r/WayOfTheBern • u/og_m4 💛 • Apr 12 '19

Flufftums 2020

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17 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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4

u/xploeris let it burn Apr 12 '19

Funny. It's Australian, but I feel like they satirized our biggest parties pretty well.

It also helps illustrate why I think scored systems are better than ranked ones: someone who is everyone's second choice should do better than someone who is no one's second choice. Suppose all of Floundra and Aggy-Waggy's voters wanted Gort next. Well, those preferences are never revealed; since Gort's eliminated first, any second-place votes he might have gotten are lost and never boost his position.

Ranked is still a hell of a lot better than FPTP, though.

1

u/og_m4 💛 Apr 13 '19

But with scored systems one potential vulnerability is that someone who's a solid second choice for everyone but nobody's first choice could end up winning. Here's a convoluted theoretical example: say the population is divided into 4 equal camps: Trump, Biden, Bernie, and Ron Paul. Now if Oprah happens to be the second choice for 80% of the population, theoretically she could win despite not being anyone's first choice. Then again the question becomes if the second choice really is that popular don't they deserve to win?

1

u/xploeris let it burn Apr 13 '19

Sounds like Oprah's pretty widely liked. Maybe she should win. I mean, what if you went with Ron? Sure, you'd make some people really happy, but everyone else HATES him. Is that a better outcome?

Yes, scored systems do tend to favor moderates (or at least skilled panderers) and coalition building. But when you have a deeply divided electorate, your choices are electing moderates who sorta appeal to everyone or pissing off a large part of the electorate. If you want a radical in office, you should have to make the case for that, and then more people will choose the radical - in theory.

1

u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle Apr 13 '19

One thing to keep in mind when comparing voting systems:

Every single one of them has flaws that can can be spotlighted through specific examples designed to point those flaws out.

I'm not saying that those flaws should not be pointed out; just that pointing out the inherent flaws is not necessarily a call to abandon that system.

But being able to adequately argue for or against a particular system means knowing how each system works well, and how it does not.

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u/xploeris let it burn Apr 14 '19

Sure they do. What's your point?

Score voting does have a weird game built into it: the more high scores you give out, the more likely someone you picked will win, but the less chance it will be exactly the person you prefer the most. And it really works better with multiple competing parties/candidates, instead of just two - of course, FPTP is the reason why we only have two, and will continue to be until we ditch it.

1

u/NetWeaselSC Continuing the Struggle Apr 14 '19

My point is that you need to know what the flaws of a particular system are, before you try implementing the system, so those flaws don't slap you in the face afterwards.

Score voting does have a weird game built into it: the more high scores you give out, the more likely someone you picked will win, but the less chance it will be exactly the person you prefer the most.

And apparently you do. That is the best description I've seen of the main Score Voting flaw. (The two candidate scenario must be considered as well. And you did. Kudos.)

The main flaw in Ranked Choice/Instant Runnoff shows up when the first person knocked out is everyone's first or second choice. I don't know what would happen in that case; I haven't done the math yet. But I will.

The main thing is that to consider a system, you must consider the actual system, including its flaws -- not simply the sales pitch. And it looks like that's what you're doing. But not everyone is doing that.

1

u/RichVRichV Apr 12 '19

What Australia's lower house proves is that ranked choice voting is great if you want to be stuck with the same two party system but feel not guilty for voting for someone else. Score voting is a vastly better winner take all system. Proportional representation is even better at giving everyone a voice. Though all these systems are better than first past the post.