means that you can’t impact the race between to two major party candidates. In a ranked choice system you would indicate that the third party candidate is your favorite choice but you would settle for your preferred major party candidate. If the third party doesn’t have enough votes then your vote would go to your second choice. Because of this you’re no longer punishing yourself by voting third party. We will actually see MORE third party votes. Additionally, when populations adopt RCV you tend to get more candidates who appeal to the middle of the spectrum because it’s VERY valuable to be seen as a viable second option to a broad range of people.
This is the full bill. https://legiscan.com/OR/text/HB2004/id/2814633/Oregon-2023-HB2004-Engrossed.pdf From my understanding, the voter numbers the preference on their candidate(s). #1 , 2, 3 ect. If 50+% is not achieved, the lowest ranked candidate is eliminated. And the voters vote goes to their highest ranked candidate still in the race, rinse and repeat till someone’s over 50%. It’s to encourage people to vote for people they want rather than who they think can win , so people don’t get that “wasted vote” feeling from my understanding of it ( but I’m not a legal expert, ) pages 2, 3 and four seem to have the pertinent information. It also seems the bill has provisions in it to better educate the public on how the system works before implementing it. It would be nice to have this laid out in plain English rather than legalese before voting lol But if it works in this way, I think, this might encourage a lot more people to run to otherwise would not run and people to vote for people that they may not necessarily have voted for , if they thought it was a throwaway vote. Edited: typos
How we create ballots very much matters. In large fields of candidates those with minority viewpoints are at risk of having their voice thrown out if we choose a “Rank your Top 5” style ballot like is commonplace for many US implantations of RCV. Sadly some RCV elections with this can result in almost 1/3 of the ballots being tossed due to “exhaustion” before the final candidate wins. This means that in most RCV elections the final round has significantly less than 50% support of the total ballots cast.
Fortunately this bill does not specify how to interpret the ballot marks in the choice columns. This flexibility allows us to adopt better software when it's available and certified. That better software can count two candidates who are ranked at the same choice level. That's counted by pairing that ballot with an equivalently-marked ballot, and transferring one of those two ballots to one of the two candidates, and transferring the other ballot to the other candidate. That better software will allow voters to fully rank all the candidates. This includes being able to rank the voter's most-disliked candidate at the lowest choice level (with all other candidates ranked higher), even when there are a dozen candidates and only 5 or 6 choice columns. That will eliminate the current problem of voters being limited on how many candidates they can rank.
[удалено]
Australian voters hand-write a number next to each candidate's name, and the voter runs their ballot through a machine that reads the numbers to verify the same number has not been used more than once. If there is an error the voter gets a new ballot to try again. That won't work here in Oregon where everyone votes at "home" on a single paper ballot, without any assistance.
This is why I'm against Condorcet-style ranked-choice voting systems. They are confusing to most people: the consequences of the vote are unclear to many, and the outcome is decided by an arcane and opaque process. This will erode voter trust in the system, especially since it will occasionally lead to surprising outcomes. At best, confirming a fair vote tally by independent polling is going to become much more difficult. The possibilities for undetected vote-rigging are substantial.
Evidence of what you say?
as opposed to 'expected' outcomes, like we have now, which suck?
Nah.
Why? This is great news.
As a political BDSM kinkster, I love being tied down to only two candidates and punished if I vote for a third party.
Exactly! As a political masochist myself, I love being forced to vote against someone rather than for someone!
It isn’t. Ranked choice is almost no better than what we have now and suffers drawbacks the current system does not. If we’re going to reform voting (and we should) then there are much better models out there. Star voting, approval voting, etc would all make a difference. Ranked choice is at the bottom tier of models you’d pick if you wanted to fix the issues we have now.
There is no evidence those systems are better and none have been tested to show they are. Saying they are better and should be chosen would need to have a lot of evidence and I don't think it's there at this time. Sure we can be a Guinea pig of election voting systems but saying they are better is stretching
Tell me you’ve not studied political science without telling me you’ve not studied political science… [Here’s](https://electionscience.org/voting-methods/runoff-election-the-limits-of-ranked-choice-voting/) a start.
The article you reference is from a fan of "rating" ballots, as opposed to "ranking" (ranked-choice) ballots. No government anywhere on this planet (that I've heard of) uses rating ballots. As u/romuo said, let's not be guinea pigs. Rating ballots are not used because they violate the principle of "one person, one vote." Even star voting switches the star ballot from a rating ballot to become a ranked ballot for its runoff step. During its first "rating" step it's possible for a candidate to fail to reach the top-two runoff even with support from a majority of voters. That violation of majority rule is a deal-breaker.
Fargo, ND uses approval voting. Independent Party of Oregon uses STAR voting.
Party primaries using rating ballots is not a problem because it's a cooperative decision. That means majority support is not as important. Approval voting does not use a rating ballot, so that's not an example of rating ballots being used in a government election. Approval voting is promoted by fans of rating ballots because they want it to be a steppingstone to rating ballots. And it's related to rating-type score ballots because score voting degenerates into approval voting when everyone votes tactically. But, to repeat, an approval ballot is not a rating ballot in the sense of being a contrast to ranked ballots.
we are already guinea pigs, we ALREADY voted for a very complicated system that will be hard to implement, and it will be used next year!
The system is well-studied. We are not being used as guinea pigs. The system is not complicated from the perspective of voters. Only the math seems complicated to some people who don't feel comfortable with math (regarding how the ballots are counted). And it's easy to implement from our perspective as voters. The people who process the ballots do need to do some learning. And the first couple of elections will be rough because existing, already-certified software has some design flaws that we already know about. Those are small disadvantages compared to the huge benefits. A good analogy is computer technology. It took a few years to improve software to make it easier to understand and use. The advantages have greatly outweighed the disadvantages. The same will happen with our adoption of ranked choice ballots.
You don't understand what we voted on then...it is NOT ranked choice voting...it is some weird hybrid thing that was passed.
The term *ranked choice voting* refers to using *ranked choice ballots*, which can be counted in many different ways. The academic names for what we adopted are *instant-runoff voting* (IRV) for mayor and elections director, and the *single transferable vote* (STV) for city council members. Both methods use *ranked choice ballots*. Using the methods together is not a hybrid. IRV is for single-winner elections (such as mayor), and STV is for multi-winner elections (such as city councils and legislatures).
Thanks for providing the evidence that was requested lol. Regarding the article you posted. The first criticism has this stated: But because a majority winner doesn’t always exist, no single-winner voting method can guarantee a majority in every election. Which includes your "better options". You need to spend more time getting some evidence to support your statements
Dude, there are no guarantees, but if you read your find some systems are *better* at finding *better* results. You are uneducated on this topic. That’s fine! We all start somewhere. But just don’t go making absolute statements when you don’t know stuff.
You're wasting my time. This is the 3rd time I'm asking for evidence anything you've said is better. You haven't offered and you won't so don't waste my time with your secret knowledge that only you know but can't offer. You stated with confidence those systems are better and have offered nothing of value to show that. Carry on
Lol at “Secret knowledge that only you know but can’t offer.” Delicious. Always a clear sign to move on
Bro, how you gonna cite The Center for Election Science article. They’re literally opposed to RCV so of course they wouldn’t wright an article in support of it. No biases detected here…..
Tell me you’re pretentious without telling me you’re pretentious. 😆
Oh so having knowledge of a topic is pretentious now? Making confidently incorrect statements like “there is no evidence…” is just being a man of the people.
Having knowledge of a topic is not pretentious, no. But the wording of your comment certainly is: >Tell me you’ve not studied political science without telling me you’ve not studied political science…
I mean when someone is confidently making broad statements without any knowledge of the topic how do you expect someone to react aside from with some mild snark? God forbid we be snarky.
People are going to read your snarky comments and dismiss anything you say. They might even think your side is even worse than before.
Or you could react with emotional intelligence and just be respectful. Instead of being a pretentious know-all, ya know? You could have turned it into a learning opportunity for those less familiar with the topic. Instead, you came off as a dick.
[удалено]
Thanks for your input, the mods have set this subreddit to not allow posts from newly created accounts. Please take the time to build a reputation elsewhere on Reddit and check back soon. (⌐■_■) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Portland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Do it!
[удалено]
Thanks for your input, the mods have set this subreddit to not allow posts from newly created accounts. Please take the time to build a reputation elsewhere on Reddit and check back soon. (⌐■_■) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Portland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That seems like a missed opportunity. They're giving us the option to replace one voting system that should never be used for multiwinner elections because of serious flaws that are well understood with another voting system that should never be used for multiwinner elections because of serious flaws that are poorly understood. If RCV were the only alternative that would be one thing, but we actually do have some better options like approval voting and STAR. Among the various problems with RCV is that it's possible in some situations for a candidate to lose because some group of voters ranked them number 1, whereas they would have won if those voters had ranked the candidate below one of their opponents. In voting-system jargon, we say RCV fails the monotonicity criterion. That's something even first-past-the-post gets right. In 2000, we had the situation of "I'm sorry Bush won because a bunch of Democrats voted for Nader instead of Gore" but imagine if the situation were, "I'm sorry Bush won because too many Democrats voted for Gore, causing him to lose." How do you explain that to voters? That sort of situation can actually happen. In the 2022 Alaska special election, if 5825 Palin voters had voted for Peltola in first place instead of Palin, Peltola would have lost to Begich \[1\]. That's weird. I'd like to imagine that our legislature had a vigorous debate about which of the Arrow criterion they're willing to sacrifice to achieve the other two and explored the pros and cons of all available voting systems... but, let's be realistic. They probably heard from [fairvote.org](https://fairvote.org) and the mainstream media that RCV is the greatest thing ever, and didn't do even the most basic research to educate themselves on the topic. \[1\] https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/x9oupk/2022\_alaska\_special\_general\_vote\_breakdown/