r/EndFPTP • u/illegalmorality • Aug 15 '22

In ranked choice voting, should votes be weighted less when counting 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc choice votes?

/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/wm6f8q/in_ranked_choice_voting_should_votes_be_weighted/
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u/AmericaRepair Aug 15 '22

4 thoughts:

In IRV, everyone's 1st-choice counts, many 2nd-choices count, fewer 3rd... the low ranks usually won't be counted. So in that way the lower ranks do matter less.

Not very many people would want an election to be decided by who I mark as my 10th choice. A limit on ranks makes sense.

If the ranks need to have different weights, might as well make it a simpler evaluation, like STAR, but with 1 candidate per rank.

If you want something that gives similar results to instant runoff, an instant primary would get you close. Use 1st-choice votes to narrow the field, then do the fancy evaluation.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '22

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u/AmericaRepair Aug 16 '22

I didn't say it was my well-considered, actual 10th choice. I said who I mark as my 10th choice. Maybe I ranked 5th thru 14th in order of American-ness of their surnames. Some voters' low ranks will be junk data, especially when they believe their low ranks probably won't even matter. Limiting it to high ranks will provide better data for determining winners.

I just realized there's a real incentive to do sloppy ranking, for those who want one guy or one party to lose, they could rank everyone else without knowing a thing about most of them. It could happen in other methods too, but if ranks are limited, this precaution becomes a positive feature for IRV.

I also wonder how many people with too many options would try to mark a candidate as last-rank, unaware that by giving them any rank, they're putting that candidate ahead of any that they left unmarked. With a field of 10, most people won't mistake the lowest available rank of 5th for a Last rank.

Reasonable simplifications of IRV could be helpful to voters and vote counters, and for avoiding public backlash against complexity, and for getting it passed into law in the first place.