Unfortunate “Publicity” for IRV a la Steve Forbes
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This is a very unfortunate depiction of IRV and rank choice voting in general, it’s the kind of terse and poorly-informed (or simply pernicious) dogmatism that upholds the current status quo.
But who knows, maybe it’ll backfire! Getting people to say, “What? What is this thing?” and to actually investigate may be a good thing in the end. As Condorcet wrote, “truth alone will obtain a lasting victory.”
score-stratified-condorcet [10] cardinal-condorcet [9] ranked-condorcet [8] score [7] approval [6] ranked-bucklin [5] star [4] ranked-irv [3] ranked-borda [2] for-against [1] distribute [0] choose-one [0]
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@cfrank Wow, what an idiot. He says:
despite what proponents proclaim, it’s not democratic. For instance, a person running in a multicandidate field could place third or fourth in the actual voting yet win the election.
WTF is "the actual voting"? The "actual voting" is ranked choice under IRV tabulation. The winner is the one that, um, wins.
It’s eyebrow raising to realize that under this system we would have had different outcomes in both the 1992 and 2000 presidential elections.
We might have had Perot in 92. So? I think that's good, he had a wide appeal.
We probably would have had Gore in 2000. Which only the most partisan (*) see as the "wrong" choice, since Nader quite obviously split the vote.
Basically, he is doing this. He defines "democratic" as "done with choose-one voting". And then slams this approach because it isn't democratic. What a stupid, circular argument.
Notice that he makes no mention of the stuff that has happened in the past few years, such as people so blinded by tribal partisanship that that they try to overturn outcomes with violence.
* it takes work to be able to, for instance, say "I prefer Peltolta, but Begich should have won."
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@rob I tried to send him an email
Maybe an open letter is fine“Hello Mr. Forbes,
My name is Connor Frankston. I recently read this very short article of yours, and I wanted you to know that the sentiments you express there are hindrances to necessary voting reform. While instant runoff voting is not by any means perfect, your article does absolutely nothing to address any of the positive qualities of instant runoff voting, and likewise does nothing at all to address any of the negative qualities of the present plurality voting system.
There are other ranked choice voting systems that many (including myself) consider generally superior to both methods, and to write off ranked choice voting altogether based on this specific, somewhat pathological instance, seems to reflect a pernicious sort of cognitive bias.
Otherwise, I would be interested to hear a less terse rendition of your arguments to the contrary.
Thank you,
Connor”
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@rob said in Unfortunate “Publicity” for IRV a la Steve Forbes:
@cfrank Wow, what an idiot. He says:
despite what proponents proclaim, it’s not democratic. For instance, a person running in a multicandidate field could place third or fourth in the actual voting yet win the election.
WTF is "the actual voting"? The "actual voting" is ranked choice under IRV tabulation. The winner is the one that, um, wins.
If it makes any difference, in the accompanying video he says "the popular vote" rather than "the actual voting". I'm not sure if he wrote the article, or if it just has his name on because someone just made it from what he said.
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@toby-pereira Right.... but of course "the popular vote" isn't so meaningful with ranked ballots either.. I assume he means "the most people who picked a candidate as their first choice," and admittedly this has become associated with "popular vote" and even "democracy" simply because that's been how it's been done for so long.
Really, though, the term "popular vote" makes sense when contrasted with "electoral college." But not so much as it is being used here.
Steve Forbes did similar things with the thing he is most known for, the flat tax. Similarly, it sounds so nice and simple and logical as long as you don't actually think too hard about it.
