comment: >
  
  Question, how many politicians in Norway campaigned on conspiracy theories, deciding between being a werewolf or a vampire, their ability to hit on underage girls at malls, marrying their cousins, or pure unfiltered grifting?
  Before the proportional voting was put in.
  Because in America, those examples are the NORM for half the country, hell most of those people ran in the last election.
context: /u/PM_Me_Thicc_Puppies (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
  All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
  Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  You are correct that IRV is somewhat better than FPTP for all the reasons you mention.
  However, it is only slightly better.  In real-life elections with single winners, it tends to mimic the outcomes and problems of FPTP, especially in terms of heavily favoring a two-party system.
  There are much better systems available that have all the benefits you mentioned, but much more strongly, and with less weird behaviors and distortion of outcomes.  Condorcet and Borda count are the most technically optimal methods, but they're a little harder to implement and explain; Approval voting has basically the same outcomes while being very simple and easy to implement, and is probably the best system overall.
  Everyone should be aware that the reason the existing two-party structure has been pushing IRV really hard is that it also favors and recreates the two-party system in the way that FPTP does.  Basically, they are co-opting the movement for voting reform and turning it towards something that still favors them, instead of something that would break their duopoly and reduce their power.
  People should not fall for this, and demand that voting reform efforts be channeled towards things that are better than IRV, and that will actually shake things up.  Again, I suggest Approval voting as the best method everyone should get behind. >
  
  Ok I came into this post ready to defend ranked choice but thanks to you I can see I didn't actually know as much about it as I thought I had. I also hadn't even considered there were other, better options. Thank you for this, it is very informative. 
  !delta >
  
  Thanks, it's really a fascinating topic!  That paper I linked is a good place to start learning about it, and if you google the different voting methods mentioned there you can find tons more information and research about them.  Good luck! >
  
  Thanks! This is why I love this subreddit >
  
  Have you considered MMP? In MMP, districts are expanded so that there are multiple seats in each district, which are then assigned proportionately based on the percentages of votes secured. Let's say a new MMP district looks like this:
  Right (60% total)
  20% MAGA
  30% Republican
  10% Libertarian
  Left (40% total)
  20% Moderate democrat
  10% Progressive
  10% Socialist
  Assuming there are ten seats per district, each party gets at least one seat. But, with no party having a clear majority, there are several possibilities for a coalition. You could feasibly have a right MAGA/Lib/Rep coalition, a moderate Rep/Dem coalition, a leftist Dem/Soc/Prog/Lib coalition, etc. This system essentially forces different parties to cooperate and compromise to find a solution to political problems that are, at the very least, acceptable to a majority of people. It has all the benefits of RC, but goes several steps further to enable a more representative democracy. 
  To address your points: MMP is more effective at promoting third parties than ranked choice, and often forces multiple parties to rule by the coalition, thus mitigating the "winner take all" consequence of FPtP or RC. 
  MMP does not require multiple voting rounds and allows for new ideas to be integrated directly by the parties that advanced them initially, rather than relying on these ideas to trickle into the agendas of mainstream candidates. >
  
  A) That's not MMP, that's PR. MMP is what Germany uses- some members are elected from single-member districts, while others are from party lists.
  B) Neither system works for single-winner offices like the presidency or governorships. >
  
  I'm assuming you know all this, but I'm just leaving this here for anyone that's interested (I nerd out over voting systems a lot)
  To put a finer point on this, Proportional Representation (PR) represents a class of voting systems that satisfy a mathematical condition called Proportionality for Solid Coalitions (PSC). Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) satisfies PSC and is therefore a PR voting system.
  /u/dean84921 described a PR system that isn't MMP because it doesn't have the "mixed" element; part of the body being elected is elected through one method, and the other part has its seats distributed so that the entire body is proportional. Germany achieved this through having 2 MPs for each constituency; one elected through First Past The Post (FPTP, most votes takes all, AKA one of the voting systems whomst is bad) and the other selected from statewide party lists to ensure the Bundestag is proportional to the party vote. In the UK, where we call it the Additional Member System (AMS), Scotland, Wales and London elects local representatives through FPTP and regional MPs through a party vote, which is used to make sure the party distribution in the assembly reflects the part vote as best as possible. >
  
  This still runs into the same problem that ultimately, you’re electing a single candidate for a specific district/region/whatever, who doesn’t really represent a potentially very large minority of the voting public. In, say, US congressional elections, you could still end up with all districts going to the same party even when a sizable minority in the state doesn’t support that party (and it is also very vulnerable to gerrymandering). 
  Proportional representation is a better system. >
  
  The problem I have with proportional representation is the selection style of candidates.
  How exactly could you do that in a fair manner? >
  
  As opposed to what? The way candidates are selected in single-winner style races? Why would this somehow be more fair than in proportional representation style systems? >
  
  To play devil's advocate, there are often primaries under FPTP, so it's the voters choosing the candidates, not the parties >
  
  Nothing stops the parties to hold primaries to populate their lists. >
  
  They often do. It's just that most people outside the parties aren't paying attention. >
  
  Ranked Choice is inferior to STAR Voting in every way. 
  RCV: rank top 3 preferences. If #1 is under say 50%, remove lowest count candidates and add your #2 to current count. 
  STAR: give 1-5 points to every candidate you like. Add them. Runoff. 
  That's it. It's simple to count, simple to analyze, simple to scale up. 
  What happens in an RCV audit? You have to redo the computation. What if you have 150M votes? You need full strings for every single vote. No predictions are accurate. You can't trust national reporting as votes come in. 
  And worse, RCV has a spoiler effect. Because your #2 only gets your vote if your #1 loses, #2 can lose an election because your endorsement of them was held hostage. Strategic voting is to only vote for popular people. 
  STAR doesn't care. STAR is add the points up. It's simple. It's something you can update hourly and anyone across the world can understand. Big number wins. >
  
  Apart from overcoming Arrow's impossibility theorem due to being a cardinal voting system, STAR has the added benefit of virtually always picking the Condorcet winner in any real life application. >
  
  Has ðat been proven?  I know it's highly likely to but I've always hesitated to say it guarentees ðe condorcet candidate will win. >
  
  Nah it's not a Condorcet meθod, it's just highly likely because of ðe automatic runoff stage and ðe high number of voters involved.
  EDIT: It does guarantee that no Condorcet loser will ever win, which is nearly as good (and better than approval and score/range voting in that regard). >
  
  Condorcet loser is a pretty interestin' idea I hadn't þought of, and yeah I guess if STAR protects against a condorcet loser winnin' ðat alone makes it ðe objectively best option discussed as of yet >
  
  Ranked choice voting doesn’t solve the problem of systems eventually skewing towards two parties because you still have the spoiler effect with winner take all districts.
  The only way you solve that problem is through party proportionate voting - but there you are effectively eschewing the idea of voting for individuals and highly local representatives and acknowledging the reality of parties and going all in on them. 
  Optimizing for local representatives vs more diverse aggregate representatives is somewhat philosophical.
  Multi-party systems aren’t inherently better either, because inevitably it just pushes the consensus building into party coalitions post election - which may then result in a coalition unexpected by the voters. They tend to be less stable too, with coalitions collapsing - you see this all the time with parliaments.
  Ultimately the root problem here is people tend to self-sort into more homogenous communities.
  I think as long as you some for competitive elections you’re in a reasonable spot. >
  
  
  They tend to be less stable too, with coalitions collapsing - you see this all the time with parliaments.
  
  This is somewhat by design though. It's a feature of parliamentary systems that the executive and the parliament can't diverge too far from each other. When that happens you get elections.
  In contrast to the US where you can have a President from one party and the Congress from another party and you get grid-lock. I'll take the early elections over two years of bickering and nothing getting done. >
  
  This discussion seems kind of American centric. The question is not to rank or not to rank. The question is, single member districts or multi member districts? (Spoiler: its multi member districts)
  Single member districts are what America had now: one person wins in the district. But consider this, if there are 2 candidates from opposing parties, A gets 49% of the vote, B gets 51% of the vote, wouldn't the best idea be to let them  both win? Afterall, it's called REPRESENTATIVE democracy. The point is for people to be represented. How are the 49% of people being represented if their favored candidate isnt the one representing them?
  It doesn't just have to be 2 candidates either. You can make a district much larger, so that there are 8 spots to fill. Or you can keep it smaller, and allow 3 spots to be filled. You can also do a hybrid, where you get 2 votes, one that works just as it does now under fptp, and another where you pick a candidate from a much larger pool that can cover your whole state.
  Multi member districts are called proportional systems because the way the legislature ends up looking is proportional to the way people voted, and people get to be represented by the party/candidate that they genuinely want to vote for (up to certain limits, I.e 95% of people will get such representation). Many countries use proportional systems, including the ones that have the best governance structures, such as Scandinavian countries. Proportional representation is part of the reason why these countries do so well.
  So I think your starting point is all wrong. The best way to do elections in a representative democracy is not through single member voting, its through multi member. If you cant do multi member ridings in America, then your question should be different and specify America.
  P.S. STV is not actually like instant runoff. STV is a type of ranked ballot that also includes multi member ridings and is thus proportional. Its a great system, works very well for Ireland. >
  
  
  P.S. STV is not actually like instant runoff. STV is a type of ranked ballot that also includes multi member ridings and is thus proportional. Its a great system, works very well for Ireland.
  
  Glad someone else pointed this out. I've always found Ireland's implementation of STV to be my favourite form of proportional representation, since every person who gets elected is directly elected by the people who they will be representing (no party lists or members without their own ridings). >
  
  The main problem with RCV is that it still mostly has the same flaw as standard plurality voting where a third-party candidate can split the vote causing the candidate who a majority of voters prefer to be eliminated and a fringe candidate that the vast majority of voters vote against ends up winning.
  ​
  Here is an example election with 4 candidates, The columns correspond to the percentage of voters who selected that candidate as their nth choice/rank. (For columns that add to less than 100%, the corresponding voters left that rank blank.)
  ​
  |Candidate/Rank|1st|2nd|3rd|
  |:-|:-|:-|:-|
  |Alice|27%|6%|8%|
  |Bob|26%|5%|12%|
  |Charlie|24%|8%|10%|
  |Debora|23%|70%|1%|
  ​
  In traditional voting, Alice wins with an extremely slim plurality of 27% of the vote. Under RCV, Debora (Who 93% of voters selected as either their 1st or 2nd choice) is eliminated instantly in the first 'round' , and the votes are transferred to the 2nd choice selections. Bob is eliminated next, and Charlie ends up winning despite the majority (58%) of voters voting AGAINST him. >
  
  I'll actually give a !delta for this (not OP). I had never seen a simple, applied example of how RCV might result in a "consensus candidate" losing so easily, like this. Thanks for sharing.
  As a follow-up, I'm curious if r/BrasilianEngineer believes that RCV is still superior to FPTP, all things considered? (Regardless of whether RCV is "the best"). >
  
  IMO, RCV has the distinction of being not quite as bad as FPTP, thus making it better than the status quo. However, if we are actually going to go through the effort of changing election systems, I'd strongly prefer that we actually pick one that generally solves the problem, not one that makes the problem not quite as bad.
  I'm not sure what system would work best - If you dive into the rabbit hole, a proper Condorcet system tends to be much more complicated to implement thus potentially disenfranchising anyone who isn't smart enough or willing enough to put in the effort to understand how to vote, so a compromise system is probably required. I think there are better compromise systems than RCV. >
  
  Approval voting seems to me the obvious choice. It's simple and it has a lot of nice properties. I could also be convinced that range voting was good, if someone could explain to me a situation in which I'd ever want to give a candidate anything other than the maximum or minimum rating, thus boiling it down to "approval voting with extra steps".
  If someone could convince me that range voting is meaningful, I like STAR quite a lot, but I fear it's too complicated to explain to the public, and would result in lots of time wasted on accusations of malfeasance from people whose candidate lost in a completely fair way that they don't understand.
  That said, if there was a ballot measure in my state to switch to pretty much any of the well-regarded alternatives to FPTP, I'd vote for it even if it wasn't my favorite option. >
  
  Approval voting definitely has my vote (heh) for a transition/compromise method, but score voting between say 1-5 is intuitive for voters who wish to express a range of desired outcomes between their most preferred choices, less-preferred but still palatable choices, barely acceptable choices, and unacceptable choices.
  Even in the worst case scenario, STAR and score voting still do as well as approval voting without penalizing those voters who do choose to vote honestly, and in general more expressive voting tends to lead to more optimal utilitarian outcomes. Most people are also already familiar with the concept of rated/score/range voting in everyday life from Amazon ratings, Uber, Yelp and the like.
  Given that approval voting can more or less use the same existing ballots AND eliminate the need for party primaries, I do think the energy for voting reform would be much better directed to approval voting or almost anything other than RCV/IRV. It's ironic that the system with the most visibility happens to be the worst of the alternatives. >
  
  Can you explain how I would ever want to vote anything other than 1 (for unacceptable candidates) or 5 (for acceptable candidates) under score voting? Voting 3 for a candidate I only kinda like risks contributing to them scoring below my most hated candidate. >
  
  I'm personally not a fan on anything that has an automatic runoff where candidates get eliminated after the 1st round. That elimination inherently allows for a spoiled election where you have a near 3-way tie but the 3rd place person with 30% (and the other 2 have 35%) get eliminated even though they might have 90% of the 2nd round votes.
  Essentially, having the automatic runoff robs people of their second round vote if they ranked somebody 2nd that gets eliminated right away. There is just no good reason to do it when you can just move directly to the 2nd round of scoring without any eliminations.
  And, approval voting doesn't require any of those extra step at all. No eliminations, no automatic runoff. You just add up all the votes and whoever has the most wins.
  I think the biggest upset you get with approval is if two candidates both garner large support with 60%+ in a near tie maybe the one that loses would have been more people's first pick. But, the person that wins is still the one with the most overall support from the most people. There is no possibility for a 90% second choice candidate loses because they didn't get enough 1st rank picks. >
  
  
  Essentially, having the automatic runoff robs people of their second round vote if they ranked somebody 2nd that gets eliminated right away. There is just no good reason to do it when you can just move directly to the 2nd round of scoring without any eliminations.
  
  Right, this is the biggest flaw of RCV/IRV but doesn't apply to STAR voting, precisely because STAR isn't a ranked voting method, it's rated voting. There are no intermediate elimination rounds, you just add up all the votes and then, between the two highest scoring candidates, select the one preferred on more ballots.
  Additionally, STAR's runoff, although not making it a Condorcet method, is also far more likely (and virtually always does irl) to elect the Condorcet winner than either approval or score voting alone, as STAR meets the Condorcet loser criterion, i.e. any candidate who would lose a head-to-head matchup between themself and any other candidate is guaranteed not to win.
  Unfortunately approval voting does not guarantee the above. >
  
  Dem candidate get 45 5 Star, 10 4 star, and 45 0 star.
  Rep gets the same vote spread
  Independent get 10 5 Star, 90 4 star.
  In Star voting the independent would get eliminated right off the bat, and it's completely meaningless that they captured 90 4 Star votes.
  There is nothing that could convince me that you can say that the independent would be absolutely guaranteed to lose if running head to head against either of the other two candidates.
  If anything, I think the independent would be heavily favored to win because those people already ranked one of the other candidates a 0.
  At best, an elimination should only occur after the second round of point tallying, but even then I don't see the advantage of adding that complexity. >
  
  RCV still excludes \~49% of all voters' opinions from the process. It's better than first past the post, and better than runoffs, but at the end of the day, pure majority rule elections silence the minority party in any given district. It retains the incentive to gerrymander borders to create safe seats and disenfranchise your opposition.
  I'm currently not sold on this idea, but I think a better solution might be the adoption of large multi-seat "districts" that use party list voting. (The US is conveniently already set up for this, being segmented into 50 states, DC, and five populated territories.) 
  Party list voting guarantees proportional representation, excluding only a small fraction of votes. If my math is right, in a X seat district all but 1/(X+1) percent of voters would have a representative of their choice. So Wyoming would have 49.9% of voters unrepresentative, same as before (1/(1+1)), and California would have all but 1.9% represented (1/(52+1)). 
  It's tempting to think that this would reinforce the party system that many see as a plague on the US, but alongside empowering parties, it would demolish the two party system. Because a third party candidate wouldn't be competing in an isolated district, they'd be free to gather support statewide and amalgamate local groups into a statewide effort. In California, you'd only need about 2% of the vote to get elected to the house! "Third" (and fourth, and fifth...) parties would proliferate. >
  
  I mean, democracy in general will exclude people from having their choice made, that's one of the downsides of democracy in general.
  While I'm not against proportional voting, I worry about the quality of candidates when seats are guaranteed to a party.
  It just seems like a recipe for disaster. >
  
  
  It just seems like a recipe for disaster. 
  
  Famous disasters of democracy like, checks notes Norway and the Netherlands.