Yeah, I agree with them. Ranked Choice voting is extremely confusing. First you have to rank the candidates in the order you prefer to win, then…oh wait, no. It’s really not confusing at all.
But these poor black people can't count to five!
How fucking patronizing.
As a citizen of a country with ranked choice voting the hardest thing is choosing which of the loonies you want to put last!
Is it patronizong if it's backed by data? The article discusses how they're not just claiming it's confusing for these districts out of nothing, they're pointing to existing voting data that shows when there are multiple seats to fill for the same position, such as City Council seats, voters in these districts neglect to cast votes for the additional seats at a higher rate than other districts. "Undervoting" it's apparently called.
This is a horrifically self-serving bullshit "solution" to this problem, but there does appear to be a real problem that ought to be addressed as part of a ranked-choice rollout.
Sounds like there just needs to be a little bit of voter education rather than scrapping the whole thing.
Republicans would rather commit mass genocide than educate voters.
True, but in this case, it's Democrats who are the problem.
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree. What I was trying to get at is that educating voters will never happen so long as Republicans exist. They would rather cull the educated than create more of them.
Apparently Democrats would rather perl clutch their way through genocide, than educated voters
I would need to see the ballot to say for sure, but the article lists this example:
"The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting.""
So, when presented with a relatively simple "Vote For Two" choice, Ward 7 and 8 are less likely to vote for a second person.
If that's a problem, then the idea of not only voting for multiple people, but ranking them 1-2-3, may be a big issue.
Remember, back in 2000 Florida voters struggled with the butterfly ballot.
But in the end, this could be solved by a combination of education, clear instructions, and an easy to understand ballot design.
But undervoting isn't really a problem. No one is being disenfranchised by not casting a second vote (or ranking all options), they just aren't availing themselves of the full range of options. Even just voting for one person could be an intentional choice if you don't really care about the other options or want your first choice to have a better chance of winning an expected head-to-head.
This is at worst an indicator the government should run some informational campaigns, not a reason not to use multi-voting systems.
If it’s intentional by the voter it’s not a problem.
If it’s because the ballots are confusing, or the process is, it isn’t fine. They’re being partially disenfranchised- their ballot will have less power than someone who understood the process.
We have RCV in NY for primaries. Understanding the implications of how the order matters and gets counted isn’t super easy. There are definitely going to be unintended consequences for RCV.
It's not really any more disenfranchising than FPTP. While RCV has tactical voting issues, so does FPTP, and in most cases someone who doesn't understand the system is just going to vote for someone they perceive to have a chance of winning, which is very likely to be in the final two candidates. And if they're instead the type to vote for a minor candidate, their vote would have just been meaningless in FPTP anyway.
All the trivia about the very rare cases where tactical voting matters in RCV is just that, trivia. No one really needs to try to game theory their vote out, because in most cases it just doesn't matter and RCV just gives some people the ability to first declare who they actually want before sending their vote to the preferred major candidate. And in the end, people who can't figure out basic voting instructions simply aren't thinking about their vote that deeply. We're lucky if they've even familiarized themselves with all the candidates.
It's really hard for any system to be worse than FPTP. The people spreading FUD about RCV are mostly doing it because the flaws in FPTP benefit them.
It's hard for a system to be worse than FPTP.
The problem is that RCV isn't that big of an improvement on it.
For another thing, in most FPTP elections, things like the spoiler effect are mere trivia, as well. The last time I voted, nearly all the races had at most two candidates and a few local ones even only had one candidate. I'm not a fan of FPTP because it leads to elections like that and handles elections with many viable candidates badly. However, it's in precisely the kind of elections I care about that RCV's flaws go from mere trivia to being far more likely.
A good voting system shouldn't need a crutch like primaries to have a high quality result. You should be able to have an election between all the 2016 presidential primary candidates without the chance of weird non-monotonic behavior being unacceptably high.
It does because their vote is potentially worth less than someone who does understand.
That’s less of an issue in FPTP except for the undervoting issue called out in the post when you have to vote for multiple candidates.
Anyone who votes for a third party candidate gets no value from their vote in FPTP. They have effectively no impact on the outcome at all. This is no worse than that and not in any way a reason not to implement RCV.
And again, this is the slimmest of edge cases for a sliver of voters. Most voters will easily adapt to the system (particularly if any effort at all is made to educate them) and even those that don't will very rarely lose their vote due to not ranking lower candidates. And those voters that would are already throwing away their vote without impacting the result in FPTP. That this is a real issue that should block RCV implementation because it's in the interest of voting fairness is A LIE.
What about the disenfranchised caused by first past the post? It’s arguably more representative even if some are partially disenfranchised.
Depends on the system. In Australia undervoting can invalidate your vote.
I'd be interested to see the instructions on those ballots that had this problem. Since states are in charge of their own voting systems we can't really have a standardized system, but I'm sure the clarity can be improved.
I get this in theory but it gave me the hilarious mental image of someone gathering their phone, keys, wallet, going to their local polling station, showing their ID, walking to the voting machine, then thinking, "Oh no, I'm allowed to vote for TWO people?" and immediately bolting out the door.
It's a design and execution problem, not a voter problem. The Florida ballots had a stupid design that met the needs of a counting machine, not the needs of voters
Pretty sure it was less about the machine snd more about intentionally confusing older voters to pull votes from Gore and add them to Buchanan...
Maybe the second candidate was s*** and nobody wanted to vote for them? Or maybe voters really only wanted the one person.
Or, and I think this is more likely, people are used to the idea of marking more than one name invalidating the ballot.
You think that's more likely huh? But somehow only in those two heavily minority districts? What are you basing that on?
I don't think it's just in those minority districts. The article states that it's WORSE in those districts, that doesn't mean it's not a problem elsewhere.
Maybe they need to put "Vote for Two" in bold or a bigger font or something. Like I said at the top, it's hard to tell without seeing the ballot design.
This is about protecting establishment career politicians, not about what voters want and not about what they are capable of understanding.
Estblishment corporate dems
🤝
All elected republicans:
Disenfranchising the American people in the name of job security.
"The Center-Right party, one of the two dominant parties in a two-party system, claims that a voting system allowing multiple parties to emerge is bad. The other dominant party, the Far-Right party, agrees."
Surely centrist neolibs and the far right would never collaborate to prevent leftist candidates from being able to have a chance at getting elected... That never has happened before /s
BeRnIe iS tOO exTreMe!
Yep, nailed it.
Damnit democrats all I want from you is voting reform and then we can move onto better parties.
Although I guess this is them realizing that and not wanting to let go.
That’s a bingo. They will never give up power willingly.
Demsocs in the corner: Nooo they'll give up power when the will of the people is clear! They promised they love democracy!
Neoliberals only want business-as-usual. The Reich want to enslave everyone not mega-rich. Neither party want positive change.
I miss r/neoliberal
DNC loves calling poor people too stupid to help themselves. Insane that they don't get called out more on this.
Republicans have the military industrial complex.
Democrats have the poverty industrial complex.
What?
For profit prisons, and tough on crime policies are two massive contributors to poverty.
Biden is and always has been a Wall Street democrat. The 1994 crine bill, championed by JB, is a significant reason the prision industrial complex has thrived for 30 years.
Why would only Black Neighborhoods be confused by this? Elaborate.... No go ahead, be my guest, you brought it up, now tell me.
Because they might vote for an outsider candidate, and they might win.
Because "condescending white savior" is a key Democratic party platform and has been for decades
Ah yes, people so "tolerant" that you'd rather they just call a slur.
Funniest moment was Biden patting himself on the back for all he was doing to help the black community by banning menthols
Glad he didn't go through with that, if black people want to stop smoking menthols... they'll resort to this handy onestep process
Step 1. Do not buy or smoke menthols
Imagine that, letting human beings make their own choices
Goddamnit democrats. This is some republican shit.
I'll be the last person to say that both sides same bullshit, but Democrats are still politicians. They seek positions of influence and power, and they need public support to do it. There's a certain type of person who thrives in that environment, and they are absolutely the last type of person you want in leadership roles.
Anyone who is currently in power will oppose ranked choice voting because it breaks up the monolithic power structure that so many powerful people use as leverage. It reduces the effectiveness of wedge issues, which means leaders will actually have to present nuanced opinions on many topics. It decreases extremism, which means their opponents will likely be closer ideologically to themselves, all of which is better for the voters and worse for the politicians.
Democrats in power love that the GOP has become unhinged. It makes the rational choice incredibly easy. Ranked choice will break up both parties into smaller categories, killing the demon they would rather be fighting.
Democrats in power love that the GOP has become unhinged
I feel like it's important to point out right now that this was literally Hillary's strategy in 2016. Google "HRC Pied Piper", we have the email where she told the DNC to help boost the campaigns of the crazier republicans like Trump. The theory was that he would be too crazy for the general election. The fact was she vastly underestimated the triumvirate powers of voter apathy, right wing populist rhetoric and the average person's disdain for her personally and was halfway through her victory lap in Texas when she realized that she actually lost.
So yeah, if you were one of the people harmed by the hateful rhetoric and incompetent policymaking of the Trump administration he's absolutely at fault, but it's important to remember that the DNC was willing to gamble with your safety and stability in order to maintain power. They're aristocrats first, then they choose what flavor of aristocrat to be.
Hillary is as responsible for the Trump administration as anyone.
Which is exactly where the "both sides" arguments come from. Sure, the Democrats aren't openly pushing the country towards fascism, but they also aren't interested in real change that would fix some of the fundamental problems, like with the electoral system. They'd rather be the one rational choice in a system that enables the Republicans and all of the risks that go along with that than support a system that would have a better chance at making real progress.
Politics 101 - if you ever follow through on a campaign promise, then you can't campaign on it in the next election. So over promise, under deliver, and find a scapegoat to blame for your inability to get anything done.
Democrats can absolutely act in facist ways. The willingness to not call facistic actions facism just because historically Republicans have acted that way is wild. People can't be this stupid.
Did you miss the actual fascist coup attempt 2½ years ago?
...no? Is that extreme attempt we all saw your only understanding of facism??
I'm just saying this isn't a good time for calling someone "fascist" metaphorically to make a point.
We have an actual, for-serious, fascist party in control of parts of the country. They were barely prevented from ending democracy entirely just a few years ago, and they haven't yet been ejected entirely from the republic.
They may not be the same but they're both racist as fuck. Republicans see POCs as animals and Democrats see them as children.
Like they're different? At least Republicans who are racist are honest about their racism. Democrats who are racist just like to pretend they're racist for the good of the minorities they're racist against. "Poor black people, they won't understand how to list their 3 favorite candidates in order, we can't possibly make this change.
Do people honestly think democrats WANT any changes to happen? They're elites in power. They're going to hold onto that power as long as they can.
You almost got it....
Got what? Both sides are the same? Let me check the list:
Democrat
Republican
Don't want ranked voting
Don't want ranked voting
Want everybody to have a puppy dog
Want to kill every puppy dog
Nah, still not the same. It just sucks you are stuck with two parties that don't completely oppose each other on all policy points.
It just sucks you are stuck with two parties that don't completely oppose each other on all policy points.
Republicans opposing Democrats on all points is how we got into this mess, blame Newt Gingrich
Always someone to blame as well. My point wasn't that the 2 party system should totally oppose one another. It is that there are just 2 parties to choose from at all.
using racist dog whistles to protect shit policies for the entrenched benefactors of said shit policies.
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
The system will fight to prevent systemic changes that weaken the system.
Is it just me or is this statement blatantly racist? Black people are too stupid and so we must limit the way they vote? Where did I hear that before? The democratic party knows they'll lose power if they implemented, but to stoop that low...
From the article:
The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
"Many of those voters report their confusion about selecting more than one candidate for what appears to be the same office," said Wilson in the lawsuit, arguing that implementing ranked-choice voting "would introduce an additional layer of confusion to the electorate."
They aren't saying black people can't figure it out, they're reporting that voters in predominantly black areas haven't. It's not a statement of belief, it's a statement of fact. Now, the solution should be to provide resources to educate them on how the new system works, not to abandon it. That would take effort though, and wouldn't work to maintain the status quo.
This seems like a problem that would be very easily remedied by volunteers working the polls. Regardless of statement of fact, its a disingenuous argument by those citing this excuse.
Is it really feasible, or fair, to relegate this population's education on a new voting system to the good will of volunteers on voting day? I'm gonna go with no.
A change like this should come with a huge education campaign attached. The entire constituency should have an actual opportunity to understand the new system well before voting day. Otherwise, intentionally or not, you are suppressing the vote of under-educated populations.
I think ranked-choice should be ushered in ASAP, but pretending concerns like this are unwarranted or disingenuous comes across as short-sighted to me. The problem is valid, even if it's presented in bad faith (which, frankly, I don't believe it is in bad faith).
All a poll worker has to do is tell the voter to rank his preffered candidates from one to x, I've had more complicated questions than that while voting. You don't have to give people a political science lecture.
Ballots are never so simple, and if you've ever played a part in designing something to be "common-sense" you'll understand there's no such thing at a certain point.
My concern is for those that will not receive the proper information, and for the undue burden on volunteers that already commit a lot of effort. Leaving this to be solved at to moment of voting feels like asking for issues. I think we should be more proactive than that.
Is it really feasible, or fair, to relegate this population’s education on a new voting system to the good will of volunteers on voting day? I’m gonna go with no.
Who else should educate them on the topic? Politicians?
And if there is no one, then that would mean you guys won't be able to move away from the current undemocratic fucked up system. Which is even more stupid.
Volunteers, groups that already expend effort to educate populations on voting, fucking pamphlets. There are plenty of ways to spread information somewhat reliably. I'm not even saying to avoid implementing rank-choice. I think it would be a net benefit, but I also think concerns over education on the new system are valid. Implementing something like this improperly opens the door to the entire concept being poisoned for the rest of the public, and we should be talking about how a lack of knowledge regarding the new system can inadvertently suppress voters.
Fuck off its done else where in the world without issue and maybe we could finally vote for people who value education and individuality so less educated voters could get support, they cherry picked a quote to make a racist statement and keep their power. Fuck off with your racist and corporate apologist attitude, honestly.
I'm not against rank-choice, I prefer it. I'm just not so short-sighted as to miss how dumping such a change on a population without proper education accompanying it can backfire and poison the idea for some time. Nor am I so reactionary as to call a legitimate concern racist, merely because it involves a minority group. I'm not saying this a failure of the population, I'm saying the population has been failed and we need to compensate for this if this is going to be implemented properly.
It's the "noble savage"/"white savior" trope again. People really think they're fighting racism by implying minorities can't make their own decision.
In not criticizing allies, to be clear. I'm criticizing people who aren't comfortable having personal relationships with minorities, and abuse progressivism to make themselves feel like they aren't part of the problem.
And so are some of the gop, that doesn't change who he is yielding power to ffs....
He's retaining power for himself and other party insiders, by opposing a system that makes parties a bit less powerful?
The dude who said it is himself black.
Either he's a self-hating black person, thinks it's too complex for anyone, or more likely he's being disingenuous because he thinks this is bad for the party.
This is the same, tired argument Sarah Palin and other Republicans made here in Alaska when it didn't go their way. How stupid do you think voters are? If they're that easily confused, maybe do a better job at educating them, in say, a classroom when they're young. Maybe bring back Civics classes.
Then they couldn’t push blue-no-matter-who. The threat of the republic party is their primary means of staying elected. They can’t give us more options. It’s be against their interests.
if after *points to literally fucking everything we can't get done, and are losing ground on" everything, you're STILL not "blue-no-matter-who" you're in league with the fascists, and garbage.
That's... that's literally what they're talking about. That, because we are forced to decide between two major parties, we have to "vote blue no matter who" in order to not get the worst possible deal.
That doesn't mean that Democrats are universally the good guys, it just means they're better than the worst possible option.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have another option.
I think you are sort of missing the point. Currently Blue no matter what is sadly the best choice right now. Its clear we are seeing that democrats are 100% willing to screw over others to get theirs as well seeing as they are trying to block ranked choice voting, which is a net good thing. Its just straight up first past the post+ (FPTP+).
Edit: This isn't to advocate against democrats at the current moment because clearly Republicans are just worse in almost every fucking way but we need to be vigilant and its clear we need to fight for Alternative vote/Ranked Choice Voting since the other poster is right, right now Democrats are relying heavily on you have no fucking option besides us. So sit down and shut up and we will give you crumbs rather than the Republicans just shitting in your mouth calling it chocolate.
When the alternative is “cut taxes, hurt people and burn it all down”, blue isn’t a great choice, but it currently is the only one.
Guess I'm fash for wanting more than what dems will deliver. Like healthcare, student debt relief, free higher education, unions… holy shit, I just realized I'm a fascist fuck. /s
You can SAY whatever you want, but at the end of the day if you don't vote Democrat then yes you're a fascist and/or a moron.
Fuck yeah
This was a novel argument in 2016, by now we're all wise to the "don't vote, surely that will make things better" propaganda
How stupid do you think voters are?
Extremely.
To be fair for about half the population they're kinda right.
I mean they are but they aren't. They are doing this because it only benefits them to deny ranked choice voting. There is literally no negative to it beyond it being only slightly better than FPTP, which we have been stuck with for centuries.
Note: Splitting the vote and the spoiler effect are stupid problems of FPTP and we shouldn't have to deal with them.
Most of the arguments Republicans made after that election were bad.
But that election was genuinely an example of a number of the unfortunate pathological edgecases in ranked choice.
In particular, it failed a number of the mathematical fairness criteria that people have come up with over the years to compare voting systems. Much of it stems from the failure to elect the Condorcet winner, Begich. Basically, Begich could have beaten either Peltola or Palin in a head-to-head election, but he had fewer first place votes than either so he was eliminated first and Peltola beat Palin in the last round.
So first, it failed 'favorite betrayal' - Palin voters would have been better off voting for Begich. It failed participation: if a bunch of Palin voters stayed home, Begich would have won and they'd be better off. It failed monotonicity: Palin voters could have defeated Peltola by voting for her. Obviously, it failed independence of irrelevant alternatives; Palin acted as a spoiler candidate to Begich.
All of which isn't an argument for regular party primaries + plurality, which is theoretically much worse. But it's the example advocates of alternative systems like approval or STAR will reach for for a while, just like Burlington used to be.
That doesn't sound like a failure to me, unless you wanted a Republican representative. And saying "if more people had voted for Palin she would have won" is pretty laughable. All Republicans had to do was vote Palin 1st, Begich 2nd (or vice versa) and they would have then had their pick in the next round, but Palin was such an awful candidate, Begich's supporters would rather see Peltola over her (as they should), and Palin's supporters seemingly didn't vote for Begich either. No matter how you slice it, the Republicans screwed themselves, and I am here for it.
Failures shouldn't be judged by a standard of "this worked in my favor this time so it's good".
This time, it benefitted Democrats. Next time, with a different set of candidates, it could elect someone alt-right when most voters preferred an establishment Democrat.
And Palin definitely shouldn't have won. Most other voting systems would have elected Begich.
"Someone could get the most votes, and not win!" McCarthy said at the time.. "So if you come in 3rd, you win. What? 'I got a lot of second votes, I got a lot of 3rd vote — what does that mean?'"
I don't think it's the "Black areas" that are getting confused about how it works. Or perhaps he's just pretending to not understand? 🤔🤔
His heart is black
If the dems actually cared about the voters, their primaries wouldnt be rigged.
lmao ok sure
We wanted Bernie. We got a Clinton.
The DAY after he won those primaries EVERY media outlet had the same anti-communism anti-socialism anti Bearnie message read by a talking head at least 6 times each.
I was not a Bearnie voter, but damn that scared the fuck out of me. It truly showed how lost the democracy was.
we wanted Bernie again, and we got biden.
YOU wanted Bernie, you and your little bubble of like minded people.
MORE PEOPLE wanted Clinton. And Biden. They're centrists for a reason.
You were outvoted. Stop with your conspiracy theory bullshit.
The polling place where I was during Bernie's first primary was turning away people with provisional ballots, telling them they weren't allowed to vote with those in a primary. They were allowed, it was just that the vast majority of provisional ballot holders were Bernie voters who were voting for the first time because there was finally someone they felt excited to vote for.
I raised a fuss and Karened my way to getting the director on the phone and demanded that she tell the supervisors that they needed to allow the voters to vote. I said that this was a huge problem and had obviously been happening all day. She said "Were you there all day to see it? No? Then there is nothing you can do about it!"
Also there is the part where the DNC's defense in court (when they were sued for taking donations from Bernie supporters who believed they were unbiased) was "We were so obviously biased that anyone who didn't notice was not paying attention, we gave no illusion of fairness. Also, the rule that says we have to be unbiased is our own rule, not a law and we can break our own rules if we want to!" And they won.
Party primaries are under no legal obligation to be fair and thr DNC are pretty open about changing policies to rig the outcomes of their primaries.
Don't patronize your own voters. Not a good idea.
How else are establishment Democrats gonna stay in power? They're afraid they're going to lose to progressive candidates. Voters are going to vote more confidently in the candidates they believe in rather than the ones they believe will win. In rank voting there's less fear that the worst candidate will win since it's not a 1 or the other anymore.
That's a bit backwards.
Instant runoff voting makes it so ranking a second choice can't hurt your first choice. But voting honestly for your first choice instead of e.g. staying home could cause your second choice to lose and your last choice to win.
That happened in the recent Alaskan election. If a bunch of Palin voters stayed home, they'd have gotten Begich. Instead, Palin voters single-handedly elected Democrat by voting honestly.
That's their point though. The current winners know they wouldn't be the first choice if we had a system that allowed honest voting. It might save them against republicans, but it gives progressives even more of a chance.
EDIT: Also sure, if Palin voters would've voted strategically their side might've won. I'm not sure if it's because they fell for the trappings of FPtP, because they were unwilling to vote for a moderate and thus bet on the wrong candidate etc. But voting for the non-incumbent as their first vote would've been safer as it'd allow them to still be a Palin voter if Begich lost in round 1 as he did. I don't think the situation is terrible, as under FPtP the only strategy would be for Begich voters to vote for Palin (full stop) which clearly they didn't even want to do as their second choice.
EDIT: Also Palin voters staying home wouldn't have helped. Peltola was already at 128K votes (48.8%) with Begich at 61K. Palin voters staying home would've meant that Peltola would've won in round 1, as Begich would've had a higher percentage but Peltola would've been boosted up to ~67%.
There were actually 2 elections here.
The special election in September held because of Don Youngs death, and a general election in November.
In the special election, Peltola started out with 74,817 votes, 39.7% of the total. Begich had 52,536.
If 5,804 people who voted Palin 1st Begich 2nd stayed home, Palin would have been eliminated. Begich would have gotten a bit under 28k more votes and Peltola would have gotten about 3.5k more votes. That puts Begich at about 80k, and Peltola at about 78k.
My point is that ranked choice is not a system that allows honest voting. Much as in plurality, voters vote honestly at their own risk.
There are systems that do, and also systems that make better tradeoffs balancing later-no-harm against favorite betrayal.
I get what you mean now, but I think it's significant that many Begich voters didn't want Palin if they'd rather the other side win. Or not ranking anyone at all, which might be an issue of R messaging or unwillingness to support a different candidate.
Palin was also the incumbent, which means people will be likely to vote for them. I don't see that being avoided unless she would've dropped out and endorsed Begich but it sounds like they weren't on good terms.
Yes different ranking systems could be better (though it is nuanced), but it's still a massive step up from FPtP.
Also Palin voters staying home wouldn't have helped. EDIT: More correct point added above
Most other voting systems would actually have elected Begich.
He was the Condorcet winner; voters preferred him over Palin and voters preferred him over Peltola.
That's a stretch, and you're likely assuming that all Palin voters would vote for Begich. Again Peltola already had 48.8% in round 1 and wasn't the incumbent.
I also don't think weaker wide appeal (beyond majority) is the best way, as that seems like a potential race to a position-less (or simply inoffensive but ineffective) candidate. Though in this case it seems close, at least if it's red vs blue moderates.
Also sure, if Palin voters would've voted strategically their side might've won. I'm not sure if it's because they fell for the trappings of FPtP, because they were unwilling to vote for a moderate and thus bet on the wrong candidate etc. But voting for the non-incumbent as their first vote would've been safer as it'd allow them to still be a Palin voter if Begich lost in round 1 as he did. I don't think the situation is terrible, as under FPtP the only strategy would be for Begich voters to vote for Palin (full stop) which clearly they didn't even want to do as their second choice.
So they actually published the complete ballot counts for this election.
With the ballots as cast, in head to head elections, Begich beats Peltola 87264-79126, and Begich beats Palin 100311-63249. This is mostly due to Begich getting more second place votes than either Peltola or Palin. For example, 33761 Palin voters put Begich second, 3437 put Peltola second, and 21526 bullet voted (i.e. put down no second choice). Similarly, Begich got about 10x the number of second place votes from Peltola voters that Palin got.
Nobody ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the average voter.
That said, "because we might lose" is not a good reason to not make the system better.
That said, “because we might lose” is not a good reason to not make the system better.
Establishment Democrats aren't refusing to make the system better because Democrats in general might lose; they're refusing because each of them individually is worried he might lose to a more progressive or leftist challenger. It's blatant power-hungry selfishness.
I agree in principle with what you're saying, but there is an "establishment" that also has a vested interest in the politicians they own remaining in power. That establishment sees itself as the Democratic Party, so they would disagree with you.
Either way, the point stands. If you are afraid of letting voters vote because you won't like the results, then you're not really promoting democracy at all.
Establishment Dems cutting their face to spite their nose. Everyone knows ranked choice means more Dem support than Repub, but also opens up 3rd party influence.
This shit is why the rest of the developed world says the US has two right wing parties.
Or what, you’ll vote 3rd party? Good luck with that. /s
Maybe they know their Base rather well.
This is the same Base that election after election after election needs to be reminded to keep their ID's up to date as if that was some kind of new rule all of a sudden.
And they need to be reminded all the time that Republicans will try to trick them by making fake calls about polling places being closed or moved.
Ranked choice voting is like the little brother of March Madness brackets, and plenty of people take part in that every year.
This is entirely about wanting to force strategic voting so as to not lose power for the mainstream within their own party.
When you can win under an unrepresentative voting system even good people will feel compelled to hood onto that.
What a terrible excuse too, if you think someone is ignorant then enlighten them. Teach voting systems to the public.
An ideology based on an educated voter is doomed to failure when it decides it does not want educated voters.
What is confusing about, " pick your favorite, pick your second favorite"? You think if you asked them the same question about ice cream, they would be confused? Also, you don't HAVE to pick more than one. My understanding is that if you vote for an eliminated candidate, then your 2nd choice will be used on the next round. But they don't even need to know that to pick their favorite ice cream. It seems good for democracy? Someone let me know why it isn't.
Both sides are scared to death to lose power. It's a nice little rig they have. They more or less choose your options and you vote for one.
Ranked choice makes it FAR easier for an independent to make it in and dismantle the rest of their two-party shenanigans.
It's not confusing. It could let in a third party, they don't like that.
It's not confusing at all and everyone knows it. This is just the narrative they choose when trying to deny people the opportunity to uproot their cushy little scam. You'll notice that they're not campaigning to get people to vote against implementing this system, they're trying to stop people from getting to choose in the first place.
Holy shit, this makes sense to me. I'm in a historically red state and our RCV is massively disliked by the Trumpers. They also lost the last election. If the incumbent DC voters see RCV as a reason they would lose their current candidates, they would say the same shit. And they are.
Also, you don't HAVE to pick more than one.
In my experience that’s where people can get confused. We switched to ranked choice voting in university student government elections and that idea was not well-explained for the first election. We eventually got the hang of it though.
Still a bit surprised that it’s the Democrats objecting to this one. It might be a function of them having a near stranglehold on local DC government, and not necessarily indicative of how they’d react in more competitive states.
Yes exactly. Whichever party has a stranglehold in a given state/county/whatever will object because ranked choice voting has the potential to allow previously marginal (or zero chance) candidates to be elected.
Democrats are not inherently more fair-minded than conservatives. Both parties' (all parties, actually) first priority is to maintain power. Everything else is secondary to that.
Remember: Democrats are just as dependent on FPTP for power as republicans
Id say even more so. Few if any one votes for Republicans for the sole reason of them not being democrats. A much larger portion of the democrats voter base is people who simply dislike republicans more.
Really I am not even talking about voters when I am talking about power, I am talking about funding.
The duopoly grants the 2 parties extra funding that third parties can't access. This prevents real third party candidates from running unless they are already billionaire-connected. It saves the billionaires the trouble of trying to buy many parties. They can just buy the 2. So Dems and Republicans have safe sources of funding / power that can't be challenged by more competent representatives.
I think dems and republicans both correctly see their representatives as 'bought' to some extent and want real alternatives.
The funding issue, I think, also exists in forms seprate from the duopoly and needs some kind of fix in addition to RCV. Any party that gives people an alternative to politicians that are bought will clearly not appease donors seeking to buy a politician nearly as much as the big two do. I think both problems need to be tackled, and probably close together, for it to work well. The amount of depth there is to the problems that plague American democracy is honestly really disheartening. I feel many American systemic issues are like this where the current system is so far gone we'd need multiple different laws of varrying scope just to start fixing one aspect.
As I understand it the third parties could be funded better just from RCV because they would likely receive a higher percentage of the vote once the spoiler effect is no longer in place from FPTP. If they get more than 5% they get some funding and I think it scales up with percentage. Source from quick google, might be out of date.
USA democracy is frustrating. The 2 parties have spent close to 100 years entrenching themselves at this point. People who want to dig them out need to understand how they are holding on. This competition in politics paper outlines a few of the changes they've made to consolidate power. Things like party primaries, co-opting communication about elections, restructuring campaign finance law, etc.
See, this is the sort of shit folks are talking about when they say both parties are the same.
Absolutely not. Criticize things like this is correct but this does not equate to a coup, banning abortion and gender care. Don't give ammo to a shit takinge point.
Don't give ammo to a shit takinge point.
You need to be addressing this complaint to the Democratic party officials in this story who are doing that. The Republicans didn't start off with a coup, they started with years of lesser voter suppression/democracy undermining methods that escalated to a coup when they got backed into a corner, but it's been the same basic "to hell with the voters, we want power" thinking the whole time, and that's the exact same kind of thinking Dems are engaging in here.
A rare instance, on some issue, because a broken clock is right twice a day.
You won't find that side in the Republican party lol.
I get what you're saying, but "liberal progressive" is an oxymoron. Progressivism is center left/left while neoliberalism is center right/right.
Not everything to the left of fascism is left of center.
There is a difference between liberal and neo-liberal. Blankets never used “neo” in their comment.
Modern liberals such as the ones in charge of the Dems are neoliberals though, so it's a distinction without consequence.
Hear hear. Liberal progressivism that's more concerned with privatizing social welfare and forcing everything to be a market based solution than doing good is doomed to fail. We need socialist/anti-capitalist progressivism or we're just going to give away a bunch of taxpayer money to oligarchic assholes and still have most of the same problems.
Didn’t DC politicians also reverse a ballot initiative that succeeded requiring restaurants to pay staff a full wage?
They don’t give a shit about what people actually want.
And there it is.., time to move the goalposts. /s
yea i like to make up complete bullshit all the time
Surely they were misquo-
Nope that's what they said. Yikes.
"This totally just seems like something the article itself added --"
"Oh. Nope. They... They actually. God damnit."
"The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
"Many of those voters report their confusion about selecting more than one candidate for what appears to be the same office," said Wilson in the lawsuit, arguing that implementing ranked-choice voting "would introduce an additional layer of confusion to the electorate."
"I have a similar concern for seniors and persons with disabilities," Wilson added."
I find it interesting that most of these commenters seem to have not read the article.
People aren't stupid we know how to fucking rank things. Undervoting occurs when they don't like any of the candidates, having ranked choice means independents and non dem/rep parties can actually have a chance and so people will be more willing to vote. You act like this isn't a wildly successful model for democratic voting used throughout the rest of the world. Fuck off...
Sounds like a racist excuse from people who want to keep their power.
SMH. Read the article. Take a look the “racist” group making the argument in court:
When they tried this many people actually didn’t cast a second choice. Which gave more voting power to the other group. That’s all they are saying. And it’s not racist.
Changing the system to be less representative isn't fixing the problem
AT ALL
They should be leading the charge. You know -- educating people how to be better. Like good leaders do.
That takes money. Money doesn’t magically appear. Seems really naive.
Well well well if it isn't the hard bigotry of no expectations
Cool that's not racist at all
Of course they do, an the Republicans as well.
They don't want to give up their power to some random amazing third party. They want to keep the power between the 2 of them.
Ranked choice voting would not see third parties be more successful.
Ranked choice will definitely encourage third, fourth, fifth and maybe even a sixth party.
The two party system you have in the US is a stunted version of the party system.
People vote based on recognition and identity first and foremost, so no it definitely will not.
No one with 7% of the vote is ever going to win any race. I'm for ranked choice voting, and I recognize basic math.
The spoiler effect is largely the reason that 3rd parties only get 7% of the vote. Few people are willing to cast their single vote for a candidate who has no real chance of winning.
Wait what? Thafuq is so hard!? 1st choice, second choice, third choice…. Seriously?
Think about the stupidest person you know, and then realize they are average.
You're topping the list for me, right now.
Classic Democrats, saying that blacks are too dumb to be able to vote for anybody except them.
Except it's just the asshole editors making headlines that put a spin on what actually happened.
In the complaint, the local party and its chair Charles Wilson pointed to voting patterns in Wards 7 and 8, which encompass predominantly-Black communities east of the Anacostia River.
The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
"Many of those voters report their confusion about selecting more than one candidate for what appears to be the same office," said Wilson in the lawsuit, arguing that implementing ranked-choice voting "would introduce an additional layer of confusion to the electorate."
So no it's not AcKsUaLlY DeMoCrAtS are the racists! They're just pointing to a trend that they've noticed in specific areas that they have data on.
Sounds like they need to explain the system instead of crying about it.
Exactly. I'm pretty mad about this b.s.
So called public servants and supposed professionals have never heard of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" apparently...
If confusion is the issue, then educate ffs... :(
Its still a bad reason for stopping ranked choice. Those at-large sections are different than the rest of the ballot. Is that a good enough of a reason to keep a system that limits competition between political parties?
Absolutely not, I think it's a bullshit excuse to cover for what other people are saying: they want to keep the power dynamic as it is. I was just responding to the stupid Republican trope that it's "typical racist Democrats."
We've been using ranked-choice for mayoral elections in my city for years. It's not confusing.
I did it for the first time in the most recent NYC mayoral election and it was pretty straight forward. If people are confused then it's up to local government to show people how it works.
"I have a similar concern for seniors and persons with disabilities,"
Gotta love the casual racism
That is absurd, what the fuck
This reminds me of when my brother told me that black people can't be friends with racially prejudiced white people, and if they are friends with racist people then it's because the black people don't understand racism.
I did that like Stewie sitting on the couch next to Brian head turn at him and was like whaaaaaaaat?
Did anyone read the article? It’s not saying ever you guys think it’s saying. The DC Democrats are saying that in two predominantly black areas, having voters pick two choices on ballots has already led to confusion and that ranked choice will lead to even worse confusion.
They’re not speculating here, they’re describing what’s already known.
I read the article, and it doesn't change the argument. Undervoting is a problem, but one that doesn't affect ranked choice voting any more than fptp. Voters were able to select two candidates and only voted for one, and probably don't even realize they did not complete their ballot. If anything, a little ballot education outreach that would be necesaary while implementing ranked choice might reduce undervoting overall.
Voters were able to select two candidates and only voted for one
Clarification: low-income voters from predominantly black areas did this, which is effectively disenfranchisement. That's the concern: that low-income minorities may be disenfranchised by more complex/confusing ballots. The concern is real because it already happened.
Yeah, low income correlates with low education and an increase in voter error. That's not a reason to not make the elections more fair or more accurate. It's the opposite of that.
Ranked Choice voters can still select their first and only choice. If there are two spots, there will be two sections to fill out rankings and it will likely result in fewer undervotes.
I share your frustration.
I live in ward 6 which shares political influence with ward 7 and 8.
the confusion isn't from the ranked vote as much as the way the ballot is currently arranged.
the ranked choice just happens to be the change used to fix the disenfranchisement and the complaint is that's not enough.
I agree.
Our both choices were not great and having a system where you arent choosing between corporate shill one and two would aid that.... stop apologizing for assholes being racist and power hungry. Black people aren't stupid. Say what you really mean instead of pandering around it....
You guys are exhausting.
No one is saying black people are too dumb to understand ranked choice. They're saying that people from low income, predominantly black areas, under-voted when required to choose two candidates on past ballots. That means those people were effectively disenfranchised. If the evidence shows that ranked choice could potentially disenfranchise people from low-income minority areas, that is something to be concerned about.
That's not a reason good enough to hold back everyone else from the benefits of ranked choice. If they're worried about that alleged potential disenfranchisement then they should get out there and inform those people of how to do it properly. Send out flyers, emails, publish advertisements, knock on doors, etc.
The rest of us are already disenfranchised by these shitty 2-party choices.
I'm not saying that they're right. I'm saying that calling them racists who think black people are dumb is a complete mischaracterization.
No, no one read the article. They're just spouting nonsense.
Idiots. Ranked choice voting is the only way they are going to win in some places.
then they'd have to pay more than lipservice to dc statehoood if there was a chance for a statehood candidate to win.
This is my personal grudge against Newsom: he said the same thing when he vetoed ranked choice in CA. This is an establishment move, and about as racist as any Republican move.
Established democrats in WA state and even the almighty progressive city of Seattle did the same thing.
Weird how they have such hardons for some popular policies but bend over backwards to avoid the ones that could actually help fix this broken and deeply divided country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month seeking to block ranked choice voting in Washington, DC, the local Democratic Party argued that implementing the system would be particularly confusing for voters in predominantly Black areas.
The 33-page lawsuit filed in DC Superior Court by the District of Columbia Democratic Party argues that implementing the voting system would violate the DC Human Rights Act, a portion of local law prohibiting discrimination.
In the complaint, the local party and its chair Charles Wilson pointed to voting patterns in Wards 7 and 8, which encompass predominantly-Black communities east of the Anacostia River.
It's been implemented in federal and state elections in both Maine and Alaska, where it arguably helped Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola pull out a victory last year and contributed to the smooth re-election of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy trashed the system during a podcast appearance with Donald Trump Jr. in January.
And Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York recently introduced a bill to block the implementation of ranked-choice voting in Washington, DC.
Welp, there goes a talking point against 3rd party voting….
If Aussie bogans can figure it out they will be fine
Do we need to do a ranked-choice vote on the next flavor of mountain dew or something so we can put this "people won't get it" argument to rest
Didn't they end up ignoring the last "name a mtn dew flavor" vote because it got won by "Hitler did nothing wrong" or something of the sort?
It might confusingly offer a choice other than neoliberal or fascist
I don't think Republicans particularly care for ranked choice either - as it is a far better gauge of popular opinion than the first past the post. However, the Democratic party is the first bulwark against actual reforms in the American system. It's not surprising they are being borderline racist in their opposition to it.
They fairly loathe it. They are relying on low Information voters, suppression , and gerrymandering currently. Ranked choice would decimate their ranks. That said the fact that Dems want to cherry-pick the areas they support this in reeks of malfeasance.
the Democratic party is the first bulwark against actual reforms in the American system.
What diseased corner of your brain vomited this up?
The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
I don't know how useful rank choices voting would be for at-large seats.
Those are usually uncontested.
Voting should be compulsory, like jury duty.
They'll vote off the advertising presented, not for their best interest.
It's stupid to make things like this compulsory. Whoever spends the most in advertising will win the apathy vote.
Arguably advertising is already a problem and I can't believe everyone is voting in their own best interest.
I disagree. Compulsory voting removes many forms of voter suppression which seems to be a huge problem over in the US.
Yeah, that already happens. If it was compulsory, at least then people would have to think about it.
I agree
Democrats think it's confusing to the Black population? Sounds like the party of racism by low expectations. The same party that views voter ID as racist because black people don't know where to get an ID.
The overwhelming voter ID arguments I've heard is that those laws disproportionately impact poor people. ID is an excess cost and requires the ability to take off work in the middle of a week day and travel to a designated location. Which is difficult for people working multiple minimum wage jobs and people without reliable transportation. The racial aspect is that these holdbacks disproportionally impact the black community so much so it can almost be used as a proxy for "black" in some areas.
I have never once heard anyone say the reason is that they won't know where to get an ID.
Yeah, I agree with them. Ranked Choice voting is extremely confusing. First you have to rank the candidates in the order you prefer to win, then…oh wait, no. It’s really not confusing at all.
But these poor black people can't count to five!
How fucking patronizing.
As a citizen of a country with ranked choice voting the hardest thing is choosing which of the loonies you want to put last!
Is it patronizong if it's backed by data? The article discusses how they're not just claiming it's confusing for these districts out of nothing, they're pointing to existing voting data that shows when there are multiple seats to fill for the same position, such as City Council seats, voters in these districts neglect to cast votes for the additional seats at a higher rate than other districts. "Undervoting" it's apparently called.
This is a horrifically self-serving bullshit "solution" to this problem, but there does appear to be a real problem that ought to be addressed as part of a ranked-choice rollout.
Sounds like there just needs to be a little bit of voter education rather than scrapping the whole thing.
Republicans would rather commit mass genocide than educate voters.
True, but in this case, it's Democrats who are the problem.
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree. What I was trying to get at is that educating voters will never happen so long as Republicans exist. They would rather cull the educated than create more of them.
Apparently Democrats would rather perl clutch their way through genocide, than educated voters
I would need to see the ballot to say for sure, but the article lists this example:
"The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting.""
So, when presented with a relatively simple "Vote For Two" choice, Ward 7 and 8 are less likely to vote for a second person.
If that's a problem, then the idea of not only voting for multiple people, but ranking them 1-2-3, may be a big issue.
Remember, back in 2000 Florida voters struggled with the butterfly ballot.
But in the end, this could be solved by a combination of education, clear instructions, and an easy to understand ballot design.
But undervoting isn't really a problem. No one is being disenfranchised by not casting a second vote (or ranking all options), they just aren't availing themselves of the full range of options. Even just voting for one person could be an intentional choice if you don't really care about the other options or want your first choice to have a better chance of winning an expected head-to-head.
This is at worst an indicator the government should run some informational campaigns, not a reason not to use multi-voting systems.
If it’s intentional by the voter it’s not a problem.
If it’s because the ballots are confusing, or the process is, it isn’t fine. They’re being partially disenfranchised- their ballot will have less power than someone who understood the process.
We have RCV in NY for primaries. Understanding the implications of how the order matters and gets counted isn’t super easy. There are definitely going to be unintended consequences for RCV.
It's not really any more disenfranchising than FPTP. While RCV has tactical voting issues, so does FPTP, and in most cases someone who doesn't understand the system is just going to vote for someone they perceive to have a chance of winning, which is very likely to be in the final two candidates. And if they're instead the type to vote for a minor candidate, their vote would have just been meaningless in FPTP anyway.
All the trivia about the very rare cases where tactical voting matters in RCV is just that, trivia. No one really needs to try to game theory their vote out, because in most cases it just doesn't matter and RCV just gives some people the ability to first declare who they actually want before sending their vote to the preferred major candidate. And in the end, people who can't figure out basic voting instructions simply aren't thinking about their vote that deeply. We're lucky if they've even familiarized themselves with all the candidates.
It's really hard for any system to be worse than FPTP. The people spreading FUD about RCV are mostly doing it because the flaws in FPTP benefit them.
It's hard for a system to be worse than FPTP.
The problem is that RCV isn't that big of an improvement on it.
For one thing, its voter satisfaction efficiency isn't great.
For another thing, in most FPTP elections, things like the spoiler effect are mere trivia, as well. The last time I voted, nearly all the races had at most two candidates and a few local ones even only had one candidate. I'm not a fan of FPTP because it leads to elections like that and handles elections with many viable candidates badly. However, it's in precisely the kind of elections I care about that RCV's flaws go from mere trivia to being far more likely.
A good voting system shouldn't need a crutch like primaries to have a high quality result. You should be able to have an election between all the 2016 presidential primary candidates without the chance of weird non-monotonic behavior being unacceptably high.
It does because their vote is potentially worth less than someone who does understand.
That’s less of an issue in FPTP except for the undervoting issue called out in the post when you have to vote for multiple candidates.
Anyone who votes for a third party candidate gets no value from their vote in FPTP. They have effectively no impact on the outcome at all. This is no worse than that and not in any way a reason not to implement RCV.
And again, this is the slimmest of edge cases for a sliver of voters. Most voters will easily adapt to the system (particularly if any effort at all is made to educate them) and even those that don't will very rarely lose their vote due to not ranking lower candidates. And those voters that would are already throwing away their vote without impacting the result in FPTP. That this is a real issue that should block RCV implementation because it's in the interest of voting fairness is A LIE.
What about the disenfranchised caused by first past the post? It’s arguably more representative even if some are partially disenfranchised.
Depends on the system. In Australia undervoting can invalidate your vote.
So just don't make it that way.
but then we won’t be like australia
I'd be interested to see the instructions on those ballots that had this problem. Since states are in charge of their own voting systems we can't really have a standardized system, but I'm sure the clarity can be improved.
I get this in theory but it gave me the hilarious mental image of someone gathering their phone, keys, wallet, going to their local polling station, showing their ID, walking to the voting machine, then thinking, "Oh no, I'm allowed to vote for TWO people?" and immediately bolting out the door.
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It's a design and execution problem, not a voter problem. The Florida ballots had a stupid design that met the needs of a counting machine, not the needs of voters
Pretty sure it was less about the machine snd more about intentionally confusing older voters to pull votes from Gore and add them to Buchanan...
Maybe the second candidate was s*** and nobody wanted to vote for them? Or maybe voters really only wanted the one person.
Or, and I think this is more likely, people are used to the idea of marking more than one name invalidating the ballot.
You think that's more likely huh? But somehow only in those two heavily minority districts? What are you basing that on?
I don't think it's just in those minority districts. The article states that it's WORSE in those districts, that doesn't mean it's not a problem elsewhere.
Maybe they need to put "Vote for Two" in bold or a bigger font or something. Like I said at the top, it's hard to tell without seeing the ballot design.
No, it's only confusing for people in predominantly black areas! Wait... this statement seems problematic...
Quick grab your kente cloth and kneel to make it all better!
https://archive.ph/rWKVm
Undervoting is a real issue.
This is about protecting establishment career politicians, not about what voters want and not about what they are capable of understanding.
Estblishment corporate dems 🤝 All elected republicans:
Disenfranchising the American people in the name of job security.
"The Center-Right party, one of the two dominant parties in a two-party system, claims that a voting system allowing multiple parties to emerge is bad. The other dominant party, the Far-Right party, agrees."
Surely centrist neolibs and the far right would never collaborate to prevent leftist candidates from being able to have a chance at getting elected... That never has happened before /s
BeRnIe iS tOO exTreMe!
Yep, nailed it.
Damnit democrats all I want from you is voting reform and then we can move onto better parties.
Although I guess this is them realizing that and not wanting to let go.
That’s a bingo. They will never give up power willingly.
Demsocs in the corner: Nooo they'll give up power when the will of the people is clear! They promised they love democracy!
Neoliberals only want business-as-usual. The Reich want to enslave everyone not mega-rich. Neither party want positive change.
I miss r/neoliberal
DNC loves calling poor people too stupid to help themselves. Insane that they don't get called out more on this.
Republicans have the military industrial complex.
Democrats have the poverty industrial complex.
What?
For profit prisons, and tough on crime policies are two massive contributors to poverty.
Not to mention centuries of racial oppression.
Not defending the DNC, but come on..
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-biden-senate-record-controversies-20190318-story.html
Biden is and always has been a Wall Street democrat. The 1994 crine bill, championed by JB, is a significant reason the prision industrial complex has thrived for 30 years.
Private prisons are 8% of federal prisons. Police unions do more lobbying and damage.
apparently poor people are to stupid to know they are being talked about that way.
"Poor kids are just as bright as white kids."
Why would only Black Neighborhoods be confused by this? Elaborate.... No go ahead, be my guest, you brought it up, now tell me.
Because they might vote for an outsider candidate, and they might win.
Because "condescending white savior" is a key Democratic party platform and has been for decades
Ah yes, people so "tolerant" that you'd rather they just call a slur.
Funniest moment was Biden patting himself on the back for all he was doing to help the black community by banning menthols
Glad he didn't go through with that, if black people want to stop smoking menthols... they'll resort to this handy onestep process
Step 1. Do not buy or smoke menthols
Imagine that, letting human beings make their own choices
Goddamnit democrats. This is some republican shit.
I'll be the last person to say that both sides same bullshit, but Democrats are still politicians. They seek positions of influence and power, and they need public support to do it. There's a certain type of person who thrives in that environment, and they are absolutely the last type of person you want in leadership roles.
Anyone who is currently in power will oppose ranked choice voting because it breaks up the monolithic power structure that so many powerful people use as leverage. It reduces the effectiveness of wedge issues, which means leaders will actually have to present nuanced opinions on many topics. It decreases extremism, which means their opponents will likely be closer ideologically to themselves, all of which is better for the voters and worse for the politicians.
Democrats in power love that the GOP has become unhinged. It makes the rational choice incredibly easy. Ranked choice will break up both parties into smaller categories, killing the demon they would rather be fighting.
I feel like it's important to point out right now that this was literally Hillary's strategy in 2016. Google "HRC Pied Piper", we have the email where she told the DNC to help boost the campaigns of the crazier republicans like Trump. The theory was that he would be too crazy for the general election. The fact was she vastly underestimated the triumvirate powers of voter apathy, right wing populist rhetoric and the average person's disdain for her personally and was halfway through her victory lap in Texas when she realized that she actually lost.
So yeah, if you were one of the people harmed by the hateful rhetoric and incompetent policymaking of the Trump administration he's absolutely at fault, but it's important to remember that the DNC was willing to gamble with your safety and stability in order to maintain power. They're aristocrats first, then they choose what flavor of aristocrat to be.
Hillary is as responsible for the Trump administration as anyone.
Which is exactly where the "both sides" arguments come from. Sure, the Democrats aren't openly pushing the country towards fascism, but they also aren't interested in real change that would fix some of the fundamental problems, like with the electoral system. They'd rather be the one rational choice in a system that enables the Republicans and all of the risks that go along with that than support a system that would have a better chance at making real progress.
Politics 101 - if you ever follow through on a campaign promise, then you can't campaign on it in the next election. So over promise, under deliver, and find a scapegoat to blame for your inability to get anything done.
Democrats can absolutely act in facist ways. The willingness to not call facistic actions facism just because historically Republicans have acted that way is wild. People can't be this stupid.
Did you miss the actual fascist coup attempt 2½ years ago?
...no? Is that extreme attempt we all saw your only understanding of facism??
I'm just saying this isn't a good time for calling someone "fascist" metaphorically to make a point.
We have an actual, for-serious, fascist party in control of parts of the country. They were barely prevented from ending democracy entirely just a few years ago, and they haven't yet been ejected entirely from the republic.
They may not be the same but they're both racist as fuck. Republicans see POCs as animals and Democrats see them as children.
Like they're different? At least Republicans who are racist are honest about their racism. Democrats who are racist just like to pretend they're racist for the good of the minorities they're racist against. "Poor black people, they won't understand how to list their 3 favorite candidates in order, we can't possibly make this change.
Do people honestly think democrats WANT any changes to happen? They're elites in power. They're going to hold onto that power as long as they can.
You almost got it....
Got what? Both sides are the same? Let me check the list:
Nah, still not the same. It just sucks you are stuck with two parties that don't completely oppose each other on all policy points.
Republicans opposing Democrats on all points is how we got into this mess, blame Newt Gingrich
Always someone to blame as well. My point wasn't that the 2 party system should totally oppose one another. It is that there are just 2 parties to choose from at all.
using racist dog whistles to protect shit policies for the entrenched benefactors of said shit policies.
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
The system will fight to prevent systemic changes that weaken the system.
Is it just me or is this statement blatantly racist? Black people are too stupid and so we must limit the way they vote? Where did I hear that before? The democratic party knows they'll lose power if they implemented, but to stoop that low...
From the article:
They aren't saying black people can't figure it out, they're reporting that voters in predominantly black areas haven't. It's not a statement of belief, it's a statement of fact. Now, the solution should be to provide resources to educate them on how the new system works, not to abandon it. That would take effort though, and wouldn't work to maintain the status quo.
This seems like a problem that would be very easily remedied by volunteers working the polls. Regardless of statement of fact, its a disingenuous argument by those citing this excuse.
Is it really feasible, or fair, to relegate this population's education on a new voting system to the good will of volunteers on voting day? I'm gonna go with no.
A change like this should come with a huge education campaign attached. The entire constituency should have an actual opportunity to understand the new system well before voting day. Otherwise, intentionally or not, you are suppressing the vote of under-educated populations.
I think ranked-choice should be ushered in ASAP, but pretending concerns like this are unwarranted or disingenuous comes across as short-sighted to me. The problem is valid, even if it's presented in bad faith (which, frankly, I don't believe it is in bad faith).
All a poll worker has to do is tell the voter to rank his preffered candidates from one to x, I've had more complicated questions than that while voting. You don't have to give people a political science lecture.
Ballots are never so simple, and if you've ever played a part in designing something to be "common-sense" you'll understand there's no such thing at a certain point.
My concern is for those that will not receive the proper information, and for the undue burden on volunteers that already commit a lot of effort. Leaving this to be solved at to moment of voting feels like asking for issues. I think we should be more proactive than that.
Who else should educate them on the topic? Politicians?
And if there is no one, then that would mean you guys won't be able to move away from the current undemocratic fucked up system. Which is even more stupid.
Volunteers, groups that already expend effort to educate populations on voting, fucking pamphlets. There are plenty of ways to spread information somewhat reliably. I'm not even saying to avoid implementing rank-choice. I think it would be a net benefit, but I also think concerns over education on the new system are valid. Implementing something like this improperly opens the door to the entire concept being poisoned for the rest of the public, and we should be talking about how a lack of knowledge regarding the new system can inadvertently suppress voters.
Fuck off its done else where in the world without issue and maybe we could finally vote for people who value education and individuality so less educated voters could get support, they cherry picked a quote to make a racist statement and keep their power. Fuck off with your racist and corporate apologist attitude, honestly.
I'm not against rank-choice, I prefer it. I'm just not so short-sighted as to miss how dumping such a change on a population without proper education accompanying it can backfire and poison the idea for some time. Nor am I so reactionary as to call a legitimate concern racist, merely because it involves a minority group. I'm not saying this a failure of the population, I'm saying the population has been failed and we need to compensate for this if this is going to be implemented properly.
It's the "noble savage"/"white savior" trope again. People really think they're fighting racism by implying minorities can't make their own decision.
In not criticizing allies, to be clear. I'm criticizing people who aren't comfortable having personal relationships with minorities, and abuse progressivism to make themselves feel like they aren't part of the problem.
https://www.dcdemocraticparty.org/whoweare
Charles Wilson isn't white.
Just another black white supremacist.
And so are some of the gop, that doesn't change who he is yielding power to ffs....
He's retaining power for himself and other party insiders, by opposing a system that makes parties a bit less powerful?
The dude who said it is himself black.
Either he's a self-hating black person, thinks it's too complex for anyone, or more likely he's being disingenuous because he thinks this is bad for the party.
Probably more of the latter.
This is the same, tired argument Sarah Palin and other Republicans made here in Alaska when it didn't go their way. How stupid do you think voters are? If they're that easily confused, maybe do a better job at educating them, in say, a classroom when they're young. Maybe bring back Civics classes.
Then they couldn’t push blue-no-matter-who. The threat of the republic party is their primary means of staying elected. They can’t give us more options. It’s be against their interests.
if after *points to literally fucking everything we can't get done, and are losing ground on" everything, you're STILL not "blue-no-matter-who" you're in league with the fascists, and garbage.
That's... that's literally what they're talking about. That, because we are forced to decide between two major parties, we have to "vote blue no matter who" in order to not get the worst possible deal.
That doesn't mean that Democrats are universally the good guys, it just means they're better than the worst possible option.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have another option.
I think you are sort of missing the point. Currently Blue no matter what is sadly the best choice right now. Its clear we are seeing that democrats are 100% willing to screw over others to get theirs as well seeing as they are trying to block ranked choice voting, which is a net good thing. Its just straight up first past the post+ (FPTP+).
Edit: This isn't to advocate against democrats at the current moment because clearly Republicans are just worse in almost every fucking way but we need to be vigilant and its clear we need to fight for Alternative vote/Ranked Choice Voting since the other poster is right, right now Democrats are relying heavily on you have no fucking option besides us. So sit down and shut up and we will give you crumbs rather than the Republicans just shitting in your mouth calling it chocolate.
When the alternative is “cut taxes, hurt people and burn it all down”, blue isn’t a great choice, but it currently is the only one.
Guess I'm fash for wanting more than what dems will deliver. Like healthcare, student debt relief, free higher education, unions… holy shit, I just realized I'm a fascist fuck. /s
You can SAY whatever you want, but at the end of the day if you don't vote Democrat then yes you're a fascist and/or a moron.
Fuck yeah
This was a novel argument in 2016, by now we're all wise to the "don't vote, surely that will make things better" propaganda
Extremely.
To be fair for about half the population they're kinda right.
I mean they are but they aren't. They are doing this because it only benefits them to deny ranked choice voting. There is literally no negative to it beyond it being only slightly better than FPTP, which we have been stuck with for centuries.
Note: Splitting the vote and the spoiler effect are stupid problems of FPTP and we shouldn't have to deal with them.
Most of the arguments Republicans made after that election were bad.
But that election was genuinely an example of a number of the unfortunate pathological edgecases in ranked choice.
In particular, it failed a number of the mathematical fairness criteria that people have come up with over the years to compare voting systems. Much of it stems from the failure to elect the Condorcet winner, Begich. Basically, Begich could have beaten either Peltola or Palin in a head-to-head election, but he had fewer first place votes than either so he was eliminated first and Peltola beat Palin in the last round.
So first, it failed 'favorite betrayal' - Palin voters would have been better off voting for Begich. It failed participation: if a bunch of Palin voters stayed home, Begich would have won and they'd be better off. It failed monotonicity: Palin voters could have defeated Peltola by voting for her. Obviously, it failed independence of irrelevant alternatives; Palin acted as a spoiler candidate to Begich.
All of which isn't an argument for regular party primaries + plurality, which is theoretically much worse. But it's the example advocates of alternative systems like approval or STAR will reach for for a while, just like Burlington used to be.
That doesn't sound like a failure to me, unless you wanted a Republican representative. And saying "if more people had voted for Palin she would have won" is pretty laughable. All Republicans had to do was vote Palin 1st, Begich 2nd (or vice versa) and they would have then had their pick in the next round, but Palin was such an awful candidate, Begich's supporters would rather see Peltola over her (as they should), and Palin's supporters seemingly didn't vote for Begich either. No matter how you slice it, the Republicans screwed themselves, and I am here for it.
Failures shouldn't be judged by a standard of "this worked in my favor this time so it's good".
This time, it benefitted Democrats. Next time, with a different set of candidates, it could elect someone alt-right when most voters preferred an establishment Democrat.
And Palin definitely shouldn't have won. Most other voting systems would have elected Begich.
The problem is that IRV genuinely has a lot of weird behavior because the results are so tied to elimination order. You can actually see that visually in a kind of election visualizion called a Yee diagram, where you put candidates on a political compass and color the regions that they'd win if the center of opinion is in that region. Most systems produce sensible diagrams, IRV often produces bonkers ones.
I don't think it's the "Black areas" that are getting confused about how it works. Or perhaps he's just pretending to not understand? 🤔🤔
His heart is black
If the dems actually cared about the voters, their primaries wouldnt be rigged.
lmao ok sure
We wanted Bernie. We got a Clinton.
The DAY after he won those primaries EVERY media outlet had the same anti-communism anti-socialism anti Bearnie message read by a talking head at least 6 times each.
I was not a Bearnie voter, but damn that scared the fuck out of me. It truly showed how lost the democracy was.
we wanted Bernie again, and we got biden.
YOU wanted Bernie, you and your little bubble of like minded people.
MORE PEOPLE wanted Clinton. And Biden. They're centrists for a reason.
You were outvoted. Stop with your conspiracy theory bullshit.
The polling place where I was during Bernie's first primary was turning away people with provisional ballots, telling them they weren't allowed to vote with those in a primary. They were allowed, it was just that the vast majority of provisional ballot holders were Bernie voters who were voting for the first time because there was finally someone they felt excited to vote for.
I raised a fuss and Karened my way to getting the director on the phone and demanded that she tell the supervisors that they needed to allow the voters to vote. I said that this was a huge problem and had obviously been happening all day. She said "Were you there all day to see it? No? Then there is nothing you can do about it!"
Also there is the part where the DNC's defense in court (when they were sued for taking donations from Bernie supporters who believed they were unbiased) was "We were so obviously biased that anyone who didn't notice was not paying attention, we gave no illusion of fairness. Also, the rule that says we have to be unbiased is our own rule, not a law and we can break our own rules if we want to!" And they won.
Party primaries are under no legal obligation to be fair and thr DNC are pretty open about changing policies to rig the outcomes of their primaries.
Don't patronize your own voters. Not a good idea.
How else are establishment Democrats gonna stay in power? They're afraid they're going to lose to progressive candidates. Voters are going to vote more confidently in the candidates they believe in rather than the ones they believe will win. In rank voting there's less fear that the worst candidate will win since it's not a 1 or the other anymore.
That's a bit backwards.
Instant runoff voting makes it so ranking a second choice can't hurt your first choice. But voting honestly for your first choice instead of e.g. staying home could cause your second choice to lose and your last choice to win.
That happened in the recent Alaskan election. If a bunch of Palin voters stayed home, they'd have gotten Begich. Instead, Palin voters single-handedly elected Democrat by voting honestly.
That's their point though. The current winners know they wouldn't be the first choice if we had a system that allowed honest voting. It might save them against republicans, but it gives progressives even more of a chance.
EDIT: Also sure, if Palin voters would've voted strategically their side might've won. I'm not sure if it's because they fell for the trappings of FPtP, because they were unwilling to vote for a moderate and thus bet on the wrong candidate etc. But voting for the non-incumbent as their first vote would've been safer as it'd allow them to still be a Palin voter if Begich lost in round 1 as he did. I don't think the situation is terrible, as under FPtP the only strategy would be for Begich voters to vote for Palin (full stop) which clearly they didn't even want to do as their second choice.
There were actually 2 elections here.
The special election in September held because of Don Youngs death, and a general election in November.
In the special election, Peltola started out with 74,817 votes, 39.7% of the total. Begich had 52,536.
If 5,804 people who voted Palin 1st Begich 2nd stayed home, Palin would have been eliminated. Begich would have gotten a bit under 28k more votes and Peltola would have gotten about 3.5k more votes. That puts Begich at about 80k, and Peltola at about 78k.
My point is that ranked choice is not a system that allows honest voting. Much as in plurality, voters vote honestly at their own risk.
There are systems that do, and also systems that make better tradeoffs balancing later-no-harm against favorite betrayal.
I get what you mean now, but I think it's significant that many Begich voters didn't want Palin if they'd rather the other side win. Or not ranking anyone at all, which might be an issue of R messaging or unwillingness to support a different candidate.
Palin was also the incumbent, which means people will be likely to vote for them. I don't see that being avoided unless she would've dropped out and endorsed Begich but it sounds like they weren't on good terms.
Yes different ranking systems could be better (though it is nuanced), but it's still a massive step up from FPtP.
Also Palin voters staying home wouldn't have helped.EDIT: More correct point added aboveMost other voting systems would actually have elected Begich.
He was the Condorcet winner; voters preferred him over Palin and voters preferred him over Peltola.
That's a stretch, and you're likely assuming that all Palin voters would vote for Begich. Again Peltola already had 48.8% in round 1 and wasn't the incumbent.
I also don't think weaker wide appeal (beyond majority) is the best way, as that seems like a potential race to a position-less (or simply inoffensive but ineffective) candidate. Though in this case it seems close, at least if it's red vs blue moderates.
Also sure, if Palin voters would've voted strategically their side might've won. I'm not sure if it's because they fell for the trappings of FPtP, because they were unwilling to vote for a moderate and thus bet on the wrong candidate etc. But voting for the non-incumbent as their first vote would've been safer as it'd allow them to still be a Palin voter if Begich lost in round 1 as he did. I don't think the situation is terrible, as under FPtP the only strategy would be for Begich voters to vote for Palin (full stop) which clearly they didn't even want to do as their second choice.
So they actually published the complete ballot counts for this election.
With the ballots as cast, in head to head elections, Begich beats Peltola 87264-79126, and Begich beats Palin 100311-63249. This is mostly due to Begich getting more second place votes than either Peltola or Palin. For example, 33761 Palin voters put Begich second, 3437 put Peltola second, and 21526 bullet voted (i.e. put down no second choice). Similarly, Begich got about 10x the number of second place votes from Peltola voters that Palin got.
Score Voting activist Warren Smith has a write-up on viXra: https://vixra.org/abs/2210.0103
Nobody ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the average voter.
That said, "because we might lose" is not a good reason to not make the system better.
Establishment Democrats aren't refusing to make the system better because Democrats in general might lose; they're refusing because each of them individually is worried he might lose to a more progressive or leftist challenger. It's blatant power-hungry selfishness.
I agree in principle with what you're saying, but there is an "establishment" that also has a vested interest in the politicians they own remaining in power. That establishment sees itself as the Democratic Party, so they would disagree with you.
Either way, the point stands. If you are afraid of letting voters vote because you won't like the results, then you're not really promoting democracy at all.
Establishment Dems cutting their face to spite their nose. Everyone knows ranked choice means more Dem support than Repub, but also opens up 3rd party influence.
This shit is why the rest of the developed world says the US has two right wing parties.
Or what, you’ll vote 3rd party? Good luck with that. /s
Maybe they know their Base rather well.
This is the same Base that election after election after election needs to be reminded to keep their ID's up to date as if that was some kind of new rule all of a sudden.
And they need to be reminded all the time that Republicans will try to trick them by making fake calls about polling places being closed or moved.
Ranked choice voting is like the little brother of March Madness brackets, and plenty of people take part in that every year.
This is entirely about wanting to force strategic voting so as to not lose power for the mainstream within their own party.
When you can win under an unrepresentative voting system even good people will feel compelled to hood onto that.
What a terrible excuse too, if you think someone is ignorant then enlighten them. Teach voting systems to the public.
An ideology based on an educated voter is doomed to failure when it decides it does not want educated voters.
What is confusing about, " pick your favorite, pick your second favorite"? You think if you asked them the same question about ice cream, they would be confused? Also, you don't HAVE to pick more than one. My understanding is that if you vote for an eliminated candidate, then your 2nd choice will be used on the next round. But they don't even need to know that to pick their favorite ice cream. It seems good for democracy? Someone let me know why it isn't.
Both sides are scared to death to lose power. It's a nice little rig they have. They more or less choose your options and you vote for one.
Ranked choice makes it FAR easier for an independent to make it in and dismantle the rest of their two-party shenanigans.
It's not confusing. It could let in a third party, they don't like that.
It's not confusing at all and everyone knows it. This is just the narrative they choose when trying to deny people the opportunity to uproot their cushy little scam. You'll notice that they're not campaigning to get people to vote against implementing this system, they're trying to stop people from getting to choose in the first place.
Holy shit, this makes sense to me. I'm in a historically red state and our RCV is massively disliked by the Trumpers. They also lost the last election. If the incumbent DC voters see RCV as a reason they would lose their current candidates, they would say the same shit. And they are.
In my experience that’s where people can get confused. We switched to ranked choice voting in university student government elections and that idea was not well-explained for the first election. We eventually got the hang of it though.
Still a bit surprised that it’s the Democrats objecting to this one. It might be a function of them having a near stranglehold on local DC government, and not necessarily indicative of how they’d react in more competitive states.
Yes exactly. Whichever party has a stranglehold in a given state/county/whatever will object because ranked choice voting has the potential to allow previously marginal (or zero chance) candidates to be elected.
Democrats are not inherently more fair-minded than conservatives. Both parties' (all parties, actually) first priority is to maintain power. Everything else is secondary to that.
Remember: Democrats are just as dependent on FPTP for power as republicans
Id say even more so. Few if any one votes for Republicans for the sole reason of them not being democrats. A much larger portion of the democrats voter base is people who simply dislike republicans more.
Really I am not even talking about voters when I am talking about power, I am talking about funding.
The duopoly grants the 2 parties extra funding that third parties can't access. This prevents real third party candidates from running unless they are already billionaire-connected. It saves the billionaires the trouble of trying to buy many parties. They can just buy the 2. So Dems and Republicans have safe sources of funding / power that can't be challenged by more competent representatives.
I think dems and republicans both correctly see their representatives as 'bought' to some extent and want real alternatives.
The funding issue, I think, also exists in forms seprate from the duopoly and needs some kind of fix in addition to RCV. Any party that gives people an alternative to politicians that are bought will clearly not appease donors seeking to buy a politician nearly as much as the big two do. I think both problems need to be tackled, and probably close together, for it to work well. The amount of depth there is to the problems that plague American democracy is honestly really disheartening. I feel many American systemic issues are like this where the current system is so far gone we'd need multiple different laws of varrying scope just to start fixing one aspect.
As I understand it the third parties could be funded better just from RCV because they would likely receive a higher percentage of the vote once the spoiler effect is no longer in place from FPTP. If they get more than 5% they get some funding and I think it scales up with percentage. Source from quick google, might be out of date.
USA democracy is frustrating. The 2 parties have spent close to 100 years entrenching themselves at this point. People who want to dig them out need to understand how they are holding on. This competition in politics paper outlines a few of the changes they've made to consolidate power. Things like party primaries, co-opting communication about elections, restructuring campaign finance law, etc.
You can read the whole PDF online if you are interested.
I find it interesting that politicians never seem to make this argument about taxes.
See, this is the sort of shit folks are talking about when they say both parties are the same.
Absolutely not. Criticize things like this is correct but this does not equate to a coup, banning abortion and gender care. Don't give ammo to a shit takinge point.
You need to be addressing this complaint to the Democratic party officials in this story who are doing that. The Republicans didn't start off with a coup, they started with years of lesser voter suppression/democracy undermining methods that escalated to a coup when they got backed into a corner, but it's been the same basic "to hell with the voters, we want power" thinking the whole time, and that's the exact same kind of thinking Dems are engaging in here.
A rare instance, on some issue, because a broken clock is right twice a day.
And yet... gestures broadly to the numerous liberal progressive Democrats
You won't find that side in the Republican party lol.
I get what you're saying, but "liberal progressive" is an oxymoron. Progressivism is center left/left while neoliberalism is center right/right.
Not everything to the left of fascism is left of center.
There is a difference between liberal and neo-liberal. Blankets never used “neo” in their comment.
Modern liberals such as the ones in charge of the Dems are neoliberals though, so it's a distinction without consequence.
Hear hear. Liberal progressivism that's more concerned with privatizing social welfare and forcing everything to be a market based solution than doing good is doomed to fail. We need socialist/anti-capitalist progressivism or we're just going to give away a bunch of taxpayer money to oligarchic assholes and still have most of the same problems.
Didn’t DC politicians also reverse a ballot initiative that succeeded requiring restaurants to pay staff a full wage?
They don’t give a shit about what people actually want.
And there it is.., time to move the goalposts. /s
yea i like to make up complete bullshit all the time
Surely they were misquo-
Nope that's what they said. Yikes.
"This totally just seems like something the article itself added --"
"Oh. Nope. They... They actually. God damnit."
"The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
"Many of those voters report their confusion about selecting more than one candidate for what appears to be the same office," said Wilson in the lawsuit, arguing that implementing ranked-choice voting "would introduce an additional layer of confusion to the electorate."
"I have a similar concern for seniors and persons with disabilities," Wilson added."
I find it interesting that most of these commenters seem to have not read the article.
People aren't stupid we know how to fucking rank things. Undervoting occurs when they don't like any of the candidates, having ranked choice means independents and non dem/rep parties can actually have a chance and so people will be more willing to vote. You act like this isn't a wildly successful model for democratic voting used throughout the rest of the world. Fuck off...
Sounds like a racist excuse from people who want to keep their power.
SMH. Read the article. Take a look the “racist” group making the argument in court:
https://www.leadersofcolor.net/team/victor-horton
Here’s the head of DC dems Charles Wilson, who literally is listed in the article you read(?):
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5256c4_b5db7b16ba72415dba2c031483b0588b~mv2_d_1291_1291_s_2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_524,h_512,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/156623072117857016%20(2).jpeg
Here’s why they’re concerned (hint it’s not because they’re racist against themselves):
https://archive.ph/rWKVm
When they tried this many people actually didn’t cast a second choice. Which gave more voting power to the other group. That’s all they are saying. And it’s not racist.
Changing the system to be less representative isn't fixing the problem
AT ALL
They should be leading the charge. You know -- educating people how to be better. Like good leaders do.
That takes money. Money doesn’t magically appear. Seems really naive.
Also. Stop yelling. Fucking cringe.
Well well well if it isn't the hard bigotry of no expectations
Cool that's not racist at all
Of course they do, an the Republicans as well.
They don't want to give up their power to some random amazing third party. They want to keep the power between the 2 of them.
Ranked choice voting would not see third parties be more successful.
Ranked choice will definitely encourage third, fourth, fifth and maybe even a sixth party.
The two party system you have in the US is a stunted version of the party system.
People vote based on recognition and identity first and foremost, so no it definitely will not.
No one with 7% of the vote is ever going to win any race. I'm for ranked choice voting, and I recognize basic math.
The spoiler effect is largely the reason that 3rd parties only get 7% of the vote. Few people are willing to cast their single vote for a candidate who has no real chance of winning.
https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo explains how our current system works and alternatives
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Good bot
Wait what? Thafuq is so hard!? 1st choice, second choice, third choice…. Seriously?
Think about the stupidest person you know, and then realize they are average.
You're topping the list for me, right now.
Classic Democrats, saying that blacks are too dumb to be able to vote for anybody except them.
Except it's just the asshole editors making headlines that put a spin on what actually happened.
In the complaint, the local party and its chair Charles Wilson pointed to voting patterns in Wards 7 and 8, which encompass predominantly-Black communities east of the Anacostia River.
The lawsuit notes that in elections for at-large seats on the DC city council — where voters can currently choose two candidates — voters in Wards 7 and 8 are less likely to cast a second vote, a phenomenon known as "undervoting."
"Many of those voters report their confusion about selecting more than one candidate for what appears to be the same office," said Wilson in the lawsuit, arguing that implementing ranked-choice voting "would introduce an additional layer of confusion to the electorate."
So no it's not AcKsUaLlY DeMoCrAtS are the racists! They're just pointing to a trend that they've noticed in specific areas that they have data on.
Sounds like they need to explain the system instead of crying about it.
Exactly. I'm pretty mad about this b.s.
So called public servants and supposed professionals have never heard of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" apparently...
If confusion is the issue, then educate ffs... :(
Its still a bad reason for stopping ranked choice. Those at-large sections are different than the rest of the ballot. Is that a good enough of a reason to keep a system that limits competition between political parties?
Absolutely not, I think it's a bullshit excuse to cover for what other people are saying: they want to keep the power dynamic as it is. I was just responding to the stupid Republican trope that it's "typical racist Democrats."
We've been using ranked-choice for mayoral elections in my city for years. It's not confusing.
I did it for the first time in the most recent NYC mayoral election and it was pretty straight forward. If people are confused then it's up to local government to show people how it works.
"I have a similar concern for seniors and persons with disabilities,"
Gotta love the casual racism
That is absurd, what the fuck
This reminds me of when my brother told me that black people can't be friends with racially prejudiced white people, and if they are friends with racist people then it's because the black people don't understand racism.
I did that like Stewie sitting on the couch next to Brian head turn at him and was like whaaaaaaaat?
Did anyone read the article? It’s not saying ever you guys think it’s saying. The DC Democrats are saying that in two predominantly black areas, having voters pick two choices on ballots has already led to confusion and that ranked choice will lead to even worse confusion.
They’re not speculating here, they’re describing what’s already known.
I read the article, and it doesn't change the argument. Undervoting is a problem, but one that doesn't affect ranked choice voting any more than fptp. Voters were able to select two candidates and only voted for one, and probably don't even realize they did not complete their ballot. If anything, a little ballot education outreach that would be necesaary while implementing ranked choice might reduce undervoting overall.
Clarification: low-income voters from predominantly black areas did this, which is effectively disenfranchisement. That's the concern: that low-income minorities may be disenfranchised by more complex/confusing ballots. The concern is real because it already happened.
Yeah, low income correlates with low education and an increase in voter error. That's not a reason to not make the elections more fair or more accurate. It's the opposite of that.
Ranked Choice voters can still select their first and only choice. If there are two spots, there will be two sections to fill out rankings and it will likely result in fewer undervotes.
I share your frustration. I live in ward 6 which shares political influence with ward 7 and 8.
the confusion isn't from the ranked vote as much as the way the ballot is currently arranged.
the ranked choice just happens to be the change used to fix the disenfranchisement and the complaint is that's not enough.
I agree.
Our both choices were not great and having a system where you arent choosing between corporate shill one and two would aid that.... stop apologizing for assholes being racist and power hungry. Black people aren't stupid. Say what you really mean instead of pandering around it....
You guys are exhausting.
No one is saying black people are too dumb to understand ranked choice. They're saying that people from low income, predominantly black areas, under-voted when required to choose two candidates on past ballots. That means those people were effectively disenfranchised. If the evidence shows that ranked choice could potentially disenfranchise people from low-income minority areas, that is something to be concerned about.
That's not a reason good enough to hold back everyone else from the benefits of ranked choice. If they're worried about that alleged potential disenfranchisement then they should get out there and inform those people of how to do it properly. Send out flyers, emails, publish advertisements, knock on doors, etc.
The rest of us are already disenfranchised by these shitty 2-party choices.
I'm not saying that they're right. I'm saying that calling them racists who think black people are dumb is a complete mischaracterization.
No, no one read the article. They're just spouting nonsense.
Idiots. Ranked choice voting is the only way they are going to win in some places.
then they'd have to pay more than lipservice to dc statehoood if there was a chance for a statehood candidate to win.
This is my personal grudge against Newsom: he said the same thing when he vetoed ranked choice in CA. This is an establishment move, and about as racist as any Republican move.
Established democrats in WA state and even the almighty progressive city of Seattle did the same thing.
Weird how they have such hardons for some popular policies but bend over backwards to avoid the ones that could actually help fix this broken and deeply divided country.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a lawsuit filed earlier this month seeking to block ranked choice voting in Washington, DC, the local Democratic Party argued that implementing the system would be particularly confusing for voters in predominantly Black areas.
The 33-page lawsuit filed in DC Superior Court by the District of Columbia Democratic Party argues that implementing the voting system would violate the DC Human Rights Act, a portion of local law prohibiting discrimination.
In the complaint, the local party and its chair Charles Wilson pointed to voting patterns in Wards 7 and 8, which encompass predominantly-Black communities east of the Anacostia River.
It's been implemented in federal and state elections in both Maine and Alaska, where it arguably helped Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola pull out a victory last year and contributed to the smooth re-election of Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy trashed the system during a podcast appearance with Donald Trump Jr. in January.
And Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York recently introduced a bill to block the implementation of ranked-choice voting in Washington, DC.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Welp, there goes a talking point against 3rd party voting….
If Aussie bogans can figure it out they will be fine
Do we need to do a ranked-choice vote on the next flavor of mountain dew or something so we can put this "people won't get it" argument to rest
Didn't they end up ignoring the last "name a mtn dew flavor" vote because it got won by "Hitler did nothing wrong" or something of the sort?
It might confusingly offer a choice other than neoliberal or fascist
I don't think Republicans particularly care for ranked choice either - as it is a far better gauge of popular opinion than the first past the post. However, the Democratic party is the first bulwark against actual reforms in the American system. It's not surprising they are being borderline racist in their opposition to it.
They fairly loathe it. They are relying on low Information voters, suppression , and gerrymandering currently. Ranked choice would decimate their ranks. That said the fact that Dems want to cherry-pick the areas they support this in reeks of malfeasance.
What diseased corner of your brain vomited this up?
I don't know how useful rank choices voting would be for at-large seats. Those are usually uncontested.
Voting should be compulsory, like jury duty.
They'll vote off the advertising presented, not for their best interest.
It's stupid to make things like this compulsory. Whoever spends the most in advertising will win the apathy vote.
Arguably advertising is already a problem and I can't believe everyone is voting in their own best interest.
I disagree. Compulsory voting removes many forms of voter suppression which seems to be a huge problem over in the US.
Yeah, that already happens. If it was compulsory, at least then people would have to think about it.
I agree
Democrats think it's confusing to the Black population? Sounds like the party of racism by low expectations. The same party that views voter ID as racist because black people don't know where to get an ID.
The overwhelming voter ID arguments I've heard is that those laws disproportionately impact poor people. ID is an excess cost and requires the ability to take off work in the middle of a week day and travel to a designated location. Which is difficult for people working multiple minimum wage jobs and people without reliable transportation. The racial aspect is that these holdbacks disproportionally impact the black community so much so it can almost be used as a proxy for "black" in some areas.
I have never once heard anyone say the reason is that they won't know where to get an ID.
Those people exist.
There's a difference between "people who have trouble voting" with "people who just don't want to vote"
Some of yall didnt read the article and it shows.
Sorry… had to..,,