Currently, everyone casts their vote, for 6 or more candidates. In some juristictions, the candidate with the most votes wins. In others, there is a runoff between the top two. For the presidency, the house of representatives gets to choose between the top two.
So if the vote is 20%, 16%, 15%, 15% 15% 10%, 5%, 4%, the one with 20% might win, or there might be a runoff between the 20% and the 16%. This rarely happens though, maybe because of fraud, but most likely because voters watch TV to learn which two are most popular, and then most of them vote for whichever of those two they see as the lessor of evils. Few people vote for any of the other candidates because they don't want their vote wasted. If they do vote for one of them, they might get 40%, 30%, 30%, and the 40% wins, when the two 30%'s saw each other as their second choice.
So the media tells us who we may vote for, and we just have to trust them. I wonder if anyone bribes the media or pollsters to make people think their favorite can't win.
There are a lot of ranked choice voting methods, but all of them have problems. Condorcet, which is intended as the fairest, is most succeptible to voter strategy, and can elect a very unknown candidate who sneaks into the center by being as wishy washy as possible. Instant runoff is the least succeptible to voter strategy and candidate strategy, but sometimes ranking your candidate higher can cause him to lose. And if your second choice is eliminated before your first choice, then when your first choice is eliminated your vote goes to your 3rd, not your second.
Are you guys concerned at all about vote splitting and the current system? Would you support a kind of ranked choice voting?
So if the vote is 20%, 16%, 15%, 15% 15% 10%, 5%, 4%, the one with 20% might win, or there might be a runoff between the 20% and the 16%. This rarely happens though, maybe because of fraud, but most likely because voters watch TV to learn which two are most popular, and then most of them vote for whichever of those two they see as the lessor of evils. Few people vote for any of the other candidates because they don't want their vote wasted. If they do vote for one of them, they might get 40%, 30%, 30%, and the 40% wins, when the two 30%'s saw each other as their second choice.
So the media tells us who we may vote for, and we just have to trust them. I wonder if anyone bribes the media or pollsters to make people think their favorite can't win.
There are a lot of ranked choice voting methods, but all of them have problems. Condorcet, which is intended as the fairest, is most succeptible to voter strategy, and can elect a very unknown candidate who sneaks into the center by being as wishy washy as possible. Instant runoff is the least succeptible to voter strategy and candidate strategy, but sometimes ranking your candidate higher can cause him to lose. And if your second choice is eliminated before your first choice, then when your first choice is eliminated your vote goes to your 3rd, not your second.
Are you guys concerned at all about vote splitting and the current system? Would you support a kind of ranked choice voting?
