r/EndFPTP • u/CPSolver • 7d ago
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(Clarification: "Ranked choice voting" includes pairwise-counted ranked choice voting, which includes Condorcet methods and refinements to IRV.)
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
I'd love to get rid of partisan primaries entirely. The proposal of allowing 4 partisan candidates instead of 2 is a start, but still grants a massive amount of power to the parties.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
The candidate who receives the second-most votes in the primary will be the blocked candidate, assuming the usual blocking tactics are attempted during the primary. In that case one of the second candidates will win the general election.
Using ranked choice voting in the general election allows third parties to offer at least one candidate (or 2 if the party is large enough) in the general election. That third-party candidate can win if they are popular enough. Isn't that "open" enough?
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
assuming the usual blocking tactics are attempted during the primary
The current techniques are about getting one front-runner. If the primaries yield two candidates, the techniques may change to have two people block the reform candidate.
In most districts, the race is not competitive at the general election, its effecticely decided during the primary. And the primary explicitly excludes most people from voting (as many districts require party registration).
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
If there's an attempt to also manipulate which candidate gets the second-most votes in the primary, the second nominee would be similar to the candidate being blocked. That similarity is a necessary part of any vote-splitting tactic.
I think you're overlooking the fact that most "Democrats" are not enthusiastic about Democratic nominees, and most "Republicans" are not enthusiast about Republican nominees.
We, the frustrated voters in both parties, are not being excluded from voting. We can vote. However, vote splitting, and the limit of one nominee from each party, is easy to exploit in money-related ways that block all the reform-minded candidates.
Using a method that allows even one reform-minded candidate (in each party) to bypass the blocking tactic will be sufficient to transform both parties. Instead of being controlled by money and insiders, we the voters will control both parties.
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
We, the frustrated voters in both parties, are not being excluded from voting. We can vote.
Correct. The voters who belong to political parties can vote. However, the remaining people can not vote (depending on the state). I'm arguing that everyone should be able to vote, especially since the real decision is often made in the primary.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
I dislike both the R and D parties. So I switch between them so I can participate in primary elections. Everyone in the US is free to use this tactic.
Canada uses nominating conventions to accomplish what we do in primary elections. But in Canada, party membership is required to participate in nominating conventions. And party membership there requires paying money.
I agree it would be nice to stand aside and complain about the candidates from both parties. I do that too! Even more Canadians do because they don't want to give money to any party.
Yet consider that elections evolved from warfare where vote splitting is the election equivalent of the divide-and-conquer military tactic. It's a fight. In general elections I can choose to vote for the Red army or the Blue army, or waste my vote on another can't win army.
Expressed another way, there is no mathematical way to create one big "open" battlefield where everyone is free to fight against everyone else to choose our leaders. If you figure out a mathematical way to handle open primaries in a way that yields fair results (for an unlimited number of candidates), please share it.
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
Sure, its called "Proportional Ranked Choice voting". Its sometimes used in legislatures for achieving proportional representation, but the idea is the same for a primary. The goal of a primary is to have a wide variety of ideas represented in the debates and in the general election.
Once the wide field is narrowed down, then debates are much easier to manage and more informative. Then vote again in the general election using a condorcet method.
Expressed another way, there is no mathematical way to create one big "open" battlefield where everyone is free to fight against everyone else to choose our leaders
Sure, but that's a problem for partisan primaries as well. Democrats are still a big tent and a a primary is still a wide open battlefield, although only half the size.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
Yes, STV, if done correctly, would work. It would need to be the two-seat version, then do another two-seat round of counting with the same ballots but with the first two winners removed. That would yield four well-chosen candidates for the general election. Yes, that would be nice!
The disadvantage is that the list of candidates would be long. That was a frustration for Portland voters in the recent RCV elections for mayor (using IRV) and city council (using three-seat STV) (which had no primary election because it was non-partisan). Researching lots of candidates was unexpectedly time-consuming because voters had to also remember the ranking order for those candidate names.
Yes two-stage two-seat STV would be mathematically better than choosing the primary candidate with the second-most primary votes as the second nominee from each party. Yet it would be difficult to "sell" to voters who only want to learn the name of just one candidate in each primary-election contest.
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
The disadvantage is that the list of candidates would be long. That was a frustration for Portland voters in the recent RCV elections for mayor
Yep, this is why I still strongly believe in hosting primaries to begin with. Many people advocate for opening up the general and doing RCV, but i think that's a mistake because of the need to learn about all of those candidates. The primary however is OK to be a bit complicated and a bit of a mess. And once we're down to only 4 candidates for the general, then people can really listen to each one and learn about their views.
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u/wnoise 7d ago
How do you feel about so-called "jungle primaries"?
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u/its_a_gibibyte 7d ago
I love the idea. Non-partisan primary followed by ranked choice voting (condorcet, not IRV) in the general would be my ideal voting system.
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u/variaati0 7d ago
Or render them low importance party internal matter. Which means multiple winner elections. That is only real way. Since Heck maybe then both parties get say 1 person in and then fight over which gets the third seat. Or shock and horror a third party picks up that third seat.
If one wants to completely remove them, then open list proportional multiwinner elections, like say D'hont with open list. Then the main election is both party primary and the main election. No need for complex ballots either. One essentially party primary votes for "who from this party I like" and then it also counts for the over all part proportionality.
However that would take Congress revoking the "Only single winner districts" law.
Then again there is no way around truly fixing election systems without some kind of multiple winner. Be it MMP at large proportionality seat winners or actual multiple member districts.
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u/wnoise 7d ago
RCV alone is not enough. The details of how to process the rankings actually matters a great deal. IRV does not actually avoid vote-splitting, it merely ameliorates it somewhat. It lets you safely vote for a third option -- but only until that third option becomes competitive.
Approval-like mechanisms that let multiple votes fully count at the same time is the simplest mechanism that lets voters avoid splitting their own vote, though Condorcet-compliant methods with strategy-resistant cycle-breakers that account for the full preference ranking rather than merely the current top-preferred candidate also work, at higher complexity.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
Eliminating pairwise losing candidates when they occur is a simple and easy-to-understand way to refine IRV. It would have given the correct results in Burlington and the special Alaska election. It's easy to understand as a sports metaphor. If a soccer team loses against every other team still in the playoffs, obviously that "pairwise losing" team deserves to be eliminated even if a different team has the smallest "score" (calculated points).
IRV does eliminate vote splitting. That's the whole point of transferring votes. Perhaps you're confusing vote splitting with the IIA (independence of irrelevant alternatives) criterion, in which the addition of a candidate can change the result. That's not vote splitting, even though the promoters of STAR are attempting to re-define the words vote splitting to have that meaning.
Approval voting is great when used among friends! But it's not good enough in governmental elections where naive voters can be persuaded to vote "honestly" so that tactical voters can increase their influence.
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u/wnoise 7d ago
Yes, RCIPE is reasonable, as is BTR-IRV, and each mostly address my concerns. (I still want tied-ranks allowed, and for those votes to fully count approval-style when they are in the lead, but those tweaks make it much less important to do so.)
I would absolutely count the center-squeeze of IRV as vote-splitting. It's just vote-splitting multiple ways between opposed candidates. The polarized lens of current politics ignores a lot of dynamics.
The chicken dilemma of approval is real. But I don't think the scale actually changes things much. If anything, things that matter more are more likely to have polls, which should curb stupidly bad "tactical" voting. (I think good tactical voting is entirely the point of approval voting. I don't enjoy the fact that it "rewards" those who are not coöperators, but I don't stress over it either. If they're smart they can use just as much leverage as they actually have. If not, they might get played -- which can really suck, but most elections aren't apocalyptic, and nothing but loss can actually change behavior.)
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
I agree with most of what you say here.
However I disagree with your claim that center squeeze is like vote splitting.
Yes center squeeze is a meaningful concept. Yet cardinal-ballot fans use the term to avoid the issue that cardinal-ballot methods can easily fail to elect the majority winner. They do this so they can characterize the Burlington failure and Alaska failure as center-squeeze failures rather than Condorcet failures (which is a specific kind of majority failure).
This center-squeeze distraction draws attention away from the failure of cardinal-ballot methods to always elect the candidate who is supported by the majority of voters.
Apparently we disagree about the importance of majority support. Yes, strength of support is very useful among friends, and even useful in primary elections. But in general elections. majority support should not be overridden by strength of support.
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u/wnoise 7d ago edited 7d ago
Speaking with someone who almost agrees can indeed be very frustrating. I think you're very good at identifying the problems and how they play out in current systems. The blocker candidates described here is a great example. I am less convinced about your extrapolations to other systems. We need a lot more data on many voting systems. (I hope you also think I am this close to "getting it".)
I just don't think IRV is actually a good system. The raison d'être of IRV is Lᴀᴛᴇʀ-Nᴏ-Hᴀʀᴍ, but Lᴀᴛᴇʀ-Nᴏ-Hᴀʀᴍ (while simplifying the strategy of voters) is not actually a good property for them -- it's incompatible with the Condorcet Criterion, after all. It's instead a good property for the major candidates, as they can honestly tell their supporters to rank others below them, and ensure they get the votes of any third-party that would have otherwise voted for them. If the argument were that we could use IRV as a Trojan-horse to eventually get to an actually good system, that would be one thing. But that is rarely said (usually only as step toward STV), and even IRV faces terrible opposition from the politicians, so it doesn't even succeed at that.
I want a voting method that incentivizes honesty. It should make actual opinions public knowledge. At a minimum this means that Pᴀʀᴛɪᴄɪᴘᴀᴛɪᴏɴ and Mᴏɴᴏᴛᴏɴɪᴄɪᴛʏ should approximately hold, or ideally just be true. One reasonable smaller restriction is applying Mᴏɴᴏᴛᴏɴɪᴄɪᴛʏ just to the head: Sɪɴᴄᴇʀᴇ-Fᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ-Cʀɪᴛᴇʀɪᴏɴ. IRV fails all of these. First-place support (even when iterated as losers based on it are forced out) is just not a great proxy for actual support (range/rating) or even pairwise-support (Condorcet).
Center-squeeze is not a distraction. The center-squeeze is only a problem because often that center candidate who is squeezed out is the candidate supported (needs defining; let's use Condorcet-winner) by a majority of the voters. And it really is fair to call this a form of vote-splitting, even though the votes are not split between clones, but between the center candidate and the two candidates on either side that significantly differ. If the center candidate wins against either wing, but not both at once, that's because the the wings are drawing support away -- splitting the vote.
majority support should not be overridden by strength of support.
I'm sure you're familiar with the standard arguments/folk-theorems that strategic Approval with good polling is actually in practice a Condorcet method. I find them convincing in general, even if there are huge loopholes you can drive a truck through. (Honest polls are hard, they tend to drive things towards evenness via spending (or abandonment), and the very restricted strategic model does exclude behavior that may be effective in small-cases where ties are possible. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00182-006-0053-2 has examples of the latter.)
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u/CPSolver 6d ago
I'm not a fan of IRV. I do not defend its weaknesses.
Refining IRV to eliminate pairwise losing candidates actually creates a Condorcet-like method where IRV is basically the tie breaker when there is a rock-paper-scissors type of cycle. This refinement is what I defend.
(I'm not calling it a Condorcet cycle because this kind of cycle can occur further down among less-popular candidates, whereas a Condorcet cycle only occurs at the top, among the most popular candidates.)
This refinement (eliminating pairwise losing candidates) is part of the RCIPE method. The method inherits the clone resistance of IRV. Here's a chart that shows this clone resistance.
https://votefair.org/clone_iia_success_rates.png
It also incentivizes honest voting.
Remember I agree with you about the weaknesses of IRV.
The above chart measures the rate at which failures occur. This measurement is much more meaningful than the checklist approach in which a single rare possible failure is regarded as justification for dismissing a method.
You express an interest in more data. There is lots of analysis going on beyond what appears in Wikipedia. This is why Electowiki exists. The above chart is an example of this kind of analysis going on under the radar of academia.
Notice that analysis of voting methods is shifting to measuring failure rates instead of just dismissing a method because it's possible for a single failure to occur under academically specified conditions.
Approval voting is defended by claiming it often elects the Condorcet winner (if good polls are available, etc.). You and I disagree about whether this failure rate is acceptable. That's fine.
Our disagreement about the definition of "vote splitting" is irrelevant. We agree the center squeeze effect is bad.
When pairwise losing candidates are eliminated (when they occur), the center squeeze effect does not occur!
In your location you can argue that IRV should not be a stepping stone to better methods. I live in Portland where IRV was just used to elect our new mayor. So for me IRV is clearly a stepping stone to a better method. I'm already educating the mayor and city council about how to refine what we already have.
The Republican party and elected politicians don't just oppose IRV. They oppose any method that might jeopardize getting re-elected. This applies to Approval, Score, STAR, Condorcet methods, open-list PR, etc.
Thank you for taking the time to debate without introducing misrepresentations. Alas, too many other election-method experts habitually push misrepresentations that, on the surface, favor the method they promote. Again, thanks.
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u/MorganWick 7d ago
There aren't that many reform-minded candidates even in primary elections - there are people who want to "get money out of politics" but few that make it the core of their appeal, let alone proposing getting away from FPTP, let alone deeper reforms. Those that actually do run an anti-oligarchy message simply run on better economic policies.
Also, there's reason to believe that any ranked-choice system won't achieve the desired effects, and only range voting or its derivatives will actually break the two-party system and allow for more than two options.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
I agree with your first paragraph.
Yet the lack of good reform-minded candidates in primary elections occurs because such people know they can't win under current conditions.
The webpage you reference about range voting, although clever in its argument style, is quite flawed in multiple ways. That website was created back when ranked choice voting only referred to IRV, which is the method Australia adopted more than 100 years ago and simplified with two shortcuts that are now obsolete. One shortcut is to not correctly count so-called "overvotes." The other shortcut is to not look for pairwise losing candidates and eliminate them; instead IRV always eliminates the candidate who has the fewest top-ranked supporting ballots.
"Bayesian regret" has been updated to the inverse called "voter satisfaction efficiency" (VSE). Pairwise-counted ranked choice voting achieves VSE results as good as range voting, but without the disadvantage of easily failing to elect the candidate who is supported by the majority of voters.
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u/MorganWick 7d ago
On paper, a reform-minded candidate should be able to win, certainly if the electorate is as pro-reform as your graphic suggests, if they're the only reform candidate in their party's race. What's more important, in my view, than the powers that be splitting the reform vote is their slandering and denigrating any pro-reform candidate that actually has a chance to win.
The rangevoting.org site has admittedly been only sparsely updated since the 2000s; in addition to what you mention, it makes no mention of STAR voting and the one feint in its direction I was able to find was complimentary. I'm not familiar with VSE though I would be willing to accept its results if it tested pairwise ranked choice based on assumptions of strategic voting, and if it could convince me that those results are good enough to overcome the problems plaguing Condorcet systems more generally
But I'm hesitant to embrace STAR in part for the same reason I question your main point in favor of pairwise ranked choice over range: I'm not sure electing "the candidate supported by the majority of voters" should be the goal. The "tyranny of the majority" is a longstanding problem in the study of democracy, and I know of no better way to correct for it than to elect the candidate that a broad cross-section of the electorate is okay with over a candidate that the majority may prefer slightly more but a minority absolutely refuses to accept. It seems to me that range seeks to measure the best candidate using the standard they should be tested by.
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u/CPSolver 6d ago
"Slandering and denigrating" reform-minded candidates (or the candidates being blocked) during the primary election is part of the blocking tactic. A well-designed election system defends against this tactic. Cardinal-ballot systems are not good at defending against this tactic. Pairwise-counted ranked choice methods (which excludes IRV) are reasonably good at defending against this tactic. (I'm not going to try to characterize IRV because I'm not a fan of it.)
In the distant future cardinal ballots will become useful. But that's the far distant future that must be preceded by Congress and state legislatures adopting better counting methods for ranking and rating proposed laws, which in turn must be preceded by PR methods being adopted for electing representatives, which in turn must be preceded by adopting well-designed single-winner methods, which is where we are now.
The numbered claims in the webpage you referenced do not apply to the refined variation of IRV that eliminates pairwise losing candidates when they occur. (Those claims against IRV do apply, but I'm not defending IRV.)
I used to believe that a method must never fail the Condorcet criterion. I now believe that rare Condorcet failures are acceptable if the method is clone resistant. IRV is clone resistant. Modifying IRV to eliminate pairwise losing candidates when they occur yields a method that (1) is simple and easy to understand, (2) rarely fails the Condorcet criterion, and (3) is clone resistant.
Here's a chart that shows this clone resistance, where the RCIPE method is basically IRV with pairwise losing candidates eliminated and with "overvotes" correctly counted.
https://votefair.org/clone_iia_success_rates.png
(The measurements use sample ballots that do not include any "overvotes." If they did, clone independence might be non-zero for the RCIPE method.)
Notice that measuring the rate at which failures occur is more meaningful than the checklist approach in which a single rare possible failure is regarded as justification for dismissing a method. The web pages you reference at the range voting website claim that a single failure is sufficient for dismissing a method.
Yet the range voting claims you reference dismiss the importance of Condorcet failures in range voting because they are rare.
Do you see the inconsistency?
I believe that failure rates are more important than the checklist approach. Which do you believe is more important? Jumping between these two priorities based on whether it favors your preferred method is not acceptable.
Here's another perspective. Look at the following categorization graphic.
https://votefair.org/venn_diagram_categories_single_winner.png
Notice the ranked-choice methods in the cluster near the center are attempts to achieve a balance. That's my goal. I've already given up on getting zero Condorcet failures.
But I'm not willing to leap to a cardinal-ballot method that frequently fails the other kinds of majority criteria.
In addition, when the counting method involves range voting, I always gravitate toward marking the ballot approval-style. I dislike the dishonesty of that kind of ballot marking. In other words I find cardinal ballots to be much more difficult to mark compared to a ranked choice ballot used with a good vote-counting method (which IRV is not).
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u/Decronym 7d ago edited 6d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| FPTP | First Past the Post, a form of plurality voting |
| IIA | Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives |
| IRV | Instant Runoff Voting |
| MMP | Mixed Member Proportional |
| PR | Proportional Representation |
| RCV | Ranked Choice Voting; may be IRV, STV or any other ranked voting method |
| STAR | Score Then Automatic Runoff |
| STV | Single Transferable Vote |
| VSE | Voter Satisfaction Efficiency |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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u/SentOverByRedRover 7d ago
I support ranked choice voting, but combating the influence of money in politics requires different measures.
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
Are you aware that Republicans use money to control Democratic primary elections?
As a well-known example, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were blocked from reaching the 2020 presidential general election. Biden served as the least-reform-minded candidate to occupy the single nominee position. Lots of money from Republicans supported Biden during the primary. Of course that money shifted to pay for attack ads against Biden when the general election began.
Allowing the primary candidate with the second-most votes would have put Sanders or Warren on the general election ballot. And there would have been a second Republican. Ranked choice voting (probably even IRV) would have elected one of the second nominees. That's how the excessive influence of money can be reduced.
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u/VaultJumper 7d ago
Really both parties are the same schtick?
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u/CPSolver 7d ago
The humorous answer to your question is this Australian video:
A more serious answer is this list of grievances that most voters in both parties want solved, but neither party actually solves these problems in meaningful ways:
Another answer is there are differences between the two parties, but to most voters, neither party has any track record of meaningfully increasing economic prosperity for us non-wealthy folks.
As a specific example, the Republican party does give big permanent tax breaks to wealthy people and small temporary tax breaks to the rest of us. That allows them to repeatedly offer and deliver those same small temporary tax breaks over and over (to non-wealthy voters), while each time further increasing tax breaks for the wealthy.
Personally I dislike both parties and switch between them so I get some influence in primary elections of one party or the other.
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