Maine adopts instant runoff voting - Polidicks

A bit of good news to alleviate the gloom. [quote]Maine residents have approved a ballot question that will allow voters to rank their choice of candidates.Under the election overhaul, ballots are counted at the state level in multiple rounds. Last-place candidates are eliminated until a candidate wins by a majority. The voting style will apply to races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, state Senate and state House.[/quote] [url]http://mainepublic.org/post/maine-passes-ranked-choice-voting#stream/0[/url] Hopefully the start of things to come.

Considering Lepage inspired this maybe Trump will inspire the whole U.S. to adopt it [sp]a man can dream[/sp]

What's the difference between this and preferential voting?

[QUOTE=Humin;51343836]What's the difference between this and preferential voting?[/QUOTE] [quote]Instant-runoff voting (IRV), also known as the alternative vote (AV), transferable vote, (single-seat) ranked-choice voting (RCV), or preferential voting[/quote] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting[/url]

Wow, I didn't think I'd ever say this but way to go Maine.

[QUOTE=Humin;51343836]What's the difference between this and preferential voting?[/QUOTE] Basically you list the candidates you prefer in order. If your favorite candidate loses, your vote goes to your second best. If your second best loses, your vote goes to your third best. This continues on with every vote until a majority winner is declared.

[QUOTE=Paramud;51343955]Basically you list the candidates you prefer in order. If your favorite candidate loses, your vote goes to your second best. If your second best loses, your vote goes to your third best. This continues on with every vote until a majority winner is declared.[/QUOTE] sounds like a most reasonable voting system perhaps nice enough to give third parties more of a chance

[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;51343964]sounds like a most reasonable voting system perhaps nice enough to give third parties more of a chance[/QUOTE] It's much better than first pass the post but not perfect.

[QUOTE=Paramud;51343992]It's much better than first pass the post but not perfect.[/QUOTE] I didn't like perfection anyway!

[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;51343964]sounds like a most reasonable voting system perhaps nice enough to give third parties more of a chance[/QUOTE] Not much of a chance actually, it still tends towards only a couple major choices. But it does mean you can vote confidently for a third party since your vote will just be transferred. My preferred system for national politics is what germany does, where 2/3rd of the parliament is formed because you vote directly for a party. And then 1/3rd is formed from direct votes for local candidates which unfortunately isn't done with runoff voting IIRC. But it's still pretty good. They have that local vote so that you still have a local candidate you can reach out to, and who can represent your area specifically. The main caveats are is that it is pretty complicated. And a very debateable part is that if a party doesn't get 5% of the vote, they don't get any seats. The argument for this is that it'll prevents huge amounts of fragmentation, and keep very extreme fringe parties out e.g. literal nazis, and that because of that it's a worthwhile cost. Obviously the opposition thinks its undemocratic.

This needs to be nationwide. I'm not overly fond of candidates like Stein or Johnson but people should feel like they can vote for them without risking splitting the vote.

[QUOTE=Raidyr;51344209]This needs to be nationwide. I'm not overly fond of candidates like Stein or Johnson but people should feel like they can vote for them without risking splitting the vote.[/QUOTE] As well, they should be able to vote for them without actually splitting the vote. If third party voters had gone to other candidates, we could've been looking at an extremely different outcome.

[QUOTE=Paramud;51344219]As well, they should be able to vote for them without actually splitting the vote. If third party voters had gone to other candidates, we could've been looking at an extremely different outcome.[/QUOTE]Maybe, I switched to McMullin last minute, so it would be him, Johnson, Stein, in that order. I wouldn't have voted for either main candidate, I truly hate Trump and Clinton and I believe a lot of us in that 4.7% who voted otherwise feel the same. This election was a mess, I hope we can get a different voting system nationwide.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;51344042]Not much of a chance actually, it still tends towards only a couple major choices. But it does mean you can vote confidently for a third party since your vote will just be transferred. My preferred system for national politics is what germany does, where 2/3rd of the parliament is formed because you vote directly for a party. And then 1/3rd is formed from direct votes for local candidates which unfortunately isn't done with runoff voting IIRC. But it's still pretty good. They have that local vote so that you still have a local candidate you can reach out to, and who can represent your area specifically. The main caveats are is that it is pretty complicated. And a very debateable part is that if a party doesn't get 5% of the vote, they don't get any seats. The argument for this is that it'll prevents huge amounts of fragmentation, and keep very extreme fringe parties out e.g. literal nazis, and that because of that it's a worthwhile cost. Obviously the opposition thinks its undemocratic.[/QUOTE] This isn't quite accurate, actually. Previously we would assign the seat number to parties based on the proportion and then fill/overfill with direct mandates and let the parties decide any unassigned seats they have left. The EU somewhat recently (justly) decided that the overhang mandates skewed the results too much (after some parties started to exploit the system through vote splitting), so now we we start with the direct mandates and then fill in seats until the right proportion of parties is reached (which means the number of seats is actually [I]really[/I] variable now :v:). Personally, I really like the system but I do agree it would be a lot better if we had runoff voting whereever we have cut-offs right now. It's probably most important for the 5% hurdle for parliament on the larger scale, but it would be nice to see it for the local representatives too. How majors are voted for isn't federally legislated, so it really depends on the specific part of the country you're in. In some places we have runoff polls, in other places (e.g. Berlin) they're elected indirectly through parliament.

This is also with the states agreeing to tie eachothers electoral points to the popular vote instead of the district votes.

Isn't Maine conservative by northeast standards? This is surprising but I welcome it.

[QUOTE=LtKyle2;51345098]Isn't Maine conservative by northeast standards? This is surprising but I welcome it.[/QUOTE] From the perspective of someone whos only been here for 2 years at college, it's kind of weird. Mostly the coastal/city areas are pretty liberal and inland is more conservative, but also far less populated. However there is a pretty strong amount of independents on both sides of the spectrum as well as short term limits so you see a lot more cooperation than the nation as a whole what started this movement was 2 back to back elections where Lepage (who is basically Trump jr.) won due to a third party spoiler, only getting 37% and 48% of the vote each time

[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;51343964]sounds like a most reasonable voting system perhaps nice enough to give third parties more of a chance[/QUOTE] Not exactly. In IRV, which candidate is eliminated from the count first? That's right, the candidate with the least votes; usually a minor party candidate. Next candidate to be eliminated? Usually also a minor party candidate. Who are the last two candidates left? Major party candidates. The only purpose of IRV is to prevent vote splitting, which is exactly why Australia has IRV; because the government of the day lost a crucial by-election thanks to FPTP, so they implemented IRV to stop minor parties from 'ruining' elections. And as you might notice, a hundred years after that reform was made, Australia has a two-party system. [quote=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_by-election,_1918]The 1918 Swan by-election was a by-election for the Division of Swan in the Australian House of Representatives, following the death of the sitting member Sir John Forrest. Held on 26 October 1918, the by-election led to the election of the youngest person to be elected until 2010 to the Parliament of Australia, Edwin Corboy. [b]It saw the conservative vote split between the Country Party and the Nationalist Party, which directly prompted the introduction of preferential voting in Australia.[/b] ... Shocked by the loss of a safe Nationalist seat to Labor, the Nationalist government was moved to initiate electoral reform and change the voting system to preferential voting (also known outside Australia as instant-runoff voting) as part of a rewrite of the electoral legislation, with the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.[6] While preferential voting had already been introduced at the state level in Western Australia (1907) and Victoria (1911) and had been considered at the federal level by Sir Joseph Cook's government (1913–1914), [b]it was only the "considerations of partisan advantage [and not] the finer points of electoral theory" that provided the impetus for the change.[/b][7][/quote]

[QUOTE=LtKyle2;51345098]Isn't Maine conservative by northeast standards? This is surprising but I welcome it.[/QUOTE] Not necessarily. The further you get from the coast the more conservative it gets, but it's also still less conservative than New Hampshire. I'm proud to say I voted for this and I hope it proves to be good enough that it's nationally adopted.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;51345017]This isn't quite accurate, actually. Previously we would assign the seat number to parties based on the proportion and then fill/overfill with direct mandates and let the parties decide any unassigned seats they have left. The EU somewhat recently (justly) decided that the overhang mandates skewed the results too much (after some parties started to exploit the system through vote splitting), so now we we start with the direct mandates and then fill in seats until the right proportion of parties is reached (which means the number of seats is actually [I]really[/I] variable now :v:). Personally, I really like the system but I do agree it would be a lot better if we had runoff voting whereever we have cut-offs right now. It's probably most important for the 5% hurdle for parliament on the larger scale, but it would be nice to see it for the local representatives too. How majors are voted for isn't federally legislated, so it really depends on the specific part of the country you're in. In some places we have runoff polls, in other places (e.g. Berlin) they're elected indirectly through parliament.[/QUOTE] We can at least agree that the thing I was perfectly accurate about was how complex it is Good thing if I ever resumed my plans to go live there I wouldn't have to think about it /S [sp]because if you actually wanna become a citizen, it's gonna take awhile :)[/sp]

[QUOTE=Paramud;51344219]As well, they should be able to vote for them without actually splitting the vote. If third party voters had gone to other candidates, we could've been looking at an extremely different outcome.[/QUOTE] If this was implemented on a national level sanders likely would have run as a third party.

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;51345305]We can at least agree that the thing I was perfectly accurate about was how complex it is Good thing if I ever resumed my plans to go live there I wouldn't have to think about it /S [sp]because if you actually wanna become a citizen, it's gonna take awhile :)[/sp][/QUOTE] To the voters it's pretty much the same complexity as in the US now, except that there's a second vote you give to a party directly where you can (usually) be confident it won't be thrown away.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;51346582]To the voters it's pretty much the same complexity as in the US now, except that there's a second vote you give to a party directly where you can (usually) be confident it won't be thrown away.[/QUOTE] yah but im a nerd [QUOTE=Mattk50;51345476]If this was implemented on a national level sanders likely would have run as a third party.[/QUOTE] I don't even know if he would have in that case. Not trying to get the democrat ticket would pretty much have made him irrelevant, even with runoff voting. There's also the concern for him if, say, he ran as a democrat and lost the primary but kept going as a third party that he'd still hurt Clinton with his criticisms. That's one of the arguments people use to say that Ross Perot cost George H.W. Bush his reelection, it's not that Ross Perot voters were mostly stolen from Bush, they came pretty equally from both, but it's that Ross Perot could get downright vicious about Bush and say things that Bill Clinton really couldn't without bringing the glass house down.

[QUOTE=Paramud;51343955]Basically you list the candidates you prefer in order. If your favorite candidate loses, your vote goes to your second best. If your second best loses, your vote goes to your third best. This continues on with every vote until a majority winner is declared.[/QUOTE] tbh I hope that the entire US is ran this way, with no EC but maybe that's hopeful thinking that and have mandatory voting maybe

[QUOTE=Mattk50;51345476]If this was implemented on a national level sanders likely would have run as a third party.[/QUOTE] More than likely not. The whole theory behind IRV is reasonable, but in America it would run the real risk of widespread bullet voting (where voters only rank one candidate), because many voters would probably be confused about how the new voting system works. When that happens, the spoiler effect of FPTP comes back into play. The 2009 Burlington mayoral election in the US, which used IRV, saw 16.5% of votes being cast as bullet votes. That's not an insignificant number. In the few partial-preferential elections that happen in Australia under IRV, rates of bullet voting go as high as 75%. That's why in most IRV elections here (full-preferential elections), they throw your ballot paper out if you don't rank every candidate. The US could implement full-preferential voting like in Australia, but upon changing from FPTP to that, it would be a disaster waiting to happen. So no, Bernie wouldn't have run third party. He's smart, he would have known the risk.