Maine Becomes First State to Use Ranked-Choice Voting in a Presidential Election
I&#x27;m probably going to get massively down voted for this, but here it goes.<p>I became a citizen of the US in 2011, but I still don&#x27;t understand why Americans think they can only have a viable 3rd party with ranked choice voting. The response I hear all the time is &quot;We live in a winner take all system.&quot; Yeah, so does everyone else. All politics is zero-sum, including in every other country. Actually, parliamentary democracies are even more winner take all than in the US, because they (typically) replace much more of their bureaucracy than Americans do after their elections.<p>Other countries have viable 3rd parties and when no one has a majority you build a coalition. I really fail to see why Americans insist they can&#x27;t have a viable 3rd party other than sheer historical prejudice, ignorance, and inertia. Perhaps the one difference is that 3rd parties would be spoilers in a Presidential race, but splitting your ticket is easy enough (and if it&#x27;s not then this country is irretrievably ignorant).<p>My suspicion is that ranked choice voting isn&#x27;t going to fix anything in the US, and all the CGP Grey fans will have to go back to the policy drawing board. I&#x27;ll be the first one to be pleased if I&#x27;m wrong, but I doubt I will be.<p>The US&#x27;s problems are 90% cultural and institutional.<p><i>Edit:</i><p>I want to be clear that I&#x27;m not against RCV, I just don&#x27;t think its going to do anything.