How is it crap and how does this overcomplicate any of it?
The person with the most votes does win under other voting systems I have brought up. What I want is exactly that. I my second example for instance person C has 29 votes compared to person A’s 24 votes, how is that not person C having the most votes and winning?
That’s a great argument in favor of an alternative voting system. Because we both agree that the most votes should win for each representative. Hence the added benefit of having the two rounds of voting since those additional vote preferences are taken into consideration. Through of one these alternative voting systems, we can truly say that the majority of people wanted that person for the job rather.
It’s also a great argument for score voting as well since that is only one round of voting, but you can give a score for each candidate and the candidate with the highest total score wins.
“Just because a person’s favorite choice isn’t the most popular, doesn’t mean the winning candidate is preferred by the majority of voters.”
If we’re being specific, I am acknowledging the why from the very first sentence of my original comment. I needed the details to help elaborate my point though.
To clarify though, I am not trying to cater to everyone, I’m trying to have a dialogue. People that are interested will likely want to read more, those that don’t will skim.
If I was marketing or just cared about short points I wouldn’t be so detailed, but I believe in what I am saying matters beyond just a surface level glance. Sometimes the answers are not short and sweet, sometimes to make change we have to dig in and put in some more effort.
The why is answered in the explanation, how many professors give you the answer upfront before you solve a problem? Usually they want you to be presented with the whole problem and have you work your way to finding the answer. I could spoonfeed the answer, but that lacks nuance. I’m personally tired of things being designed just for short attention spans to give a dopamine hit and then they jump to the next source of dopamine. I feel this view has degraded my own mental facilities after looking for ‘efficiency’ in language for several years now.
If my comment was a post on its own I would have included a hook for why it matters at the start, but if someone is specifically asking me to explain it I’m going to frame it differently.
First Past the Post in this case, which is the predominant voting method in 48 of the 50 US states; I’m not the OP for this specific post though lol. I was going for short and sweet for the original title. I was mostly hoping that the Winner Takes All part would clarify what FPTP is referring to, in the links I shared it talked more about what FPTP is.
I was shocked as well, I think part of it was the misinformation before the election. Another part was a lot of people just hearing about other voting systems for the first time. The common response by most people is to just vote to maintain the status quo unless they hear about something and think it can be a good thing.
Personally, I think with Ranked Robin, STAR, or Score voting on the ballot people may be more receptive to one of these alternatives. There is much less likelihood of anyone invalidating their ballots under one of these other systems.
It was also during a big election year that these votes happened on, if it was on a midterm I am curious if Alternative Voting would have struggled so much.
Why? We’re talking about electing representatives to govern our country, not picking what movie a few people want to go watch. What do you want from a representative? You want them to reflect the consensus of the wider electorate that voted them in rather than just their smaller base. If 66.6% of the voting electorate didn’t vote for someone of a certain political spectrum in a election where that person won by getting 33.4% of the vote, then how are they the most representative option or how do they reflect the views of the majority? My example is a bit extreme, that’s what winner takes all is. The great thing about other systems is, if you personally only want to vote for one candidate, you still can. However, if you wanted to have a backup option in case your favorite lost the first round, then that’s okay too under other systems.
Even something as simple as ordering food with friends makes sense to use an alternative voting system such as approval voting. You and your friends pick all your favorite options, and you’re less likely to be upset at the results since you can show preference. Some options you might hate, some options others may hate, and other options you might all be okay with having.
Yes! Thank you for sharing this, the NPVIC is so huge and we are so close to it actually being possible.
I feel we can make it happen, especially if we continue to get the word out and reach out to our senators and representatives, then we can have momentum for it actually happen as well.
My response to the why is buried a bit tbf. The why is ‘who are we defining as the majority winner’? If we are defining it based on the current FPTP voting system, then yes the person who got the most votes in the one round of voting is the majority winner. If we define it in another system or based on who the total voting population would be happy to have as the winner, then another system would be better more often then not.
I agree there is a simple and more concise way of answering, but I saw it as a teaching moment to go a bit more in depth.
FPTP is terrible for encouraging a two party system over a long enough period of time, because it can incentivize partisan division to secure voter share, and since it often ignores the opinions of the majority of the entire electorate.
The damage of FPTP is further amplified by the House and Senate being capped on the amount of Representatives and Senators for each state. For many states, they just need to secure 51% of the voter base and it becomes winner takes all, especially so with gerrymandering. If there were Alternative Voting systems in all states and if states have had a minimum of five Representatives and five Senators per state scaled up based on population, then our country as a whole would be properly representative to how different populations throughout the country feels. It wouldn’t be just red or blue states anymore, multiple third parties would be able to flourish, and people would have congress-members in office that actually reflect their views.
I just wooshed the joke there lol.
RCV is still solid over FPTP ~>85% of the time, I’m just advocating for these other voting systems. Many people have heard of RCV, but maybe not one of these other systems. There isn’t really a universal favorite, but I feel having a dialogue about the alternatives is something we want to clarify before we commit ourselves to one without acknowledging any potential drawbacks.
Just because a person’s favorite choice isn’t the most popular, doesn’t mean the winning candidate is preferred by the majority of voters. Let’s say there are three candidates A, B, and C and their vote totals are below.
A: 20 votes
B: 18 votes
C: 15 votes
In First Past The Post A wins.
Now, let’s give voters the option to select their top two choices so they can safely pick their favorite option first and while still having a safe choice secondary pick. In this case the election results are the following:
A: 1st pick 20 votes; 2nd pick 4 votes
B: 1st pick 14 votes; 2nd pick 12 votes
C: 1st pick 19 votes; 2nd pick 10 votes
B got the least votes in this different voting system, and B gets eliminated first. Then we move onto the second round of voting to compare the total votes of A vs C. A has 24 total votes and C has 29 total votes. In this example, C wins the election as they are the candidate most preferred by a majority of the voters. The majority winner still wins as they have the votes of a plurality of the electorate.
My example is a simplified explanation for alternative voting systems, the exact mechanism for each of them differs though. I specifically support Ranked Robin, STAR, or score as the specific alternative voting systems I would prefer over FPTP, as I believe they are all more fair and have the best outcomes for the majority of people expressing their preferences.
If we want elections to be more representative of what the majority of people want, then taking in more preferences of the voters only makes sense. They have less incentive to vote strategically for the same reasons, at least under the systems I mentioned. So for a real world example, most people can safely pick a third party candidate without worrying about the spoiler effect. This would be huge for properly showing just how much true support third parties have out there, because currently they have to compete for people that vote similarly between two or more parties.
Then go for the option where all the voting happens at one step based on preference. If you still want a best of two you can have the primary election earlier in the year with a score vote tally, and the two candidates that have the highest scores votes from that process then go into a head to head FPTP style for the general election.
For the record both Alaska and Maine are currently using an Alternative Voting system as well as many countries in Europe. Australia also uses an Alternative Voting system. So it can be done successfully in many countries without issue.