this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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You vote your conscience in the primary and you do your duty in the main. Simple as that.
Yeah, and that relates to why I think the focus on ranked choice voting or more parties is a red herring.
I'm cool with both of those, but they're not a silver bullet for our problems. We already have parties within parties, which isn't terribly different than coalitions. And we have at least two rounds of voting to narrow the field.
No matter what you do, democracy is going to be about compromise. It makes sense that you have to compromise more and more as the field narrows. Voting for Bernie in the primary and Hillary in the general isn't that different from voting ranked choice Bernie #1, Hillary #2.
As an Alaskan voter, ranked choice is the only reason we have a female, Native American, Democrat congressional representative instead of Sarah Palin filling Don Young's deep red legacy. RCV is equitable and works, but not in the way progressives hope. It allows for the most centrist candidate to be chosen that appeals to the most possible people. A two party system just becomes a battle of political extremes. And like it or not, being progressive is far left for a reason, especially in America. And I consider myself fairly progressive leaning.
Peltola would have won under FPTP, too; RCV didn't change the outcome. The real issue is that there were two Republicans on the same ballot vs one Democrat, splitting the vote with each other.
No, it suffers from the center-squeeze effect and is biased against the candidates that appeal to the most possible people. In Alaska's special election, for instance, Begich was preferred over both other candidates by a majority of voters, but RCV incorrectly eliminated him first. This flaw gave an unfair advantage to progressives in that election, which you may like, but it could just as easily give an unfair advantage to conservatives in a future election, which you wouldn't. (If there are two Democrats and one Republicans the ballot, for instance.)
In my opinion, for single-winner elections, we need better voting systems that do always elect the candidate who appeals to the most possible people, which will allow third parties and independents to become viable, which will open people's minds beyond the two-party false dichotomy.
Yes, and RCV perpetuates that polarization because of the center-squeeze effect.