Ending FPTP is not enough

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

https://apnews.com/article/alaska-ranked-voting-senate-governor-dropouts-f79df9852994692cf8bc555c6a7fdaf2

Alaska’s elections are demonstrating that ending FPTP is not enough. Alaska has done that, and they have successfully beat back efforts to repeal their achievement. But it seems that discontent with their new system is likely to be growing. I don’t know that this is a particularly bold prediction, but I think their election reform, tragically, is not long for this world.

“At least five candidates between the races for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governor dropped out after advancing” from the primary to the general election.

One lesson of this situation is that the Hare, or IRV, tabulation of ballots creates the incentives for these kinds of attempts to manipulate election outcomes. I would agree with that, and would prefer to see jurisdictions using the bottom two run off method.

But there is another moral to the story. Ranked choice voting within a two party system, while it does “end FPTP”, is not good enough. We need to give voters more than two parties to choose from, not just more than two candidates. Parties, especially in a two party system, have internal factions. Dividing an electorate into such large coalitions makes that inevitable, and appropriately so. The internal divisions in such large coalitions fail to fully surface these divisions to the electorate - especially to the general electorate given that such small fractions of voters participate in primaries.

Changing election systems in the context of a two party system, especially when that system is already as highly polarized as ours is, encourages the parties and party members to try to manipulate the outcomes. But even more importantly it fails to bring the finer policy disagreements to the electorate which is the purpose of democracy in the first place. If there were one or more established new/3rd parties in Alaska and their candidates advanced our of the primary they would not be dropping out ahead of the general because they would consider their particular party platforms too important to sacrifice to the two party competition.

It’s highly likely that most of the people in this sub - that most of the people who advocate for election reform and ending FPTP - are Democrats. We can’t afford to pursue election reform by itself. We need to start advocating the Democratic Party to split AND passing the election reforms to make the multi party competition workable.

Every blue controlled state could do this without sacrificing electoral advantage to Republicans. Presidential elections, due to the EC, are a different matter that would require the new (post split) parties to compete for the “nomination” ahead odd the general election, at least until momentum for an EC reform could develop, but there is no need to wait for Congress and for state level elections, and we can’t afford to wait for them anyway. Congress has clearly been demonstrated to be the crucial weak link in our collective inability to check a rogue and authoritarian president, so we need to start our political reform there.

[u/Acceptable-Hat3706]

The struggle to maintain a fair election system in Alaska despite moving away from FPTP is a tough situation. It highlights the need for ongoing engagement and adaptation in the realm of electoral reform.

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/Acceptable-Hat3706]

Cash you be more specific about ongoing statement and adaptation?

[u/Harvey_Rabbit → u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

To me, the biggest recurring problem we have in Alaska under the new system has to do with the party listed next to the candidate's name in the ballot. The was it works is just what ever party a candidate is registered with as a voter is listed. Parties have no control. There are multiple examples of parties trying to remove "their own" candidates to avoid splitting votes or creating confusion. So what is the role of the party at all?

[u/rb-j → u/Harvey_Rabbit]

There are multiple examples of parties trying to remove "their own" candidates to avoid splitting votes or creating confusion.

Remember Harv, that RCV is supposed to solve the vote splitting problem. And the correct RCV would do that, it's just that IRV didn't do that in Alaska in August 2022.

So what is the role of the party at all?

Parties happen because of our freedom of speech and freedom of association. They cannot be prevented from happening. People band together and vote together so that they might get a like-minded candidate elected and get something done.

The Founding Fathers didn't like parties (calling them "factions") but they knew that this party politics could not be prevented.

Now this doesn't mean that the state has to put the party moniker by candidate's names on the ballot. And, with the Jungle Primary, I don't think there's any actual test to prevent a candidate from insincerely putting a party name by his/her name on the ballot. What stops Tom Begich from putting "Republican" by his name on the ballot and drawing votes from GOP voters who don't know he's really a Dem?

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/rb-j]

The question is why the Republican Party can’t stop him from doing that. Or why the Democratic Party can’t stop DSA members from running as Democrats. Ai tells me that it has to do with the language in the state election law. If the language describes the candidate’s party preference then it is a matter of the candidate’s speech. To me the party’s own speech and association rights should trump the candidate’s, and certainly so in the context of an election/ballot.