Portland’s ranked-choice debut causes voter engagement to crater; 1 in 5 who cast ballots chose no one for City Council
Portland’s ranked-choice debut causes voter engagement to crater; 1 in 5 who cast ballots chose no one for City Council
A substantial share of Portland residents who voted in last week’s election left their preference for mayor or City Council entirely blank.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21917446
Ballot in question:
Mayor:
District 1:
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Ranked Choice Voting is the way forward.
But really? Do we really have to implement learning programs for this shit or something?
But really? Do we really have to implement learning programs for this shit or something?
Yes. Every time something new is introduced, people have to learn the new thing. Not everyone is as informed as you or I. Most people don't care that much and have never considered alternative voting techniques.
Yes, actually. RCV is complicated enough that it causes poor NYC voters to submit invalid ballots at a higher rate than their rich and counterparts, something that doesn't happen with "choose one." Still, RCV is good, but Approval Voting is better. Under Approval, an invalid ballot is impossible unless you put in illegal markings, which would invalidate a ballot under any method.
Can you tell more about approval voting? I haven’t heard of it
You're given a list of candidates, and you can select however many of them you approve of being in office. Votes are then tallied, and whoever has the highest approval total is who gets voted in.
So I don't get to prioritize one candidate over the other? I can only vote "approve" or "disapprove"?
These are rhetorical questions and I know the answers, but dang, you failed to explain the "ranked" part of "ranked choice"..
That's because I didn't explain ranked choice voting, I explained approval voting... They're two different things
Oh fascinating! Thank you
Not who brought it up, but it's essentially just checking a box if you approve of the candidate, and check as many boxes as you want. Highest number of box checks wins. I'd take it over first past the post, but I prefer RCV still. Proponents of approval voting say it helps weed out extreme candidates, but I find the most extreme candidates in the US have historically been a huge net win, so I'd prefer to give them a better shot at winning.
I'm not sure if Approval would weed out extremists in practice or not, but using the current voter behavior under FPTP and extrapolating to Approval doesn't really hold water. Even in Fargo and St. Louis we're already seeing different voting behavior, where only 30% of voters chose to be strategic in who they vote for. Under a FPTP election you pretty much have to make a strategic decision.
Other folks have let you know what's up. You can read more about it at https://electionscience.org
Personally I think their recent website remodel really took a lot of the meat and potatoes out of their presentation, but I'm not a media guru, so what do I know?
Approval is good and should be used to move to either STAR or 3-2-1. RCV is barely better than Plurality and this ballot is just one example of how RCV implementations can cause issues.
It doesn't matter. The people willing to learn about it will do so on their own.