this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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You vote your conscience in the primary and you do your duty in the main. Simple as that.
I agree. As a Bernie supporter, though, I got a heck of a lot of pressure to “do my duty” even in the primary, because “we have to nominate the candidate who has the best chance of winning.” The shitshow is doing everything it can to move upstream.
This drives me bonkers. The candidate who has the best chance of winning is the one that gets people talking and actually interested in voting. It’s not like there’s a cage match between the candidates and it’s not like the debates actually matter in terms of who wins. Votes are what wins. Votes are caused by interest. Interest is caused by lots of things but it’s not by making sure the milquetoast center right “progressive” candidate is the one who makes it to the main event.
The other side isn’t going to vote for “our” candidate no matter what. We need to get “our” side actually interested in voting. The number of people who vote in this country is pathetic to begin with. It completely defeats the legitimacy of our elections from the off.
Sanders won in polls vs Trump. Clinton lost. The party just decided they'd rather Trump be president than Sanders.
Yeah, and that relates to why I think the focus on ranked choice voting or more parties is a red herring.
I'm cool with both of those, but they're not a silver bullet for our problems. We already have parties within parties, which isn't terribly different than coalitions. And we have at least two rounds of voting to narrow the field.
No matter what you do, democracy is going to be about compromise. It makes sense that you have to compromise more and more as the field narrows. Voting for Bernie in the primary and Hillary in the general isn't that different from voting ranked choice Bernie #1, Hillary #2.
Ranked choice would absolutely still help. The two party state is utterly awful. And while primaries exist and people should use them, let's be honest: most people won't. We need it to be easier to vote for who people like. Primaries aren't that, since they're an extra vote you have to be aware of and take the time to research and vote for.
As an aside, ranked voting isn't what I'd consider ideal for the general election, either. It's still heavily disproportionate. Proportional voting is far superior for ensuring representation. Eg, suppose 25% of the population likes progressives, 50% likes centrists, and 25% like conservatives. Any form of single winner ballot (ranked choice or FPTP) is gonna favour the centrist, even though that means 50% of the population don't get their ideal representation.
Depends which form of ranked choice. The naïvely-designed ones like Supplementary Vote, Contingent Vote, Instant-Runoff Voting, Top Four, Final Five, etc. don't fix the two-party system at all, since they only count first-choice rankings in each round, just like our current system. Unfortunately those are the only ones being advocated in the US. We need Condorcet-compliant systems if we actually want to fix the spoiler effect and end the two-party system. Total Vote Runoff/Baldwin, Ranked Robin, Schulze, etc.
Yes!
Actually, both FPTP and RCV suffer from the "center-squeeze effect", so centrist candidates are at a disadvantage and they favor more polarizing candidates.
As an Alaskan voter, ranked choice is the only reason we have a female, Native American, Democrat congressional representative instead of Sarah Palin filling Don Young's deep red legacy. RCV is equitable and works, but not in the way progressives hope. It allows for the most centrist candidate to be chosen that appeals to the most possible people. A two party system just becomes a battle of political extremes. And like it or not, being progressive is far left for a reason, especially in America. And I consider myself fairly progressive leaning.
Peltola would have won under FPTP, too; RCV didn't change the outcome. The real issue is that there were two Republicans on the same ballot vs one Democrat, splitting the vote with each other.
No, it suffers from the center-squeeze effect and is biased against the candidates that appeal to the most possible people. In Alaska's special election, for instance, Begich was preferred over both other candidates by a majority of voters, but RCV incorrectly eliminated him first. This flaw gave an unfair advantage to progressives in that election, which you may like, but it could just as easily give an unfair advantage to conservatives in a future election, which you wouldn't. (If there are two Democrats and one Republicans the ballot, for instance.)
In my opinion, for single-winner elections, we need better voting systems that do always elect the candidate who appeals to the most possible people, which will allow third parties and independents to become viable, which will open people's minds beyond the two-party false dichotomy.
Yes, and RCV perpetuates that polarization because of the center-squeeze effect.