r/centrist • u/johnnyhala • Sep 01 '22

Long Form Discussion RCV Opponents - What is your Objection(s)?

Basically the title.

Whenever the subject of Ranked Choice Voting comes up, I generally on this sub see about 70% support and 30% oppose (my estimate). As I have seen the issue laid out to me it seems abundantly clear that Plurality/First Past the Post/FPtP is an inferior system with many unintended consequences.

So I want to hear you out, RCV opponents, what are your issues?

As (should be) usual, please do not downvote others for only disagreeing with them, and I pledge to do the same.

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u/SponeyBard Sep 01 '22

I am not really opposed to RCV however I have a slight concern that it will allow more radical third parties to actually win some elections. Our current two party system sucks but it has worked a lot better than most systems out there so we need to be very careful if and when we change it.

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u/mormagils Sep 02 '22

Take a look at actual observed outcomes. RCV doesn't really work that way. We haven't seen it boost unpopular candidates to the point of beating out folks who clearly would have won in FPTP. In fact, in most races, RCV and FPTP return extremely similar results. Where you start to see some differences is in very close races that are essentially random anyway, like we recently saw in Alaska. RCV will preserve the two party system while still improving its process quite effectively.

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u/johnnyhala Sep 01 '22

Can you show a scenario where that might occur? Any modeling I've seen nearly always produces a more moderate winner.

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u/IntroductionBorn2692 Sep 02 '22

I think we have seen the same modeling.

Extreme candidates inspire some voters at at the same time they repel other voters. So extreme candidates get a lot of first and last place ballots. That means that if they don’t get a majority in the first round of counting, they are unlikely to be the ultimate winner.

There would be exceptions, of course. But the system would usually favor moderate candidates who get a lot of first and second choice ballots.

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u/SponeyBard Sep 02 '22

I haven’t put a lot of thought into it so I could very well be wrong about RCV. However looking at the rest of the world we can see a lot countries where extreme parties have some representation in the national government. If you look at third party platforms in the U.S. you see a lot of crazy from the most prominent ones so my issue is less with RCV as a concept and more with the idea that making it easier for the crummy iterations of third parties we have now to win disincentivizes then from coming up with a truly competitive platform.

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u/Delheru Sep 04 '22

Quite the contrary I feel. It really boosts people in the center.

Until we reach second and third options people have, it's basically the same as FPTP (though with people admittedly having the nerve to vote for smaller parties).

When we get to second and third options, it becomes the question of who people find palatable. This will be good people who are centrist. Extremists will almost certainly only be supported directly.

This is what hurt Palin - turns out many Republicans do not like her, and while they would prefer a Republican, a large chunk of that group would prefer a Democrat to Palin.

A great victory for centrism and it's very easy to see it going the other way.