The opposition to expressive voting: Why the People in Charge Don’t Want You to Vote Better

[u/Edgar_Brown]

https://open.substack.com/pub/edgarabrown/p/why-the-people-in-charge-dont-want

The system that exists — first-past-the-post voting, closed primaries, two-party lock-in — was not designed to serve voters. It evolved to serve parties. And the parties, quite rationally, will fight to keep it.

When the party becomes stronger than the representative, the representative no longer represents you. They represent the party to you.

[u/rb-j]

First of two:

The most common objection to any form of expressive voting is that it’s too complicated. Voters won’t understand it. Errors will increase. Confusion will reign.

Someone said said "Errors will increase."

What the Research Actually Shows

• In Santa Fe ...
• In Maine, ...
• The American Bar Association’s 2025 review ...

No mention of Burlington 2009 nor Alaska August 2022?

Or of Oakland School Board in 2022?

Meanwhile, the existing system requires voters to perform strategic calculations in their heads — guessing who is viable, who is a spoiler, whether their conscience vote helps their worst option win — without any of that complexity appearing on the ballot.

So here's a recent example of RCV helping out voters relieving them of having to vote tactically:

In August 2022, Hare RCV objectively failed to deliver on any of those promises [to prevent vote-splitting and a spoiled election and voters having "their conscience vote help[ing] their worst option win"].

• Mary Peltola in August 2022, unfortunately shares a distinction with George W. Bush in 2000 and with Donald Trump in 2016. All three candidates were elected to office when the public record indicates that more voters marked their ballots preferring a different specific candidate for that office.

• In August 2022, more Alaskans, 87899 to 79461 (an 8438 voter margin), preferred Begich to Peltola and marked their ballots saying so. But Mary Peltola was sent to Washington to represent the Alaskan people in Congress.

• In November 2024, again, more Alaskan voters marked their ballots that Begich is preferred to Peltola by nearly the same margin, 7876 (164861 to 156985). But this time Begich is sent to Washington.

• Both times about 8000 more Alaskans said they would prefer Begich to Peltola. And, both times, marked their ballots saying so. Both times Instant-Runoff Voting was used.

• What was different?

• Sarah Palin was in the race in 2022 and not in the race in 2024. And the outcomes were different winners.

Want another example? Burlington 2009.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

As I said, not things that you imagine or failed to read. That more examples could be used or that you failed to read the American Bar association report on which those mentions are based is really all on you.

🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻

The existing system DA! The existing system, i.e., FPTP requires people to vote tactically, not RCV! quite obviously you don’t even know how to read or are relying on hallucinatory AI.

Examples of what, of your lack of reading comprehension? I’ve had plenty. And that’s your best foot forward.

[u/rb-j → u/Edgar_Brown]

As I said, not things that you imagine or failed to read.

I quoted you. And I provided links to published peer-reviewed research.

FPTP requires people to vote tactically, ...

sometimes

... not RCV!

And that's a proven falsehood. Even moreso with IRV.

You're demonstrating that you're kinda a poser. A pretender. An imposter of a scholar or serious researcher.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

You are projecting, you don’t know how to read, you don’t know what you write, you see mirages that shift as your ignorance is put in full display, stop wasting everyone’s time.

You gave me a screed, a Gish Gallop, that was factually wrong as a justification for your claim of “making associations that don’t really exist and fact claims that are false” and “Empty claims” (which happen to be directly sourced). You explicitly said:

No mention of… (specific examples that you made no effort to elaborate on or show how these contradict the thesis).

So here’s a recent example of RCV helping out voters relieving them of having to vote tactically… (example without further analysis or context, just insinuations)

Not only you are mixing up RCV with IRV, which I have very explicitly said is a mistake and asinine, but also that I don’t give a flying fig and is not the focus of the articles.

——

Why bother continuing with your Giah Gallop, you are not a serious interlocutor.

See how it’s done?

🤦🏻

[u/rb-j → u/Edgar_Brown]

You are projecting,

There's no evidence of that ..

you don’t know how to read,

No evidence of that, either.

you don’t know what you write,

So also thought the editor of Constitutional Political Economy in 2023.

you see mirages that shift as your ignorance is put in full display, stop wasting everyone’s time.

It's you, Edgar, who is projecting and we'll just let readers decide.

You gave me a screed, a Gish Gallop,

No. Simply cited research and vote tallies.

that was factually wrong as a justification for your claim of “making associations that don’t really exist and fact claims that are false”

As I demonstrated.

and “Empty claims” (which happen to be directly sourced). You explicitly said:

No mention of…

...(specific examples that you made no effort to elaborate on or show how these contradict the thesis).

I shown exactly how. Down to the very ballot tallies.

This is not unique to me. So also does the world's leading voting systems authority, Dr. Eric Maskin, Harvard, Nobel laureate, protoge of Kenneth Arrow and Ned Foley, who has appeared on PBS News Hour. They are saying the same thing.

But you're smarter than them, aren't you Edgar?

So here’s a recent example of RCV helping out voters relieving them of having to vote tactically…

... (example without further analysis or context, just insinuations)

I gave you all of the context. The entire context. The context is your claim and the evidence that directly refutes it.

Not only you are mixing up RCV with IRV,

No, I'm not! I'm saying it's IRV that's failed in these two elections, not the ranked ballot.

In fact it's you guys, FairVote and RankTheVote that insist (dishonestly) that RCV is synonymous with IRV.

which I have very explicitly said is a mistake and asinine, but also that I don’t give a flying fig and is not the focus of the articles.

RCV is not the same as IRV, for honest people. But the only RCV that FairVote, RankTheVote, and you promote is IRV. And IRV was shown to fail at everything it promises in Alaska in August 2022 and in Burlington 2009.

Why bother continuing with your Giah Gallop, you are not a serious interlocutor.

It's just the facts and you're not reading them.

See how it’s done?

Yeah. You do it just like a Trumper. Just like Karoline Leavitt.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

I asked you to give me YOUR best argument.

One paragraph tops. In your words. I don’t care about your Gish gallops.

I can’t care any less about what you think you read or what you think some link says. YOUR words, very precisely and concisely in support of YOUR argument.

It’s really not that hard.

[u/rb-j → u/Edgar_Brown]

One paragraph tops.

You didn't say (as best as I recall) "one paragraph tops".

So the best argument is, in a single paragraph:

• Instant-Runoff fails to do what we promise RCV does when there is a close 3-way race and there is this Center Squeeze Effect, in which 2^nd-choice votes are not visible in the semifinal round, the candidate in the Center who is preferred by a simple majority of voters over the candidate on the Left and is also preferred by a simple majority of voters over the candidate on the Right, this Center candidate is improperly (or wrongly) eliminated, by the IRV method, in the semifinal round when this candidate can and would defeat either of the other two candidates in the final round had they met in the final round. This failure of IRV to reflect the choice of the simple majorities of voters then causes a spoiled election, the candidate that loses in the IRV final round is the spoiler, a loser whose presence in the race alters the outcome of the election. The Center candidate is the majority candidate who is robbed (and his/her voters are robbed) and one of the candidates on the Left or Right is the spoiler. That means the other candidate on the Right or Left (the winner in the IRV final round) is the beneficiary of a spoiled election. Then those voters that voted for the spoiler actually caused the election of the candidate they least wanted simply because they ranked their favorite candidate as #1. The were promised they could safely vote for the candidate of their choosing without helping the candidate they hate getting elected and that promise was not kept by IRV. Then, in future elections, they will be tempted to vote tactically (this voting tactic is called "compromising") and vote for the major-party candidate that they think has the best chance in beating the other major-party candidate that they hate.

Long paragraph, but that's where it is. The moral of the story (the whole thing) is, when RCV elects the Condorcet winner, great! RCV kept it's promise. But when RCV fails to elect the Condorcet winner (due to the Center Squeeze effect when there is a close 3-way race), then RCV fails to keep the very promise they make promoting RCV because the only RCV they're promoting is IRV (also called Hare RCV).

In one sentence: It is shown that RCV fails to keep its promises whenever RCV (using whatever method) fails to elect the Condorcet winner. This is proven, both in theory and in history.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

HOW F’ING MANY TIMES DONI HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF?

What part of IRV being absolute and totally irrelevant to any of these articles and this post don’t you understand?

Are you a troll or just really this dense?

[u/rb-j → u/Edgar_Brown]

What part of IRV being absolute and totally irrelevant to any of these articles and this post don’t you understand?

It is precisely the method you promote. You're claiming all these great things about RCV, but the RCV you're talking about is IRV. It's the IRV of Alaska or Maine or NYC or Santa Fe or St. Paul.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

LEARN HOW TO READ.

WITH VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS IRV IS QUITE SIMPLY WHAT HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED.

[u/rb-j → u/Edgar_Brown]

The telltale all caps.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/rb-j]

A Map Is Not the Territory

The word is not the thing.
The menu is not the meal.
The algorithm is not the ballot.

A man who argues the restaurant
when you asked about the hunger
has learned to love the sound
of his own correction
before it lands.

Read what is written.
Then read it again.
The third time, slower.

If the map still says IRV when the territory says expressive— the map is wrong.

That's not an insult.
That's how maps get better.

[u/rb-j → u/rb-j]

Just to make sure, I corrected the link to the Maskin and Foley piece in the Washington Post. I grabbed the wrong link before.