Maine’s pioneering ranked-choice election likely to catch on nationally - Polidicks

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/11/18/maines-pioneering-ranked-choice-election-likely-to-catch-on-nationally/ But election reform experts say the legal drama will likely be overshadowed by the technical success of the process. Few ballots were spoiled by voter errors – less than 0.2 percent of them – and more than two-thirds of voters who chose one of the independents in the first round recorded a second-round choice for Golden or Poliquin. According from @Mighty AU , This is supposedly non-issue in statewide election. However...

Saw this earlier today, and I agree 100%. This was always the point behind RCV: to set a national example. I think the only thing most of us found surprising was how quickly it sprang into effect. Voters in the second congressional district clearly favored Golden (by a 9-to-1 majority) but because of RCV they were able to take a chance on third-party candidates without spoiling the election—"vote your hopes, not your fears" as Diane Russell would say. The fact that both Golden and Poliquin came up just shy of 50%, and the fact that Golden then shot ahead in the second round, is a resounding blow to Republicans who for decades have eked by on divisive platforms and dirty tricks. Hopefully with RCV we can put an end to this era of split-vote races—in Maine as well as in the nation as a whole. On a more instructive note: Do not underestimate your own ability to create change. Without the dozen or so volunteers who relentlessly canvassed in Lewiston, the race might not have gone to a runoff. Poliquin could have squeaked by with 50.1% of the vote, Golden, would have faded into obscurity, and thousands of Democrats who put their hopes in RCV might have gone home disappointed. Instead, we're celebrating and making national headlines. For the love of God, get involved. Organize, vote, go to protests, donate to good causes. You can make a difference.

We use it across the entire nation, actually. Our federal elections are ranked choice.

Well it is an improvement from FPTP, but hopefully people won’t worship it as something that it’s not. Eg AV/IRV/RCV (or whatever you want to call it) does not make it any easier for independents or third parties to win elections - that’s both in theory and in practice. It also does not resolve other issues such as gerrymandering. The only thing that it does better than FPTP is it can weaken the spoiler effect, while creating new problems such as the potential to violate voter secrecy. But mostly I don’t advocate for AV/IRV/RCV in the US as it’s only a half-baked reform. Other reform such as list-proportional voting or even legislatures appointed by sortition would allow for more-meaningful change.

If it happens in the US, it's probably gonna catch on in Canada as well.

It will almost certainly catch on in Canada before it catches on in the US.

Nobody believes that any form of ranked choice voting is the silver bullet to solving two party systems. But having more than two significant parties is basically impossible under first past the post. RCV isn't sufficient to solve the clusterfuck that is the American electoral system, but it is necessary if you want to achieve that goal.

RCV, scouring methods of voter suppression, and making voting accessible as well as stress free for everyone are great first steps towards making a country that isn't awful for the majority of the population. It helps set up a structure for holding those in power accountable. No doubt that much more must be done, but they're great for building a true stewardship that a government should exist as.

I get it, that RCV/IRV/AV isn't better voting system, but this only non-plural voting system (besides Nonpartisan blanket primary as oddly semi-functional Open primary electoral system and Approval voting is begin successfully get city in North Dakota to adopted it) that has now slowly growing momentum with Independents, Third Party and now some Democratic voters for few very good reasons.

Personally I think the STV (single transferable vote) would work best for the US. It probably conflicts least with the US' archaic voting districts system than any other voting system.

Sadly, theirs only one voting reform organization Fair Vote and Bill H.R.3057 as under "Fair Representation" voting is tried making this happen but so far not such luck yet.

IDK how it doesn't "help" independents. Instead of voting for the independent party being a spoiler vote, pointless, and a near "throwing away of your vote", RCV at least makes it so that voting for the independent doesn't have all those drawbacks. You could vote the independent for your first, and your preferred main party second, and I think that would be a very common strategy.

Under FPTP, an independent can win merely be having more votes than any other candidate. Eg you could have a Repub with 33% of vote, a Dem with 31% of vote and an Independent with 36% of vote, and the Independent would win. Under IRV, a candidate needs >50% of the vote to win. Assuming the previous paragraph votes were first preferences, the Dem candidate would be eliminated, and the second preferences of their votes redistributed. Those preferences could flow to either the Repub or Independent, and the Independent isn’t guaranteed to receive enough to get over the line; there’s a potential for the Republican to win that race. IRV allows for independents to exist, and occasionally win. But as shown in practice in Australia, a strong two-party system (Labor v Coalition) exists in the lower houses of the federal parliament and state parliaments, because of (rather than despite of) IRV being used.

But only if they participated their Party's primaries and either win or lost. Then they will announced running as Independent in their will to explain why they have higher percent than other two parties and easily won. It depends if negative campaigning and fearmongering against non-Two party candidates still plays in election and tell them to not voting them even IRV is designed to delayed it by now giving us time to research them and their issues. Well, Nearly no because they modified the system and STV with "Two-Party prefer" method to make sure they keep in power.

It is true that Australian Senate and state upper house elections are run according to STV. And STV does allow for third parties and independents to be elected. But not because STV is a ranked voting method; rather, because STV is a multi-member electoral method like list-proportional. All single-member methods like FPTP or IRV will always lead to two-party systems, whereas multi-member systems tend to allow for third parties. The ‘two-party preferred’ isn’t a voting method. I believe I’ve actually discussed this with you before. ‘Two-party preferred’, in the context of AV/IRV/RCV, is a statistical tool for explaining which remaining two candidates benefit from the flow of preferences from eliminated candidates. And because third parties and independents are almost always the first candidates to be eliminated in Australian lower house elections, the parties that benefit from the flow of preferences are almost always the two major parties - Labor and the Liberals/Nationals.

Yes but It only depends what type of government and democracies can make their electoral systems to be semi or permanent two-party systems. I know that but still doesn't fully help sadly for your political culture of still have reason why spoiler effect is still mostly didn't go away in Australian politics even for excitedly century of replace FPTP to IRV for House of Rep. and later STV in Senate of still having designed rigged electoral tool.