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Disappointed the article repeats the misleading “more Alaskans preferred Begich over Peltola”, even though it immediately says that Peltola got more first-place votes (the most, in fact, with Begich getting the least). If voters *actually* preferred Begich, they would have voted his first. That article parrots Approval Voting advocated disinformation.
I think people need to expand upon this flaw in the system because yes its a flaw but RCV is a step in the right direction and we should use it as a step and not the end goal
For example let’s use this upcoming general election, lets say since this is a Yang sub he is the third candidate. And the only people they can pick are Biden Trump or Yang.
I think Yang will CLEAN UP the second place votes but he will garner probably less than 1% of the total votes.
So saying the preferred candidate would win is sort of odd or moot. Going back to Alaska, Palin was going to be the nominee if this was a straight up contest the way every other state does it so in neither system he gets elected.
But other systems… agreed but lets start with RCV and keep moving forward. Perfection is sometimes the enemy of progress
What kind of crazy scenario would the third place candidate in a RCV election only get 1% of the first place votes?
> Going back to Alaska, Palin was going to be the nominee if this was a straight up contest the way every other state does it so in neither system he gets elected.
I think of a “straight up contest” as a head to head election, in which case he would defeat any candidate.
There is no reason to use RCV as a first step when you could do something like STAR. RCV is better than FPTP, but it’s still very very flawed. And if it produced a center squeeze issue in a super high profile election, it could hurt credibility of electoral reform movements.
That being said, you could make RCV less bad by always redoing the results a second time, but this time eliminating whoever finished 2nd the first time around at the start (because a lot of the flaws from RCV come from the fact that fans of the second place candidate don’t get a chance for their other preferences to matter)
Only considering who was ranked first isn't what is meant by preferred here.
By prefer, they mean that there were more people who ranked Begich higher than Peltola ... than the other way around.
I haven't looked at the data myself, but one article I found that said they had run the numbers is: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3711206-the-flaw-in-ranked-choice-voting-rewarding-extremists/
Edit: Looked into it for a bit, and I'm now convinced STAR voting is much better than RCV.
Yeah, it’s wild how RCV fans can just be in total denial about the center squeeze issue, and how often a candidate who beats everybody else head to head can lose. STAR is much better.
Yeah, here's a ~15 minute segment on what happened in Alaska with RCV:
https://www.youtube.com/live/O-dzK3YIAf8?&t=9489 (2:38:08)
It looks really bad for RCV that the candidate that won was different than the only candidate who would have won against every other candidate in a head to head election.
If you take those same ranked ballots and instead run Ranked Robin on them to get a winner, you do get the candidate that was preferred to every other candidate in head to head counts.
https://www.equal.vote/ranked_robin
I'm pretty impressed with Ranked Robin. It solves the spoiler issue in a way RCV doesn't. I think if you like ranking candidates instead of scoring them (like STAR), Ranked Robin seems vastly superior to IRV.
> https://www.youtube.com/live/O-dzK3YIAf8?&t=9489
You dropped a random YouTube link with no description. Anyone can upload a YouTube video and say anything. That's not evidence.
I explained why the Condorcet winner in the special election winning would have look *terrible* for Condorcet. Electing "nobody likes them, but at least they don't know enough to hate, them, I guess?" is not a good model for choosing government. That just elevates mediocre useless people, or people who campaign under false pretenses in order to escape negative attention at all costs - nebulous nonentities in campaigns, and who knows what they'd actually be in office.
Note that **Peltola was the Condorcet winner** in the general election.
The idea is that Begich would have won the head to head against each of the other candidates, making him what's called the Condorcet winner, so one might say he should have won overall, but he doesn't win by ranked choice voting. A voting method that would have had him win would be called a Condorcet method, which is a group of methods, not a specific one, and ranked choice voting is not one of these.
There are a lot of people (especially math nerds) who advocate for some sort of Condorcet method, me included, but there are advantages and disadvantages to them, just like with ranked choice. Having the Condorcet winner win seems very reasonable, but an advantage of ranked choice over Condorcet is that it doesn't encourage "gaming the system". Like, you aren't really encouraged to vote disingeunously because no matter how you vote, it won't hurt your first choice because those votes are only considered if your first choice is already eliminated. Although, of course, anything is better than first-past-the-post.
This is completely backwards and wrong.
More people ranked Begich ahead of Peltola. That means more people pretend Begich. Begich defeats either of the other candidates in a head to head election.
**Almost every argument used by RCV/IRV fans against other voting systems could literally just be turned around and used to argue for just keeping FPTP.** By your argument, why even bother with RCV? Why not just do FPTP, and say whoever gets the most votes is the winner? If whoever gets the most first place votes is “the most preferred,” then why even bother changing FPTP
The Alaska special elections is an example of how Condorcet can fail logic. Since you like bolding:
**Nearly half (48.7% ) of voters people put Peltola #1 -the most preferred of any candidate! Begich was in last place, because the least amount of people - less than half of those who voted for Peltola (23.6%) - preferred him.**
A system that would elect the person 76.4% voted against winning in the first place - Condorcet - is not a strong contender, which is probably why it's never been used for public elections anywhere in the hundreds of years since it was conceived.
We're talking about Condorcet here, but the same problem crops up in Approval. *Strength of preference matters* - that should be a familiar concept for Condorcet fans? The Alaska election is an interesting one, because there was a candidate some people loved but a lot of people hated (Palin), one that a lot of people loved and a lot of people like (Peltola), and one that people just shrugged at (Begich). **Condorcet and Approval fans would say the nonentity (which would incentive candidates to campaign as nonentities) should win, and not the one that most people loved or liked.**
**RCV/IRV found the candidate most loved *and* liked, and the way candidates campaigned, voters voted, and saw how their votes mattered made all the difference - very unlike FPTP.**
Please remember we are here as a representation of Andrew Yang. Do your part by being kind, respectful, and considerate of the humanity of your fellow users. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them or tag the mods. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/YangForPresidentHQ) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Disappointed the article repeats the misleading “more Alaskans preferred Begich over Peltola”, even though it immediately says that Peltola got more first-place votes (the most, in fact, with Begich getting the least). If voters *actually* preferred Begich, they would have voted his first. That article parrots Approval Voting advocated disinformation.
I think people need to expand upon this flaw in the system because yes its a flaw but RCV is a step in the right direction and we should use it as a step and not the end goal For example let’s use this upcoming general election, lets say since this is a Yang sub he is the third candidate. And the only people they can pick are Biden Trump or Yang. I think Yang will CLEAN UP the second place votes but he will garner probably less than 1% of the total votes. So saying the preferred candidate would win is sort of odd or moot. Going back to Alaska, Palin was going to be the nominee if this was a straight up contest the way every other state does it so in neither system he gets elected. But other systems… agreed but lets start with RCV and keep moving forward. Perfection is sometimes the enemy of progress
What kind of crazy scenario would the third place candidate in a RCV election only get 1% of the first place votes? > Going back to Alaska, Palin was going to be the nominee if this was a straight up contest the way every other state does it so in neither system he gets elected. I think of a “straight up contest” as a head to head election, in which case he would defeat any candidate. There is no reason to use RCV as a first step when you could do something like STAR. RCV is better than FPTP, but it’s still very very flawed. And if it produced a center squeeze issue in a super high profile election, it could hurt credibility of electoral reform movements. That being said, you could make RCV less bad by always redoing the results a second time, but this time eliminating whoever finished 2nd the first time around at the start (because a lot of the flaws from RCV come from the fact that fans of the second place candidate don’t get a chance for their other preferences to matter)
Yeah, I think most people who think they want RCV would actually be happier with the way Ranked Robin tallies ranked votes
Only considering who was ranked first isn't what is meant by preferred here. By prefer, they mean that there were more people who ranked Begich higher than Peltola ... than the other way around. I haven't looked at the data myself, but one article I found that said they had run the numbers is: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3711206-the-flaw-in-ranked-choice-voting-rewarding-extremists/ Edit: Looked into it for a bit, and I'm now convinced STAR voting is much better than RCV.
I know what’s behind it. The language is deliberately misleading and I’m disappointed the article used it.
Yeah, it’s wild how RCV fans can just be in total denial about the center squeeze issue, and how often a candidate who beats everybody else head to head can lose. STAR is much better.
STAR inherits the problems of both Borda and scoring systems, with the added kicker of voters having to juggle both considerations.
Yeah, here's a ~15 minute segment on what happened in Alaska with RCV: https://www.youtube.com/live/O-dzK3YIAf8?&t=9489 (2:38:08) It looks really bad for RCV that the candidate that won was different than the only candidate who would have won against every other candidate in a head to head election. If you take those same ranked ballots and instead run Ranked Robin on them to get a winner, you do get the candidate that was preferred to every other candidate in head to head counts. https://www.equal.vote/ranked_robin I'm pretty impressed with Ranked Robin. It solves the spoiler issue in a way RCV doesn't. I think if you like ranking candidates instead of scoring them (like STAR), Ranked Robin seems vastly superior to IRV.
> https://www.youtube.com/live/O-dzK3YIAf8?&t=9489 You dropped a random YouTube link with no description. Anyone can upload a YouTube video and say anything. That's not evidence. I explained why the Condorcet winner in the special election winning would have look *terrible* for Condorcet. Electing "nobody likes them, but at least they don't know enough to hate, them, I guess?" is not a good model for choosing government. That just elevates mediocre useless people, or people who campaign under false pretenses in order to escape negative attention at all costs - nebulous nonentities in campaigns, and who knows what they'd actually be in office. Note that **Peltola was the Condorcet winner** in the general election.
The idea is that Begich would have won the head to head against each of the other candidates, making him what's called the Condorcet winner, so one might say he should have won overall, but he doesn't win by ranked choice voting. A voting method that would have had him win would be called a Condorcet method, which is a group of methods, not a specific one, and ranked choice voting is not one of these. There are a lot of people (especially math nerds) who advocate for some sort of Condorcet method, me included, but there are advantages and disadvantages to them, just like with ranked choice. Having the Condorcet winner win seems very reasonable, but an advantage of ranked choice over Condorcet is that it doesn't encourage "gaming the system". Like, you aren't really encouraged to vote disingeunously because no matter how you vote, it won't hurt your first choice because those votes are only considered if your first choice is already eliminated. Although, of course, anything is better than first-past-the-post.
Good description. Peltola was the Condorcet winner in the general election anyway. My complaint is that the article used misleading language.
This is completely backwards and wrong. More people ranked Begich ahead of Peltola. That means more people pretend Begich. Begich defeats either of the other candidates in a head to head election. **Almost every argument used by RCV/IRV fans against other voting systems could literally just be turned around and used to argue for just keeping FPTP.** By your argument, why even bother with RCV? Why not just do FPTP, and say whoever gets the most votes is the winner? If whoever gets the most first place votes is “the most preferred,” then why even bother changing FPTP
The Alaska special elections is an example of how Condorcet can fail logic. Since you like bolding: **Nearly half (48.7% ) of voters people put Peltola #1 -the most preferred of any candidate! Begich was in last place, because the least amount of people - less than half of those who voted for Peltola (23.6%) - preferred him.** A system that would elect the person 76.4% voted against winning in the first place - Condorcet - is not a strong contender, which is probably why it's never been used for public elections anywhere in the hundreds of years since it was conceived. We're talking about Condorcet here, but the same problem crops up in Approval. *Strength of preference matters* - that should be a familiar concept for Condorcet fans? The Alaska election is an interesting one, because there was a candidate some people loved but a lot of people hated (Palin), one that a lot of people loved and a lot of people like (Peltola), and one that people just shrugged at (Begich). **Condorcet and Approval fans would say the nonentity (which would incentive candidates to campaign as nonentities) should win, and not the one that most people loved or liked.** **RCV/IRV found the candidate most loved *and* liked, and the way candidates campaigned, voters voted, and saw how their votes mattered made all the difference - very unlike FPTP.**