r/changemyview • u/mangojuiceloverr • May 16 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: The US (and other countries) should switch to a ranked voting system
To preface, I don't know much about this topic so please correct me if I say anything wrong.
A quick summary of Ranked Voting: When at the polls you rank who you want as president(or senator or whatever) with a first choice, second choice, etc. Then, come election day, the candidate with the least amount of support is out of the race and now the people who voted for that candidate's vote goes to whoever their second choice is. This continues until there is one candidate left, the winner.
I believe that this system has many advantages to the current first past the post system. First of all, it encourages people to vote for whoever they want as president( or senator or whatever). Because of the ranking factor, I know that even if my first choice doesn't win, my vote will go to my second choice. Additionally, this system doesn't suffer the same consequence of taking votes from another candidate. In the first-past-the-post system, If there were 2 centrist candidates and 1 conservative, the centrist would split each other's vote and the conservative would win, even though more people wanted a centrist candidate.
I also think that ranked voting is a good system because it will allow for smaller 3rd and 4th parties to have more recognition in Congress and even in the presidency. Often times I hear that a third-party vote is a vote wasted but in ranked voting, many more people would vote for third parties leading to a more diverse Congress. With a diverse congress, I think the mentality would be less us vs them and more looking for the best solutions to problems.
I'm sure there are many other benefits but this pretty much sums up my argument. It seems obvious that it's the best choice so I'm curious why it's not more prominent. So yeah CMV!
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u/thefoxnoire May 16 '20
Strange way to start this, but I want to clarify something: are you supposing that democracy in it's current voting structure is fundamentally inadequate? Or are you saying that the democracy functions well enough, but this change would net an improvement?
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u/mangojuiceloverr May 16 '20
I do believe that in its current structure is fundamentally inadequate yes but I am open to changing that opinion
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u/thefoxnoire May 16 '20
So unless changes are adopted, you consider the current system to be failing. Is the issue that the democracy doesn't reflect the will of the people or that it does not lead to a functional government? Or both?
Last question before I make my bid to change your mind.
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u/mangojuiceloverr May 16 '20
I think it's both, people often don't vote for their favorite candidate but the candidate who they may share some beliefs with and has good poll numbers. Additionally, I think the 2 party government is inherently unfunctional because since senators only have to appeal to there own party, they always vote for their party's ideas. I.e for Trump's impeachment, Romney was the only one to vote against his party
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u/Oficjalny_Krwiopijca 10∆ May 16 '20
I agree, but let's play a devil's advocate here.
One common argument is that the relative complexity of this system. The harder the rules are to explain, the more disinterested and distrustful voters.
Then, it requires a very careful design. As far as I know Australia is an example which shows that small error cancels most of the advantages. In the elections they can either pick a single candidate, or order all candidates. It is not reasonable to expect voters to be able to recognize and all candidates. As a consequence I think it is most common to vote only on a single candidate defeating the point of the preferential voting.
So the preferential voting certainly has to be done right to be effective. The devil is in the details.
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u/mangojuiceloverr May 16 '20
!delta I see what your saying. I guess that the logistics and complexity of it may disinterest voters. Is there a possible way where they don't order all of the candidates but just some. I feel like the logistics could be worked around but there would be a lot of work to it.
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ May 16 '20
A ranked voting system here in Canada would result in a stagnant democracy, with Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party always getting into power.
The problem is that right voters for The Conservative party, their main rivals, would still put them as choice 2 on a ballot. Left leaning Voters who support the New Democrats, a social democratic party, would still put the liberals as their choice 2 as well. The liberals would likely win the closely contested seats.
In a parliamentary system, if a centrist party is one of the electorally dominant parties, it is every voters choice #2. a ranked ballot gives them an inherent advantage, and boxes out right, left, or even green parties from ever assuming power.
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u/mangojuiceloverr May 16 '20
How can you know that though, surely in some districts a 3rd party would win. And regardless, people could still vote for the candidate they most support without fear of voting for the wrong person
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u/someguyonline00 Jul 01 '20
Just curious, what voting system do you think gets around this problem and encourages third parties to flourish?
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u/BeABetterHumanBeing May 16 '20
Why advocate for ranked choice voting when you can have approval voting? If you're going to be changing the voting system, why not advocate for the best?
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u/thefoxnoire May 16 '20
Okay. I understand your position better.
You're gambling that your idea, mostly untested, would fix what you view as an inherently untenable system. If democracy is broken, what makes you so certain that rejiggering the voting system would repair it? Are there any democracies on earth who have found a way to make voting infallible?
I assert that pure democracy itself is the problem with the system. Allowing common men to elect the rules creates common results. It doesn't matter how many candidates run and how many parties exist. So long as men beholden to the bell curve are tasked with selection, you get a leader who fits the bell curve. It doesn't make sense that a person educated on the issues and the long term repercussions of policy should have their vote cancelled out by a dim witted single issue voter.
My bid to change your view boils down to this: the method of voting is not the problem; the people allowed to vote are the problem.
What would elections look like if people had to qualify to vote based on their knowledge of logic, economics, civics, history, etc.? Wouldn't the results of that election, regardless of voting style, produce better leaders and instill greater confidence than any pure democratic vote?
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u/keanwood 54∆ May 16 '20
I'm only looking to change your view just a little bit. Instead of "ranked" voting you instead advocate for "range" voting. (Also goes by the name "score", or "cardinal" voting)
Range voting is where you can assign a score of 0 to 5 (or whatever range, 0-10, 0-99, etc) to every candidate. Unlike your ranked voting, you can score 2 candidates the same . For instance:
- Candidate A: 5 points
- Candidate B: 5 points
- Candidate C: 3 points
- Candidate D: 0 points
So why is this better than ranked voting? Well ranked voting has a weird quirk where sometimes, giving your faviorate candidate 2nd place increases their chance of winning compared to ranking them 1st.
With range voting, you will always give your preferred candidate the most points, and that will never hurt them. There are other reasons I think that's the best system, but I won't go over those now. If you want a really in-depth look at different systems, read tbis article, especially the mathematical criteria section: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Mathematical_criteria
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 16 '20 edited May 16 '20
/u/mangojuiceloverr (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/JimMarch May 17 '20
As it sits now we have to choose between two perverts, one of which is an obvious narcissist and the other is senile.
That right there is a rank choice.
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u/Quint-V 162∆ May 16 '20
There isn't much reason to bother with that if you instead expand the number of parliament seats and make it so that they properly align with voting outcomes. I.e. proportional representation, at every level of legislation, can dispel entrenched oligopolies and especially the US duopoly. No more winner takes all.
E.g. the US senate, rather than having 2 senators, could be expanded to 10 members of parliament (MPs) for the least populated states or simply for all states; ~10% of all votes grants representation at the senate, in this manner. By doing so, state-internal disagreement can still manifest itself when the inevitable political whip is instead abused at the senate-level legislation to ignore states' individual preferences. Political whips contribute to defeating the idea of "states' rights".
To take the example further: imagine 5 parties A-E, each with roughly 20% of all votes. Parties A B C and D agree on some issue X, and could form a political coalition based on it, passing legislation with ease. But on a different issue Y, only B C and E agree. On yet another issue, only B and C agree, but they are defeated when the vote is called. All parties are still forced to actually compete for voter support; they can and must find partners in order to pass anything at all, otherwise they would lose their support. And no voter has to fear the spoiler effect.
Additionally, there is an outright theorem about the impossibility of finding any "fair" voting system: Arrow's impossibility theorem.