• Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Voters: We need to break the two-party, FPTP system.

    Progressives: Ok, so how about ranked choice voting?

    Voters: Not like that! <rushes to polls to enshrine FPTP >

    Voters, later: Why doesn’t anything ever change?

    Nothing ever changes because the vast majority of the American public doesn’t actually want it to change. The 2024 election is proof of that. People don’t want change. They want something to complain about.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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    1 month ago

    “And though it lost in Oregon, she pointed out that the measure had majority support in jurisdictions that currently use ranked choice voting, such as Multnomah (home to Portland) and Benton counties.”

    Problem: In Portland, yes, a majority of voters did vote for the state wide ranked choice ballot measure… but 20% of voters completely SKIPPED the ranked choice races for Mayor and City Council.

    https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/11/portlands-ranked-choice-debut-causes-voter-engagement-to-crater-1-in-5-who-cast-ballots-chose-no-one-for-city-council.html

    They had an option of ranking their top 6 choices and did not choose any.

    • synae[he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      That seems like a indictment of the candidates, not RCV.

      No single election outcome should be used as counter-argument to RCV as a whole.

    • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      If they genuinely don’t have a preference, is it a bad thing if they refrain from effectively voting at random?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        1 month ago

        For one person? No. For 1/5th of the voting population? It’s a travesty.

        Especially in the city council race…

        These are photos of my ballot, I live in District 1. District 1 has NEVER had representation on the city council before.

        This is why we voted to change the system of government, the city now has 4 districts, each district gets 3 councilmen.

        Voters had a chance to rank their top 6 choices to elect 3 people per district and 20% of voters went “Nah!”

        • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          My city (Oakland) has ranked-choice voting for mayor and city council, and (as far as I’m aware) doesn’t have a similar issue with under-voting.

          Was there another factor besides the number of candidates on the ballot (e.g., no candidate statements in voter guides, or an ad campaign against ranked voting)?

          • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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            1 month ago

            Could be a combination of first time with ranked choice and too many candidates. Somebody is going to earn a degree doing the analysis here.

            • Zak@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              It’s almost certainly the number of candidates. On the other hand, top three out of a much smaller number doesn’t present voters with a lot of choice.

            • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              If it’s really just a matter of too many candidates, could they increase the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot?

              • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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                1 month ago

                It was less the number of signatures and more that this is the very first election for a new system of government, it drew out a TON of people.

                Previously, we had a mayor and 5 city councilmen. Each elected city wide in a typical first past the post election.

                Now we have a mayor elected citywide in a ranked choice, choose 6 election, who hires a city manager to run the different bureaus.

                Then the city is split into 4 districts, each electing 3 councilmen in a rank 6 ballot.

                So the city council is going from 5 to 12 and each district is guaranteed representation where often not only was it not guaranteed, there WAS no representation.

                All in all, between the mayor and the council seats, 119 people were running.

    • credo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      That’s too many positions to research for just one race. Five to six would probably be about the right amount of candidates for a single seat RCV.

      I think [open] primaries still have a place to help weed out the field and narrow in on specific candidates.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        1 month ago

        Fortunately, the research wasn’t that hard because it’s super easy to eliminate the looney tunes candidates.

        Ex. this guy:

        Still, stunning how many first round votes he got…

        p.s. “Michael Necula”? Mike Neck? Spot the vampire running for office!

            • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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              1 month ago

              In this case, the ranked choice voting is supposed to serve as an instant primary.

              I guess you could run a 16 candidate primary and narrow it down to the top 6 for a rank 6 general election, but you’d still have the same problem, you’d just be adding a 2nd election.

    • aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 month ago

      This is why approval voting is my preference: easy to vote, easy to count, and still works if ths voter doesn’t know a thing about it and just marks one candidate