Three Democrats Re-Introduce Bill That Would Bring Ranked Choice Voting to Congressional Elections Across America
rankthevote.us
Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Congressman Don Beyer (VA-08) renewed their efforts to bring ranked choice voting to U.S. congressional elections, reintroducing their *Ranked Choice Voting Act *. Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.
The legislation would require ranked choice voting (RCV) in all congressional primary and general elections starting in 2028, allowing voters to express support for multiple candidates for public office, with the candidate receiving the most votes declared the winner.
It’ll never go anywhere but I’m absolutely in favor of it. Where it’s been used, it’s shown to move candidates more to the middle to attract both sides, thus reducing extremism.
I think in the US the more important result would be getting more people to the polls who for now think or are told their third party vote is a spoiler (which it can be, and needs to change). Those people might tend to put Democrat as a secondary vote, and while the third parties won't win national races yet, they'll get more voice and more reason to campaign. Instead of just popping up every four years...right Jill?
This would be an unprecedented win for democracy in America, but it needs an outcry of public support to have any chance.
Look up your congressional reps here: https://www.270towin.com/elected-officials/ and contact them to urge their support.
Remember, we're not outnumbered, we're out organized.
I actually think this is one issue that is okay to be a single issue voter on, because once it's achieved then all voting afterwards will be fairer.
i mean, i would disagree, but i see what you're pushing for here.
This is an issue that exceeds the importance of almost all other issues, aside from like, the immediate danger that electing trump would have.
you should still vote, but push really hard for voting reform, shit's important.
Yeah exactly, I was being a bit hyperbolic there but I do think this is a unifying issue for pretty much anyone from any party.
Funny enough the other thing that really gets people under 50 going is talking about high speed rail done well and effectively here as public transportation. Something conservative men really like about trains lol, I'll take it
UK resident here, beware of rich people offering you trains.
especially trains with DRM.
that is true, as far as a unification tactic, both voting reform and certain public ventures would be highly effective, we should definitely setup bipartisan organizations for these things.
Agree :) Make government for the people, not for 2 specific political groups
yeah, that would be the idea. Speaking of making it for the people, i've thought about removing campaigning, and just instituting a "campaign policy" mandate instead. Bit of a long shot, but maybe if we knew less about these people, and cared about them less, things would be less personable, which is probably good at the federal level.
Yes, I am very curious to hear about ideas for campaign reform. Hard for me to imagine alternatives, for some reason
that's probably the money, and the sensibility talking, i like to imagine worlds in which really silly things happen though.
Wait no we live there.
My rep is Peter Welch!
Woop!!
based bill. Voting reform is possible my dudes. Even if this shit fails, you can still push for it at a state level.
Or after November 😅
hey, multiple avenues of success is more success. This looks like it would only require federal voting reform on a congress level, idk if it says anything about presidential, or electoral votes. But even on a state level there are more places where voting is usefully reformed. Your local government for instance.
My state has it. The Republicans oppose it by saying to to hard basically admitting their base is to stupid to vote.
There is evidence that poor voters submit invalid RCV ballots at a higher rate than middle class and rich voters, something that isn't true under FPTP. It's impossible to submit an invalid ballot under Approval Voting, so that's another mark in its favor.
This is not a condemnation of the voting system, but the obtuse way the ballot forms are presented. I wonder who hamstrings the committees that design the forms….
I'd have to look at the specific ballots in question. The study I'm thinking of was concerning the NYC mayor election, so it was likely designed by Democrats, but I don't remember seeing a picture of the actual ballot in the study.
Which is a prime example of how approval is a superior voting system. It is simpler than RCV, so they can't make dumb arguments like that to begin with.
With the Republican Party fracturing, you’d think they would welcome this change. It would help them get elected. But they aren’t smart enough to realize that.
Says who? I see very little evidence that it is doing anything but switfly radicalizing while remaining cohesive.
The New Republic, an online magazine, was created, and is run by Republicans who are absolutely against Trump and those like him. And then there are the Republicans from times gone by that are even speaking out against him and his.
Edit: hell the acronym RINO , Republican in name only, was created by Trump and company. It refers to republicans who don't see things his way.
The term RINO has actually been around for a long time, since George H Bush.
it would probably fuck them harder, as they would have to "collectivize" for lack of a better term that i cannot remember right now. Far right and MAGA might. But moderate republicans are extremely unlikely to do this, as well as swing voters. It would probably single handedly kill the chances of trump ever winning again.
It wouldn’t screw them over until a legitimate third party is in place. And then maybe. But you have to ask yourself what a third party looks like if it looks like an alternative to both parties. Surely the first third party would just be a split between the parties, it would still take them awhile to win anything at all. But I could see alternatives being a more eco focused party and I honestly think it would screw both major parties. Which is the ideal case. If anything, this screws the dems more because of their voters are more likely to break rank with how the party is going.
i think the moderate voters, both republican and democrat would immediately fuck them over, though the moderate dems are more likely to align and side with current democratic representation, and possibly future as well, just due to fundamental values, so it's less of a problem for the left.
As much as I think that the right is going to split after trumps loss, I think they’re also more cohesive than the left is by far. There are many flavors of leftists and while I think that there are also many flavors of right wingers, they have a much easier time banding around their goals because to be honest they don’t do much. They’re a regressive party. Regression is inherently more unifying than progress because we all disagree on how to achieve progress but regress is pretty simple.
Basically my theory is that the right would lose less from a split than the left because half of the left is ready to jump ship at any moment, as is the right, but the right is more cohesive due to shared identity and regression.
i highly disagree. There is a fundamental divide in how the parties manage. The left is more bottom up, and the right is more top down. It's much easier for the right to appear "unified" but it's much easier for them to also fracture, we're seeing this be a problem in the house already.
Whereas on the left, it seems highly disjointed, but it's relatively homogeneous. We have much more flexibility when it comes to "unifying" as a party, than the republicans do.
if trump drops out there are two primary paths that are taken, trump runs as a third party, pulling like 20% of the vote, while a primary candidate pulls most of the votes, or a replacement for trump, who is more likely to be less inflammatory than trump, and more moderate, who maga people aren't very likely to like. But might vote for in large numbers.
Regardless the entire MAGA base will collapse overnight and have to find something new, likely fracturing in the process, so i would expect to see a lot of turnover in the house and senate in the years after trump drops out long term, assuming he does.
I think your general assumption is correct, but i think you're forgetting about rhetoric and public image. People who think cats are being eaten by Haitians in ohio are simply going to have a different worldview from those who don't and just think it's a "meme"
First thing, I think that the Republican Party is highly likely to face a crisis of identity after Trump so you’re correct there. A moderate cannot appeal to their voter base anymore so their only choice now is to find another populist and those aren’t super common. But also people are mostly ignoring that Trumps existence has raised the voter participation numbers. I think after his disappearance, republicans will face far less participation and excitement.
I only get to talk about these things rarely but it’s interesting to think about. See once the Republican Party realizes it can’t win with votes and it can’t just cheat its way upwards, we get interesting results. That’s when they must pivot on things that appeal to moderates. They’d have to drop their anti-LGBTQ stances. I can’t see a world currently where they aren’t forced to give up on abortion. Basically most of their social issues would have to go. The party would look very different.
But then that all will piss off their extremists and they can’t do that. So this is what I think splits the party.
We talk optics though and I’ve always criticized the left on its optics. They aren’t good. And that outward representation reflects inwards. Let me tell you right now that being in the middle of discourse, the right doesn’t argue with itself often. The left does.
My main example is this genocide situation with Biden and Gaza. Plenty of leftists and democrats are still prepared to waste their votes because of that situation despite the harm reduction argument. The right won’t do this.
It’s weird to say that the left is more cohesive as a base when the current MAGA people are basically in a cult and I don’t know what’s more cohesive than a cult. That’s at least half of their current party voters. So aside from them splitting, they value loyalty and nationalism, both of which create an alliance within them. They also aren’t sophisticated voters so they’re unlikely to break rank because they aren’t really thinking much about positions.
I agree that the right is on more shaky footing than people think but it’s due to their current position I assume. For instance, consider if they had a young populist in their ranks. Think about if Trump was 45. We’d all be scared and rightly so because that cultist behavior would prevail and unite the party.
Mark my words, the only thing saving the party from not splitting is a new populist and that would be very bad for everyone if they found one.
and this is why i think it's going to fracture aggressively, they won't find someone capable of replacing trump, and if they do, i will eat my pants. In return whoever they pick is going to appeal broadly to the maga hardliners, but only them, and it's likely going to drop some of the extremist crowd, and most of the more moderate people who are going to toe off somewhere else.
this is actually a really good point, but it's also important to remember that trump doesn't just energize the democrat vote. If trump gets out of the running, that's likely to kill a good chunk of the dem voter party, unless whoever they pick is moderately popular and has a decent chance of winning. On either side.
yup, it's why i mostly focus on these kinds of things within politics, it's what i find most interesting at the moment. Unfortunately, cheating upwards seems to be an incredibly viable strategy, which is probably less than ideal.
this is basically what i foresee in the more moderate camp, it's either going to kill the republican party, or as some have suggested, kill the maga party entirely and it's going to shift more moderately, but it's hard to be sure. In basically every fascist leadership, once the leader dies or loses power, the party collapses. Everything becomes a free for all and all the real estate is free so to speak.
yeah, a big problem i haven't yet considered, is that nazis and far right extremists may try to capitalize on this really heavily, and if they do that might be a big problem...
this is true, but i think the general benefit it provides in strength outweighs the negatives, as long as single issues voters like the israel palestine people for example, don't become a significant number in the majority, it really shouldn't matter all that much, and most of those people would rather vote dem anyway.
We pushed out biden, and now kamala is a really strong contender, and it seems like the trump camp is about to implode on itself any day now, but maybe i'm just not used to republican rhetoric lol.
We're a lot more broadly cohesive, and while we might not be collectively cohesive, like the republican party, we generally don't hold animosity towards anybody. I give the israel palestine people a lot of shit for what i consider to be "bad think" but at the end of the day. They're still people, and they still have the right to hold an opinion and vote for the people and problems they want. We both agree on that aspect. That's something that trumpers won't agree on. Certainly not with dems, this is why RINO is a thing.
yeah, this is definitely a concern, but i honestly don't think it's all that many people, it seems to mostly be college students that care about it, as well as people just barely old enough to vote. And those who aren't yet old enough to vote. I think a lot of them who do exist, will probably vote for kamala, since it's the obvious choice, but those who don't are probably more of a fringe than the far right extremists are. I'm just not convinced there's enough of them out there to make a substantial difference. Something on the order of taylor swift endorsing kamala for example. I think is going to have much more push in that direction.
i think you're probably conflating cohesiveness, and conformity here, cults value conformity almost exclusively. Cohesiveness is just the ability of a group to broadly stick together, fans of a certain sports team for instance, they have a certain cohesiveness. Linux users as well. ETC.
The maga people are kind of like a single ship in the middle of the ocean, everybody they like that conforms gets brought on and boosted, and the people they don't get thrown off. The left is a lot more like a fleet of boats, all working towards the same general concept, just in different manners. It's not that we aren't collectively cohesive. It's that we're cooperatively cohesive.
that could very well be a real concern, but i don't think any old populist would be able to replace him, trump holds an almost god like status, whoever replaces him will never satisfy that. It might pick up the remains of the base, but they haven't yet won a single election in the popular vote, and they didn't win the 2020 election. They're only going to lose worse, unless some god fearing event happens at this rate.
i'll consider it, but i think it would lead to an extremely turbulent period, and it would at best, be a complete rat race to the bottom. And at worst, dissolve within a few months. The only real alternative is literally trying a military coup i think.
man, this has been a wall of text lol, gotta love political analysis and theory though.
I don’t have much to add because I agree with you on almost all of this. If the summation is pretty much that the Democratic Party is more unified in a post-trump era and that a third party would only serve to hurt them less because of that reason, then I agree with that. Whereas if republicans win this election, the US has a very dark future that may unite extremists and the death of the party would be less of a mess and more of an uphill battle for the entire country. At that point a third party would almost be irrelevant under the threat of a fall of democracy.
However, the only parts I disagree with are the parts where you talk about how the left is more cohesive. I think the problem that I’ve long noted with the left is that they all have very different political bends which does cause infighting and I think you’re underestimated the infighting that’s present. I don’t think the republicans have anything quite as serious as the liberal vs leftist split that the dems have. They have extremists but I’d point out that the extreme right is just an extension or an exaggeration of most of their views.
For instance, most republicans support anti-immigration policy and a lot of them do it due to some variety of racism or xenophobia. So when an extremist comes along and says some racist things explicitly, they’ll have everyone else on board for 90% of the conversation despite the different intentions.
Whereas with the left, liberals and leftists have very different ideals. And while it’s usually fine to combat the anti-republican ideals together, aside from that we are very split. You see this when Kamala is supporting fracking live on stage despite the ecological impacts that most of her party claims to be worried about. More moderate people will be convinced by this, which is why she said it. But the divide between a moderate democrat and a serious liberal or leftist on that issue would be night and day and you won’t have much middle ground there. Just something to think about.
I'm all in. It's on the Nov ballot here in Colorado.
I’m excited to see Ranked Choice Voting gaining more traction with elected representatives. Just getting the idea out into public conversation I think bodes well.
As always I'd prefer a better system like approval or star voting, but I'll take any progress over no progress.
It is incredibly annoying that the worst improvement is the most popular, isn't it. Do you have the option to put through a referendum in your city/county/state? City referendums are usually accessible enough that you and your friends can commit to getting it done with a little legal help from an established organization like Election Science.
I looked it up, we'd have to get about 12k signatures just to get it on the ballot. At which point it could still get shot down in court (it looks like a previous referendum to boycot isreal city wide got shot down at this stage).
So this would be quite a bit bigger of a task than just a few friends. But you're right, this is probably worth doing, or at least bringing attention to the relevant local groups which I've been meaning to join.
Hells yeah, have at it!
No, please don't split the vote against FPTP. That's how you get more FPTP.
What are you talking about?
It will be interesting to see if it passes Constitutional muster. The Constitution only requires that "the people" choose the legislator. Previous attempts to regulate voting like this required amendments (e.g. elimination of the poll tax).
I don't see how it would violate that. Mathematically, Instant runoff style RCV is still one person one vote. Your ranking just gets to kind of direct where that vote goes once people are mathematically eliminated from contending, the vote only ever counts for one candidate at any given time.
It's not that RCV violates Constitution, but that requiring RCV could potentially be deemed an un-Constitutional violation of state rights. And with the current SC, it seems likely that's how they'd rule. But anything that brings more attention and helps normalize RCV is a good thing regardless
Ahh okay I can see that from a historical sense. I recall part of getting the states to actually be on board with a big federal government was the promise they would be in charge of the way they voted for that federal government.
I will also say, many more historical foundations for the US have been wantonly ignored so long as ignoring it advanced US interests. Like how cops in the US are supposed to be strictly a civilian force, yet they are tried under different laws and are allowed many many things civlians cannot have. That was designed as part of the safties against military dictatorship, but we tossed it aside and give our cops military equiptment becsuse its profitable.
Not quite.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S4-C1-3/ALDE_00013640/
The 24th amendment was a special case as it only applied to federal elections (so technically state office elections could still have a poll tax). There was also a question of voter qualification being outside the generally interpreted meaning of “times, places, and manner” so a statute wouldn’t be enough, but an amendment would.
RCV I think could generally be understood to be covered under “manner” and so Congress can do that without amendment for Congressional races.
make this a rider on a funding bill
Yes please.
Will this be reintroduced when we have a majority in the house?
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Huh, neat.