What alternative voting system would be best?
Posted by Dodaddydont@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 55 comments
[removed]
Posted by Dodaddydont@reddit | Libertarian | View on Reddit | 55 comments
[removed]
NichS144@reddit
Abolish the state?
ItShouldntBe06@reddit
Ranked Choice Voting seems to be the “best” system.
GildSkiss@reddit
It's definitely not the "best", but for whatever reason it is the best known of alternative voting systems, and for that reason it's worth advocating for.
AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit
Nah, MMP is way better.
Somhairle77@reddit
I just read the MMP article on Wikipedia, and I'm rather confused about how it works. (It would probably help if I could see a sample ballot.) One question i didn't see even a ghost of an anger for is: How is it decided what parties and candidates can even be on the ballot?
AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
ChrisWayg@reddit
Are you sure? We have MMP in Germany and have had some kind left leaning Uniparty coalition in power for decades. We have one alternative party, but it has a strong "extreme" right-wing (with authoritarian tendencies), while being mostly conservative, with a small libertarian wing. There are no real libertarian parties that have any kind of influence.
Any examples where this works well? New Zealand was very authoritarian during the pandemic, for example.
AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit
Yes, ranked choice is effectively FPTP with automatic run-offs. It's not really better.
As for no libertarian parties, that's a result of the voters. Democracy and Liberty are not the same thing. Democracy can, and often is, incredibly authoritarian.
The problem is that libertarianism isnt popular. Personal freedom sounds great until you tell people it means personal responsibility and not telling other people how to live.
Democracy is a reason why libertarianism doesn't have wider support. Imagine two candidates, candidate A says "I'm not gonna do much. I'll mostly stay out of the way and you can succeed or fail on your own". Candidate B says "I'll make everyone's life better by giving everyone free stuff and to pay for it we're going to make pay for it!"
Who do you think will get more votes?
denzien@reddit
It's a step up from FPTP, but it has a major flaw - a candidate that everyone likes second best will be eliminated early even though it's someone everyone approves of.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Does that address proportionality? Like if a a party get 10% of the vote would they get 10% of the representatives?
Kur0d4@reddit
Ranked choice is kinda first past the post + and still trends toward duopoly.
denzien@reddit
Approval voting is favored by the LP, last I checked. Ranked Choice is better than nothing, but sometimes disadvantages the minority candidate if they are broadly liked.
GildSkiss@reddit
I like approval voting because it has the lowest barrier to entry.
It's not the "best" voting system, but it would be extremely easy to implement, and there are hardly any downsides compared to our current system.
Kur0d4@reddit
Based on what your criteria, your looking for proportional representation or mixed member proportional representation.
Personally I would prefer STAR voting which attempted to blend a cardinal voting systems and ordinal voting systems. The way it works is you score candidates from 0 (worst) to 5 (best). The scores are added up and the two candidates with the highest scores are selected as finalists for an automatic run off. In the run off, the two finalists are compared, which ever one has the higher score on your ballot gets your vote (equally scored candidates cancel out and do not contribute to the vote count). The finalist with the most votes wins.
I like it better than plurality because you can express support for multiple candidates and the winner is the one with majority support. I like it better than ranked choice because you can express equal support candidates without having to penalize one.
GildSkiss@reddit
STAR voting mentioned.
I came here to advocate for it myself, but you beat me to it.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Interesting. Makes sense.
Kipkeny@reddit
I think approval voting is the best. This is where you can vote yes on as many candidates as you want. It incentivizes broad appeal over polarization because every member of the electorate is a potential voter even if they are voting for your biggest opponent. I’ve also heard that it disincentivizes negative campaigning. Also there is no potential for gaming the system like there is for ranked choice (voting for a candidate you don’t want so that the candidate you do want will win).
Suit_Responsible@reddit
You need proportional representation with a single transferable vote!
LunacyBin@reddit
I don't know that it's necessarily "the best," but approval voting (e.g., "select as many candidates as you approve of") is so elegantly simple that it overcomes many of the objections of RCV and other systems as being confusing or complicated, and I think it would still be much better than the status quo.
BringBackUsenet@reddit
Vote with your actions and your $.
technojoe99@reddit
This is the only correct answer.
Anen-o-me@reddit
The ideal is actually individual choice, not group votes.
SadTumbleweed1567@reddit
I am in favor of a mixed system that combines single member districts with at-large seats to fill out proportionality. I think this combines the ideal of local districts where individuals are accountable to their constituents, with the political reality that most politicians are an empty suit for their party. In one regard, this will allow for more party loyalists as about half the legislature will be elected by a slate selected by the party than as individuals chosen by their constituents. On the other hand, it is probably the best means of allowing multiple political parties, which hopefully sees the Republicans and Democrats fracture, decentralizing political power.
This helps to alleviate gerrymandering. While individual districts can still be gerrymandered, and gerrymandering can still dilute political power of communities, the at-large seats minimize the effect. Gerrymandering itself can never really be eliminated. In a single-member district, where the population of each district must be the same, there has to be some choice made on how to draw boundaries, and those boundaries will almost always arbitrarily split up geographic, cultural, ethic or racial communities. In an at-large system, while you can't gerrymander in the same manner, by eliminating districts, you are reducing local representation and accountability which can have a similar effect to gerrymandering.
I don't think such a system necessarily gets rid of any sort of extremism. I think you'd likely still have some form of primary elections where constituents vote for the person they think best represents them and their party. However, by breaking up the prisoner's dilemma of first-past-the-post single-member districts, there is no longer an incentive to maintain a big tent party where half the party is holding its nose while voting simply because the other guy is worse.
By making multiple parties possible, the strategic voting incentive is almost entirely reduced.
For single-member districts and unitary offices like governor and president you can use ranked-choice such that the winner has to have the broadest coalition. This allows the voter to vote their conscience first and foremost, as doing so has no cost. In a first-past-the-post system where the winner only needs the plurality of votes cast, voting one's conscience can effectively be throwing away a vote. In a ranked-choice system in which the winner needs to get a majority, there is no spoiler effect. In the former system, candidate A gets 40% of the vote while candidates B and C get 35% and 25% respectively. Candidate A wins the election. In the latter system, the same split does not decide the election. Instead candidate C gets dropped off the ballot, and each person that voted candidate C as their primary choice will have their secondary choice counted instead. Lets say candidate B and C had similar enough views that 16% of C's voters chose B as their secondary candidate. B wins the election. No voter was injured by voting their conscience first and foremost.
I will add that in addition to all of this, the goddamn House needs to be expanded. This can happen with simple legislation. I also believe the Senate should be doubled, but that requires a constitutional amendment.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Did you come up with this yourself, or did you read about it somewhere? If you ready about it somewhere, where was that? Is coming up with stuff like this part of your job? I ask because this seems much beyond what a regular person would come up with.
SadTumbleweed1567@reddit
I studied political theory at school, so this is stuff I've grappled with for a decade.
For looking different electoral systems, use Wikipedia to look up the different parliaments of Europe. That's a good starting point to see different extant systems. Use the references for further reading.
Same for single member and multi member districts.
My thoughts on gerrymandering is mostly from thinking through what gerrymandering is. No matter how you design an electoral system, there will be distortions. The representation will never be perfect, you have to decide what distortions are tolerable and to what extent.
Uncapping the House has been a long-held political belief. The House expanded every decade from 1790 to 1910 then just stopped despite the population tripling from 1910 to now. So the Congress is 1/3 as representative as 1910 (not accounting for women's voting and African- American voting rights as I can't quantify that).
So no, this isn't part of my job, is just a topic of interest that I've had a decade plus to think about and tinker with. Most of it isn't original but an amalgamation of ideas and systems I've encountered with minimal original additions.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Very cool. What are your thoughts on approval voting vs ranked choice vs STARS vs anything else?
And is what you are describing considered mixed-member proportional representation or would it be called something else?
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Wow, that is really well thought out and makes a lot of sense. I'm in.
lunaoreomiel@reddit
Any system that does not have a permissionless OPT out, is doomed to become a corrupted authoritarian cartel of insiders or mob rule.
sickorsane92@reddit
I like the ranked choice system. I also think everyone running should get equal time with the public to educate what their platform is about.
AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit
CGP Grey did a video on Mixed Member Proportional which seemed like a big improvement.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Wow, that's an old video, but clearly explained and very informative. I'm struggling to come up with a system that could be considered better in terms of having local representation but also proportionality.
exvnoplvres@reddit
At this point, drafting random people instead of having elections would probably give us better results. If polygraphs were not a load of crock, we could use them to disqualify the people who actually wanted to fill the positions. Of course I'm only joking, because forcing someone to serve in a position is anathema to libertarianism.
In all seriousness, I did live in a state for a couple of years after it introduced RCV. There was one congressional race where the Republican was the first round winner, but after the instant runoffs, the Democrat pulled ahead.
I did enjoy my presidential ballot.
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
Lol, "a random person walking by". what state is this?
Coley-OleY@reddit
I like Ranked Choice Voting. No more “wasted votes” arguments
RagnarBateman@reddit
We essentially have ranked choice voting in Australia (called preferential voting) and people still think that if you put your first preference for a minor party or independent it will be a wasted vote.
People are dumb.
We also have compulsory voting (essentially get your name marked off that you have voted but nothing forcing you from throwing the ballots in the garbage).
Dodaddydont@reddit (OP)
That is very disappointing to hear. Is there any solution being talked about in Australia that can be done about people thinking their vote will be wasted if they vote their actual preference?
hurricaneharrykane@reddit
List out about 5 to 7 principles that the candidates believe in and let people vote on different sets of principles rather than even mentioning the candidate's name. They would be voting on what the candidate actually believes in.
Kur0d4@reddit
Managed democracy, is that you?
doesnotexist2@reddit
Listing out their “principles” isn’t gonna make a difference, cause they’re just gonna lie about them to get into office
Skeptobot@reddit
Voting is inherently less representative than a random ballot of citizen volunteers. So in a bicameral system like the US, you would have house of representatives with ranked preference voting, and a senate with say, 200 people chosen by ballot.
blumpkin__spice@reddit
Before all this, best call would be to eliminate automatic voting eligibility at 18. Anyone of any age should be able to vote, as long as they are competent.
Wanna vote? Take a test. We use competency for so many important things but voting were just like "ohhh you're the dumbest person ever? Go right ahead!"
Designing a fair, balanced and rigorous test would be challenging but possible.
AlphaTangoFoxtrt@reddit
Yeah, no way those tests would be used to disenfranchise "undesirable" elements from voting... That definitely never happened.
blumpkin__spice@reddit
Seems like that same concern would apply to tests for Medical school, or Law school, or driving, citizenship, etc etc etc....
psilocydonia@reddit
Option 1) Only property owners and/or net tax payers get to vote.
Option 2) If you are on government assistance of any kind, no vote. Too bad, so sad.
Option 3) only privately employed/retired get to vote. Work for the government? Then you don’t get the opportunity to vote to enrich yourself. Maybe you could segregate state/local vs federal level, can’t vote for the level you work in.
Maybe some combination of the three.
JT-Av8or@reddit
1) Only land or business owners can vote. They can only vote for the house and local government. 2) the senators can only be voted in by the house. 3) the president can only be voted in by the senate.
Or we could do Athenian style and make it a lottery where everyone over 21 was elected randomly for 1 and only 1 term.
Notworld@reddit
You could change House representation from purely location based to party registration based. So registering for a party is in itself a vote, and your party gets that many seats based upon the percentage of people registered as such. Then only that party gets to vote on it's reps.
I'm just not sure we can totally do away with location based representation. Though it seems a lot less important today than it did 250 years ago.
RocksCanOnlyWait@reddit
You may be thinking of proportional representation, which is used in some countries. Instead of voting for a candidate, you vote for a party. The national votes are tallied, and each party is assigned a number of seats proportional to their percentage of the vote. The parties decide which people in the party fill those seats.
The idea is that at the national level, you can have more unified party platforms, and third parties can still achieve representation, even if they don't win a majority in any given locale. The downside is that you lose some geographic policy preference, e.g. farmers in a particular region, where a politician of any party may break ranks for a local issue.
Notworld@reddit
No. That’s not what I’m saying here. I’m saying instead of or in addition to geographical and population based representation like the house of reps is currently, there is another representation where party affiliation numbers determine the number or reps, just like state population determines the number of reps for a state.
The each party, as in the electorate not something like the DNC or RNC, nominates and votes for its reps. In this system there would likely be several parties with a claim to several seats of representation each.
I’m not saying it would work. It might. But I just wanted to make sure what I am describing is clear.
theQuandary@reddit
There's a couple people in my friend community who apparently "voted" in 2020 in a swing state (Michigan IIRC) they used to live in. They were in the "there's never election fraud" crowd. Someone on a whim suggested they look up their old registration. They did and it was a complete system shock to them.
Dead people voting is an infamous issue going back at least 150 years.
Honest elections require careful monitoring and in-person voting with an ID.
Auto-voting down your party lines is how you get a deep state you can NEVER remove.
Notworld@reddit
I don’t understand your point. I’m not talking about voting down party lines. I’m talking about diversity of representation.
I didn’t say registering to vote (as a member of a party) IS literally a vote. It’s ESSENTIALLY a vote. Because it takes effort and shows political will. And helps determine how much representation your ideology should have within the government.
For the house, you’d get x number of seats. Anybody can run for those seats. And you vote for the candidates who best represent you. I’m talking about how seats are allocated.
Theoretically, if libertarians had 10 seats, and 20 people ran, then those registered as libertarian would vote for their preferred candidates. Presumably, all 20 running would be anti war, for example. But that doesn’t mean someone can’t run for a seat if they aren’t of a certain party. A neocon could run for one of those 10 seats, but probably wouldn’t win.
Instead of the candidate having to reside in a specific location he needs to hold a specific ideology.
For the senate it would still be 2 people per state.
Could the system be corrupted? Probably. But that’s not saying much considering the current state of our system.
theQuandary@reddit
Tons of people register to vote for a party then never show up to re-register -- even when their political views change.
Notworld@reddit
That’s on them then. Why would you not change your registration when it has enough impact?
WorriedTumbleweed289@reddit
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has promise.
Allows the voters to pick independent candidates without "wasting" their vote.
AceWall0@reddit
I think multiple options for who you would want and multiple options for who you wouldn't want could work great.
The most hated candidates would end up being eliminated and the elected would be the one who most people agreed on that they wouldn't mind winning.
But I'm sure this was already thought and there is a reason to why its also bad. But surely its better than the current system.
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