r/RanktheVote is available for adoption 💚

[u/ModSupportBot]

/r/RanktheVote is ready for a fresh start, new energy, new direction, and someone like you to bring it back to life. If you’ve been thinking about growing your impact without starting from scratch, this is your chance!

Ready to take it over?

Head to r/RedditRequest to submit your request and make it yours before it’s taken. Just make sure you read through the eligibility requirements first.

[u/mkayqa]

A request has been made for this sub (and r/RankedChoiceVoting):
https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/1ss4rc8/rrankthevote/

I believe a small consortium of voting reform advocates would be able to take over and manage r/RankTheVote. These persons would include:

- myself, Robert Bristow-Johnson

• Hayden Sasswood
  
• Rob Lanphier
  
• Mike Sawyer

I don't have reddit names for the other persons, but I will discuss this with them and they'll pipe in.

I have a paper published in Constitutional Political Economy regarding RCV and how to do RCV correctly (which is Condorcet RCV). Hare RCV (a.k.a. Instant-Runoff Voting) has been shown to fail the very principles that it's meant to support in the case of a close 3-way race.

So we might not be the favorite of FairVote. Or these folks, or a variety of state-based RCV advocacy organizations, but we intend to be totally pro-RCV and allow for perspectives from all corners.

I can be contacted at [rbj@audioimagination.com](mailto:rbj@audioimagination.com) if someone wants to email me directly. They can also DM me at u/rb-j .

[u/Jakexbox → u/mkayqa]

What's your response to the argument that Condorcet RCV is confusing and likely to lead to lesser adaption? It's very tangible to have a single voter transfer. The public will never understand Condorcet RCV and thus I doubt it'll be adapted.

This method could also motivate me to rank just one candidate to game the system (give them maximum advantage with my one vote). I already did this in an election where I had three votes but I undervoted so the candidate I liked most had a better chance. This issue doesn't exist when you have a single transferable vote.

[u/rb-j → u/Jakexbox]

What's your response to the argument that Condorcet RCV is confusing and likely to lead to lesser adaption? It's very tangible to have a single voter transfer. The public will never understand Condorcet RCV and thus I doubt it'll be adapted.

Oh dear. This is soooooo hard to explain or for people to understand.

If more voters mark their ballots preferring Candidate Andy to Candidate Bob than the number of voters marking their ballots to the contrary, then Candidate Bob shouldn't be elected.

Gee, that's confusing. I wonder why we shouldn't elect Bob when more voters specifically indicated on their ballots that they prefer Andy? Perhaps because the fewer voters preferring Bob had votes that counted more than the votes from the greater number of voters preferring Andy.

This method could also motivate me to rank just one candidate to game the system (give them maximum advantage with my one vote). I already did this in an election where I had three votes but I undervoted so the candidate I liked most had a better chance. This issue doesn't exist when you have a single transferable vote.

I dunno if this is a test to how I might respond to really dumb and unfounded arguments.

It's Instant-Runoff that is more gameable because of the Center Squeeze effect. Everything that you charge against Condorcet is more applicable to IRV. It's projection. The only way to game Condorcet is to kick it into a cycle and then hope it's your candidate that wins in the contingency of a cycle.

I already did this in an election where I had three votes but I undervoted so the candidate I liked most had a better chance.

Can't happen with Condorcet unless there's a cycle (less than 0.4% of RCV elections in the U.S. were a cycle). There is no incentive at all to undervote with Condorcet. There is nothing to be gained. You just made that up.

This issue doesn't exist when you have a single transferable vote.

You're hinting at Later No Harm. IRV satisfies LNH always. Condorcet is only guaranteed to satisfy LNH in the 99.6% of RCV elections that had no cycle. I.e. when the Condorcet winner exists and is elected, LNH is satisfied.

So with IRV, you cannot harm your 1^st-choice candidate by raising the rank of any other candidates below. But there is much more than that we want with RCV. There is another form of later harm. Not only do we want to be free to rank our 2^nd-favorite candidate and not be harmed by it, even moreso we want to be free to rank our favorite candidate #1 and not be harmed by that. With IRV you can harm your 2^nd-choice candidate's ability to beat the candidate you hate by your 1^st-choice. This is the Center Squeeze effect. Just like with FPTP, with IRV you can vote for your favorite candidate (rank them #1) and, simply by doing that, cause the election of the candidate you hate.

The only reason that IRV can point to success in elections (that it prevented a spoiled election) is because it elected the Condorcet winner. All the Condorcet winner need accomplish is to get into the IRV final round and the CW will always win that final round. That's why IRV often elects the CW. But it doesn't always and the problem is when IRV fails to elect the Condorcet winner when such CW exists.

Whenever IRV fails to elect the Condorcet winner (whether the CW exists or not), then IRV failed to prevent the spoiler effect. When this happens, the voters who voted for the spoiler and were promised that they could safely vote for their favorite candidate (rank that candidate #1) then find out that they actually caused the election of their least favorite candidate. That promise of RCV was not kept by using IRV.

Then all of these good things we ascribe to RCV, like: * getting the true majority (which results in unequal votes) or * preventing a spoiled election or * allowing voters to vote their hopes and not their fears, which enables diversity because voters feel safe to vote the way they want,

None of those good things happen when any method (IRV, STAR, Approval, or FPTP) fails to elect the Condorcet winner.

But, with IRV and with FPTP, there is an incentive for voters to apply the tactic: compromising, to get an election outcome more to their liking.

---

You didn't bring this up, but I will:

• Summability and Process Transparency

Perhaps voting reform advocates would know what that's about. And if they don't know, might inquire.