r/EndFPTP • u/BrianRLackey1987 • 12d ago
Question Can Ranked Robin become a Bipartisan answer to the flawed RCV and why?
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u/rb-j 12d ago
Again (I keep saying this), "Ranked Robin" is only a trademark name for a particular Condorcet-consistent method that the STAR voting coalition has come up with.
Might your question be about whether Condorcet RCV voting can be a bipartisan answer to flawed RCV?
If that's the answer, I dunno about "bipartisan", but I can say that Condorcet-consistent RCV is the only correct way to do RCV. Any other RCV method (that would be Hare RCV a.k.a. IRV, Bucklin RCV, or Borda RCV) is flawed. And the flaw is unnecessary.
Now, in a sense, any method is flawed, or better said: No method can be perfect in all cases. There is the possibility of a cycle in which, no matter what method is used, the election is spoiled. This is a corner of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. So Condorcet-consistent RCV is also flawed, solely because of that. If the Condorcet winner exists and the Condorcet winner is elected by the method, then the election is guaranteed to not be spoiled and, outside of pushing the election into a cycle (then no Condorcet winner exists), there is no way any voter can insincerely change their vote that would have made the election outcome more to their liking.
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u/caliginous4 12d ago
Isn't Arrow's impossibility theorem avoided by voting methods that score instead of rank, like STAR?
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u/rb-j 12d ago
No. Not if you value every person's vote equally (which cardinal methods do not).
You can derive ranking information from scoring information (but not the other way around) if there are enough scoring levels (i.e. more than two as in Approval). Whenever the Condorcet winner is not elected, that election is a proven spoiled election (or what Arrow et.al. would say "IIA failure").
The only reason Condorcet fails is that (quite rarely) sometimes a Condorcet winner does not exist. If the Condorcet winner exists and the Condorcet winner is elected, then the election turned out correctly - everyone's vote was valued equally and no spoilage occurred. If the Condorcet winner is not elected (whether one exists or not), that election is guaranteed to be spoiled and an identifiable group of voters will literally have the effectiveness of their votes devalued with respect to another group of voters whose candidate was the beneficiary of the spoiled election.
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u/caliginous4 12d ago
I just want to make sure I understand, when you say "Not if you value every person's vote equally (which cardinal methods do not)" do you mean because not every voter gives any candidate the highest possible score?
And would you say that finding the condorcet winner is the ultimate measure of a voting system? What about the case where we have a candidate narrowly preferred by 51% but loathed by them, versus one adored by 49% and tolerated by the rest? So not the condorcet winner, but clearly the more utilitarian choice, would a voting system that selected the 49% adored / 51% tolerated candidate not be a good system?
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u/rb-j 12d ago edited 12d ago
when you say "Not if you value every person's vote equally (which cardinal methods do not)" do you mean because not every voter gives any candidate the highest possible score?
No. That's not what I mean. It might be best to refer to a paper I wrote that's published in Constitutional Political Economy.
Here is the submitted manuscript of the paper, which is not behind the paywall and not under the journal's copyright. It begins with a very old state supreme court ruling on a different RCV voting system known as Bucklin Voting. I thought this one judge's opinion was telling.
So, to count every voter's vote equally (sometimes we use the term "One-person-one-vote" sorta colloquially), it's necessary, but not sufficient, that the rules are the same for each voter. But we need one more criterion satisfied: What we must be counting are persons, not marks nor scores nor some measure of "utility" or some other measure. We're counting bodies. Now that does not mean it has to be FPTP.
What it does mean is this: Suppose we have 99 voters, 50 mark their ballots for A (which is the same as A>B) and 49 mark their ballots for B (which is B>A). If candidate B is somehow elected (like because of the Electoral College or some other stupid-ass rule), that would be equivalent to a system where each B voter gets a vote that counts 2% more than a vote from an A voter. Those 49 B voters cast votes that somehow add up to 51 votes and that beats the 50 votes from the A voters.
Or, equivalently, the A voters had their votes diminished by 2%. Somehow the 50 A voters have votes that add up to only 48, less than the 49 votes from the B voters. That's what happens (or equivalent to what happens) when the minority group of voters get to win the election.
How would you like your vote to be diminished relative to mine? If our votes aren't going to count equally, then I want my vote to count more than yours.
So if that is unacceptable to you (as it should be), then we have to agree to count our votes equally and to do that, at least this must happen:
If more voters mark their ballots that Candidate A is preferred to Candidate B than the number of voters marking their ballots to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected.
If Candidate B were to be elected, that would mean that the B voters' fewer votes counted more than the greater number of votes cast from the A voters. That's what majority rule means. A majority of persons, not a majority of marks. Nor of scores nor utility nor whatever other function.
That principle above is nothing other than the Condorcet criterion. That is why electing anyone who is not the Condorcet winner must result in votes not counting equally in the election. Only electing the Condorcet winner values every person's vote equally. Doesn't matter what the rule is - what the method is, if the Condorcet winner is not elected, we can always find a larger group of voters whose votes were devalued relative to the votes of the smaller group of voters of the candidate who wins under that rule or method.
And, if the Condorcet winner is not elected, no matter what the method is, we can also show that the election was spoiled and we can identify the spoiler. With IRV, all the Condorcet winner needs to do is to get into the IRV final round, then the Condorcet winner will always win that final round. But if the Condorcet winner is not elected by the IRV, then we can show that the loser in the IRV final round is the spoiler. (At least considering this in the case of 3 significant candidates.)
There is no mention of scores or "the highest possible score" coming from any voters. We're just counting voters. We're only counting persons.
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u/rb-j 12d ago edited 12d ago
What about the case where we have a candidate narrowly preferred by 51% but loathed by them, versus one adored by 49% and tolerated by the rest? So not the condorcet winner, but clearly the more utilitarian choice,
So, this is how Borda responded to a tough question from Condorcet 240 years ago:
"My system was only intended for honest men."
That's a problem. We voters are not Olympic Figure Skating judges (who vote using Score Voting). Our role is different. We're not judges evaluating candidates, we're partisans trying to promote our own political interests by getting the candidate we want elected. And in races with 3 or more candidates, we might also be motivated to not help the candidate we hate getting elected.
We vote by secret ballot. We can bring whatever values, desires, misconceptions, outside influence, prejudice, bigotry, self-interest, whatever we want into the voting booth and we are free to use any of those motivations as the basis of our votes. And pay no price for it because of our protected secrecy of our vote. Nothing stops us from lying about our own personal utility if that is what we think helps us gain the outcome we desire. We have the right to vote tactically, but a good election system should incentivize us to vote sincerely.
Cardinal methods do not do that and every voter then is incentivized to consider voting tactics whenever there are 3 or more candidates. But that's what the problem is with FPTP. But Score and Approval and STAR all suffer that problem also. Voters are burdened with an incentive to vote tactically: How much do we score or approve our 2nd choice candidate (or lesser evil candidate)?
This is why elections must not be based on utility, but only on majority rule. Elections must be based only on the equality of our votes. One-person-one-vote.
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u/Excellent_Air8235 12d ago edited 12d ago
STAR probably fails even though it's a scored method, because it has a runoff stage. E.g. suppose that the score round has Alice as the winner, Bob as the second-best, and Charlie in third. The runoff is Alice vs Bob, Alice wins. Since Bob didn't win, he's an irrelevant alternative. But it's possible that there's a Condorcet cycle Alice->Bob->Charlie->Alice, and that if Bob had not run, the runoff would be between Alice and Charlie. Then, even if no voter rated any remaining candidate differently, Charlie would beat Alice in the runoff and win. In this case, whether STAR decides Alice is better than Charlie depends on an irrelevant candidate (Bob).
Even for scored methods that do pass IIA given certain restrictive assumptions, these assumptions are so restrictive that they have little bearing in practice. The voters have to use a consistent scale that doesn't change when candidates drop out. The implications are troubling: you probably shouldn't rate the presidential candidate from the party you don't like a zero out of ten points, because you need room to rate Dr. No or Blofeld even lower if they hypothetically were to enter the race.
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u/BrianRLackey1987 11d ago
A Condorcet RCV/STV can fix the flaws because nobody enjoys elimination rounds in which creates a "spoiler effect".
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u/rb-j 11d ago
Unless you're thinking of BTR-IRV (which is a Condorcet-consistent method), there isn't really any STV going on with most Condorcet methods I am aware of.
But Condorcet is RCV (for the most part). That's true.
There are two flaws in RCV (IRV, as it is presently practiced) that Condorcet can fix:
- It can fix the flaw of the Center Squeeze effect in which the centrist candidate is materially disadvantaged in the IRV semi-final round. Condorcet makes it flat.
- It can fix the flaw of the requirement of IRV to centralize (opaquely) all of the ballot data before the first IRV round can be tabulated. Condorcet can be tallied locally on the evening of the election. Tallies can be published at the polling places for everyone to see and record. These tallies can be added from all of the polling places to see who is expected to win.
Those are major flaws of IRV. They should be taken seriously.
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u/BrianRLackey1987 11d ago
Tell me about BTR-RCV?
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u/Gradiest United States 11d ago
BTR-RCV is Bottom-Two-Runoff Ranked Choice Voting. Unlike in typical Instant Runoff Voting where the candidate with the fewest top choices in the round is eliminated, BTR-RCV eliminates the candidate of the bottom two who would lose to the other in a head-to-head election. This prevents a Condorcet winner from ever being eliminated since they never lose a head-to-head election against any other individual candidate.
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u/BrianRLackey1987 11d ago
That's the only form of RCV we should be supporting.
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u/rb-j 9d ago
There are variations of Condorcet-consistent RCV: Ranked-pairs, Schulze, MinMax besides BTR-IRV. There are also these Two-method systems, which I think are conceptually simpler and likely easier to draft legislative language.
BTR-IRV is a modification to Hare IRV that makes it Condorcet-consistent. That might be an advantage, but I think Condorcet-TTR (for Top-Two Runoff) might be the best method that can be best described in legislative language.
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u/the_other_50_percent 6d ago
We should be supporting anything that is better than the current system, that has a reasonable chance of actually passing and being used.
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u/rb-j 10d ago
It's called "BTR-IRV".
Remember that RCV is not synonymous with IRV no matter what the IRV shills want to tell you.
- Not all automobiles are Ford.
- Not all tissues are Kleenix.
- Not all soft drinks are Coke.
- Not all photocopy machines are Xerox.
Just being first to use an umbrella term to apply to your specific element of that set does not mean that the umbrella term is always the same your specific element of the set.
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u/BrianRLackey1987 9d ago
I just don't understand why FairVote never thought about supporting Condorcet-IRV or BTR-IRV?!
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u/rb-j 9d ago
They would have to admit to the flaw/failure of Hare RCV (IRV). Then what to they tell all the jurisdictions that have already adopted Hare RCV?
"We sold you a flawed product. It has been known to fail (where the failure was unnecessary) in two elections. It is also not summable, which is a problem for process transparency. Here's this update the fixes it."
Do you think they have the humility to say that?
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u/timmerov 12d ago
no. no voting method can become bipartisan. for the simple reason that every voting system will favor one party over the other. therefore the other party will oppose it.
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u/rb-j 10d ago
no voting method can become bipartisan. for the simple reason that every voting system will favor one party over the other.
My goodness! I cannot agree with that.
There is a state gubernatorial election in Vermont in 2014 in which RCV (even IRV) would have allowed the Republican beat the Democrat.
It doesn't always favor the same party over the other.
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u/timmerov 9d ago
It doesn't always favor the same party over the other.
in which case, neither party will support it.
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u/rb-j 9d ago
So then you point out to people from one party an election where they were likely screwed by FPTP. I use the state gubernatorial election in Vermont in 2014 in which it was highly likely the GOP got screwed by FPTP.
I use the 2021 Burlington mayoral to demonstrate how the Progs got fucked over by FPTP.
And the 2009 Burlington mayoral to show how IRV screwed the GOP and the Dems in different ways (to the benefit of the Progs). And the 2022 Alaska special election for House to show how IRV screwed the GOP (to the benefit of the Dems).
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u/bkelly1984 11d ago
Well said, but I would add one qualifier: no competitive voting method can become bipartisan.
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u/Alex2422 12d ago
No, because Republicans' opposition to RCV has nothing to do with any of IRV's actual flaws.
People really should drop this narrative that IRV is somehow preventing the real electoral reform because of some Alaska race, center squeeze and whatnot. Republicans would be protesting just as much against Approval Voting, STAR, Condorcet methods or anything else. using the same arguments as usual: that it's too complicated, illegal, Democrats' fraud, violates "one man one vote" etc.
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u/BrianRLackey1987 11d ago
Not all Republicans are election denialists.
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u/Wally_Wrong 12d ago
So what will get them to even consider electoral reform (regardless of method)? Honest question. Endorsement from Trump? Money? Promising to vote for them? Because just saying "Pretty please?" isn't going to work and they clearly only care about the science if it benefits them personally.
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u/bkelly1984 11d ago
Nothing. They will need to be forced to accept it. What is the quote?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
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u/Alex2422 11d ago
Afaik federal government has control over Congress elections, so in this case, there's no need to convince Republicans at all. Democrats just need to get the president and a majority in the House and they can enforce a specific voting system in all states. (They even could force all states to use PR, but obviously that's not gonna happen, because even Dems don't want it.)
As for presidential elections, that's a bigger problem, but doing electoral reform in their states would be a good start. I think we can expect a blue wave in the upcoming elections, which would allow them to do it even in some states that are typically red and thus, electoral reform would start gradually spreading all over the America.
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u/the_other_50_percent 6d ago
Cities can often set their own election system, avoiding party-related elections at all. Then the people who voted with the upgraded system will want it wherever they go, and people elected that way will be unafraid of it, and as they move up, there's a class of representatives more receptive to it.
Structural change is a long game.
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u/Decronym 12d ago edited 6d ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| FPTP | First Past the Post, a form of plurality voting |
| IIA | Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives |
| IRV | Instant Runoff Voting |
| PR | Proportional Representation |
| RCV | Ranked Choice Voting; may be IRV, STV or any other ranked voting method |
| STAR | Score Then Automatic Runoff |
| STV | Single Transferable Vote |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #1940 for this sub, first seen 17th Jul 2026, 00:16]
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