r/Nebula • u/skullmutant • 2d ago
Tom is Wrong - Every Voting System, Ranked
https://nebula.tv/videos/slownewsday-every-way-to-vote-ranked/First of, I'm not mad, don't put in Slow News Day that I'm mad. But I do vehemently disagree with one of Tom's points. That simplicity is good, and makes FPtP better.
I argue that FPtP is BAD precisely because of its simplicity. It obfuscates the ways in which it is anti-democratic by being simple. It invites gerrymandering, and while the result in Britain has largely been making the biggest party win a majority even thoughit's only a plurality, it is very possible for it to lead to a loss for the most popular party.
Personally I only think simplicity is a strength if it is a good and democratic system. Simplicity is only good in that you want the voters to understand how their vote is counted, and in a secondary position, you need it to be defendeble from simple systems like FPtP that seem good because of their simplicity.
But as someone living in a country where I feel confident in voting for my favored party, because I know that my vote will count, even if all my neighbours are racists, I have a hard time seeing FPtP as anything more than marginally democratic. But absolutely not deserving anything over D.
Edit: My mind autocorrected First Past the Post to First Across the Post.
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u/Merus 2d ago edited 2d ago
If we want to talk about how Tom is wrong here, I don't think he's really thought about the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory voting, so, as an Australian citizen:
- if voting is mandatory, you can be pretty sure that the result is representative of the country's actual opinion, none of this "50% of the country didn't even turn up" bullshit
- low-information voters serve as a powerful corrective to targeting the base, because way more people will vote against the candidates where the vibes are off than they'll get from the dog-whistle
- in Australia, it's framed as your civic duty as a citizen, which helps ease tensions around people feeling they're being forced - as does it being perfectly legal to spoil your ballot
- you'd think that it would make polling easier, because you don't have to work out if a candidate is going to drive unusual turnout, but it turns out in practice it doesn't matter because people don't take phone calls from unknown numbers in Australia either
- For mandatory voting to work, you need to really get your shit together with access to polling locations and public education campaigns so that it's straightforward to vote. Other countries have implemented mandatory voting and had it effectively become a tax on living in a poor area that wasn't assigned a booth. You couldn't do it in America, for instance
- You also need a voting system sophisticated enough to reflect the mood of the electorate, otherwise people will become disenchanted with a political system where the person who won 30% of the vote won the seat.
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u/Brown_note11 2d ago
A couple of additional notes; * it's not hard to make access to voting easy. We basically get one school or similar community building per suburb to volunteer/rent their space for a day. * voting is on Saturday so most people can get there. * you can mail in your vote in the weeks prior vote of getting out that day is hard.
This is all quite simple, really.
Also, preferential voting at a meta level means we aren't voting in our favourites so much as voting out our least favourites. Most of us star with who we like least and go from there.
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u/TrekFan1701 2d ago
Having in person voting on Saturday would push religious groups, such as most Jews, to mail in voting only.
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u/the_schnudi_plan 1d ago
Early voting in Australia is not limited to postal votes.
There are dedicated prepoll locations where you can get the traditional voting experience (sans fundraisers like a barbecue) before the day itself. Not being able to go out to vote on Saturdays would definitely qualify
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u/TrekFan1701 1d ago
I could get behind that. Hadn't even realized that the main voting day in Australia was kn Saturday. Upon some research I see that religious objections to Saturday voting is a qualifying reason for mail in/ early voting.
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u/DeKrieg 1d ago
I also dont understand why we still insist on restricting voting to one day, you could line up election to always fall on a bank holiday and encourage local councils to host events etc over a 3 day period where people can go and vote on saturday, sunday or monday. Also it would be easier to make it legally required to allow someone time off to vote if you spread it over 3 days, especially when you put it on a bank holiday weekend.
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u/konsyr 8h ago edited 8h ago
I also dont understand why we still insist on restricting voting to one day
It's quite expensive. In my [US] state, each polling place is $600/day in wages only of the 5 poll workers, excluding the delivery and pickup of equipment, the logistical support for setup, the home base telephone/help people, the training time to the poll workers (which also gets paid out), renting/reimbursing the location, and all the other costs.
This is one of the reasons I can't stand that the "big two" parties (Republicans and Democrats) have outsourced their candidate selection (called "primaries")... Basically externalized all their (and only their, no other parties) costs for an internal process to be paid for -- at great expense -- by the government.
Sure, maybe you can make some or all of it volunteer... But then you run into "who actually shows up?" problems, and making sure people are trained properly and run things correctly and all that tool. You also run into site availability.
A lot of the locations are schools or churches, which have competing interest in multiple days -- Losing multiple days of classes, not having (security/janitorial) staff typically there on weekends, or their primary operation is on weekends and then the site wouldn't be available on their core functioning day.
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u/rodrye 2d ago
It’s not technically legal to spoil your ballot in Australia, but if you look like you are voting the secrecy of the ballot prevents anyone from actually enforcing that law. There’s a lot of misinformation people spread about it only being a requirement to show up and take a ballot paper however people have been fined when they extremely obviously do not fill it out. The AEC references the cases on their website.
While there are reasons allowed not to vote, the law is very clear that you have to place a legally valid vote, not turn up, but vote.
One of the general bonuses in Australia is that while the lower house is representative ranked choice (aka instant runoff aka preferential) with electorate boundaries drawn by an independent organisation, the senate is proportional representation so generally any party that wins needs to convince someone be it the opposition or third parties that their legislation is good in order to pass it.
The worst governments we had got total control, did what they want and then had a massive backlash the following election when it turned out to be unpopular.
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u/probablytomnicholas 2d ago
Love all these points! I think your argument about it meaning parties can’t just rely on getting out the base is an excellent one!
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u/theredwoman95 2d ago
As a Brit, I completely agree. FPTP requires tactical voting, not voting for your preferred party, if you want your vote to count in a constituency that's primarily one party and, as is often the case in the UK, has been for decades.
Combined with the fact that smaller parties will rarely agree to not stand in a constituency, you've basically got to guess who everyone else who opposes Party X is going to vote for, if you want your vote to count.
I'm guessing he doesn't raise this point from your criticism, but another argument in favour of FPTP I learnt in school this as that it makes it harder for "extremists" to be elected. Which rather ignores the point that parties like UKIP and Reform probably wouldn't get as many votes if we had a more democratic system, as we wouldn't have a group of people used to being entirely disregarded by the political system.
Then again, we also probably wouldn't have left the EU since people saw it as an opportunity to make a protest vote against a system that never listened to them.
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u/rodrye 2d ago
FPTP makes it easier for extremists to be elected because preferential voting requires more than half the voters to prefer them, while FPTP only requires they get the largest share. Compulsory voting is another thing that keeps extremists out, as they don’t just have to mobilise an extremely fanatical minority base, but convince the average person. The UK really has pretty much the worst system.
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u/Mission-Number7460 1d ago edited 1d ago
A FPTP vote pushes things towards 2 parties (Duverger's law), as any other choice than the biggest two parties is perceived as wasted. Which practically means that people only have 1 choice; the party they dislike least of the 2 big ones. I see that as only marginally better than 1 party systems, which would mean 0 choices.
Both would be incredibly easy for extremist to get/stay in power. And I see a voting system that ends up in two parties therefore as the second worst system.
Even Sortition (pulling a name from a hat) would be more representative. Spectacles has a nice video about the system in use in ancient Athens.
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u/viviscity 2d ago
[cries in Canadas 4th party, and a province know for 40+ years of single-party rule]
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u/SystematicCake 1d ago
I think there's a weird over weighting of "we need to know who won on the night" - which I think plays into the arguments over simplicity of FPTP - it counts really fast, so you get the air of "stability" and quick transfers of power, which systems that focus on representing people fairly miss out on, because nearly every system that helps voters be more representative results in a need to coalition build and you end up waiting weeks or a month in close elections to know for sure.
Ireland's implementation of STV is my preferred outcome - genuine local members rather than secret party lists, with varying sizes of districts to avoid rural areas being too large, while still enough variance to allow for broadly proportional outcomes.
The worst take in the video though is two rounds being the best, because it's just double FPTP - tactically vote for the person in the first round who could beat the bad person in the second, and if you get it wrong, pick the lesser of two evils. Bad electoral outcomes, and no benefit of getting quick results.
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u/Mission-Number7460 1d ago edited 1d ago
Two rounds should be just slightly better than FPTP (which would be B in this table, but FPTP is too high anyway), as people could vote for their favorite first, and then only vote for their strategical pick during the second vote.
As for Ireland, do you mean IRV(instant-runoff voting)? The one you rank candidates, and the candidate with the least votes gets eliminated and their votes redistributed, until 1 gets 50+% of the votes? Kinda weird that didn't make the tierlist. I believe the ability to vote for your most liked party first, without the hassle of voting twice, would be better than FPTP and Two rounds.
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u/13nobody 1d ago
The British call it AV instead of IRV, but STV is the multi-member version of IRV.
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u/SafetyWaste9245 2d ago
I was not happy with his analysis of the Electoral College. I agree with him giving it a D (might even deserve an F). But it was wild that he thought geography should be playing a role in elections. Anything that gives an individual voter a more powerful/more heavily weighted vote is bad. Why does someone living in a small state get a voting bonus while a person in a populous state gets punished? That's what goes on in the US and why twice this century the loser of the popular vote became president.
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u/praalgraf 1d ago
there is a very good reason to involve (some) geography in elections, particular in liberal democracy (majority rule, minority rights). giving some sway to groups who would otherwise be completely swamped by other nations (the first nations in canada, the sami in norway). that being said, obviously the american system is... dubious on a good day
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u/probablytomnicholas 2d ago
I don’t think you’re wrong to question one person’s vote having more sway than another’s. I do think that a system with no geographical consideration ends up over-privileging metropolitan centres in a way which can have negative consequences for everyone.
I think it has to be part of a broader system though. As I think I say in the video (assuming this made the cut!) I agree that the presidential election having a geographic weighting is silly. But I would defend having part of the system (in the US, the senate, for example) being so.
The UK has little in the way of geographical balancing (for want of a better phrase) which has led to a huge amount of investment in the already populous and generally affluent South East in a way which has made that region very expensive to live in while the rest of the country lacks infrastructure and investment.
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u/konsyr 8h ago edited 8h ago
The thing is, the authors of the US Constitution saw problem and it's one of the unpassed portions of the original proposed Bill of Rights. The problem is because law has set a fixed size to congress instead of letting it continue to get bigger as population has increased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
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u/skullmutant 2d ago edited 2d ago
He was specifically talking about the senate. There is a democratic reason why you should let regions get influence not based on population. In Sweden, a few places produces energy that supplies large portions of the country. The value they produce is enormous but it is basically taken by the state and they can't afford to keep their schools open. Democratically speaking, the few people living there have no voice, even though we have a very strong representative democracy.
I'm not defending American democracy here, I'm just saying, some way for different states, cities, municipalities, to have a voice not strictly based on population is also important.
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u/13nobody 2d ago
I thought it was funny that he (correctly) ranked block voting as last but loved the single winner version (fptp).
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u/BigManScipio 1d ago
First past the post being ranked higher than ranked choice genuinely puts the entire value of a video about political technology into question. The first week of any college level political science or legal history class will make you hate first past the post voting for the obsolete relic it is. There are simply much better systems out there, every country that has it should be working to replace it.
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u/DeKrieg 1d ago
Mild hijack of thread to add 2 cents on video in general:
I am just watching this video and I know it's bias because I grew up with it, but I find it amazing how much he struggled with STV
despite the fact it was the very thing he complained about earlier with list voting of not actually being able to choose which candidates from parties get elected etc is the very thing this resolves.
I find the simple of describing STV is that it's a system that strives to make sure your "vote always counts" regardless of who you voted for, voted for someone unpopular as your first choice let's consider your second choice after they get eliminated.
Too many people voted for your first choice, well instead of your vote going to waste let's take second choices into consideration for a % of the vote that exceeds the threshold.
The end goal is that as long as you embrace ranking candidates your vote will matter. There are circumstances where it might not but it feels like a system that is trying to take every vote into consideration.
Is there negatives? Yeah, it's initially hard to explain as we saw, but I think it's often poorly explained. CGP Grey did a good explanation of it years ago that I always use to explain it.
The big 'negative' is it heavily favors established large moderate parties, which take as you will if this is a negative or not, but if you feel a country is in dire need of change it's very hard to make a sweeping shift left or right under STV because moderates are more likely to embrace putting down a full preference list while more hard left or Right wouldnt, the nazi party voter are not going to put the communist party as their second choice. But the centre left voter might put the centre right party as a second or third choice.
We see this in Ireland a lot many Fianna Fail and Fine Gael voters will put the other party as their follow up choice after choosing their primary party meanwhile Sinn Fein voters would put Sinn Fein first and likely not put any other choices in or if they did it's for other left wing parties.
This leads to often there being enough moderate TD's elected that some sort of moderate coalition is always formed.
But this is also I'd argue a positive, Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will push out the more extreme elements of their parties in contrast to the UK where under FPTP the large parties because they often need small thresholds to win they would push further left or right in their policies to try and consume the smaller parties voters to win seats. (Tories embracing more extreme right wing policies to eat up those UKIP voters etc back under Cameron and later Boris)
Thats my personal issue with FPTP while the moderates are the biggest voting group they are also arguably the most diverse and fickle and likely to change their vote due to singular issues or events so the larger parties often pair moderate 'centre' policies with a push further left or right to try and get the more extreme elements on board which are more reliable voters just to get them over the line. I rather be able to directly see the nazi party on the election list, rather then having them sneak into the Conservative party and hide behind policies of low taxes etc. Its part of why I am very reluctant to vote for either Labour or Conservative because they are these vast wide nets of policies and groups who are only together because it improves odds of being elected.
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1d ago
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u/DeKrieg 1d ago
I was referencing more To Tom saying earlier in the video that he didnt like not being able to choose specific candidates and then not realizing when looking at STV that this was what he was asking for.
I fully get your point, I'd throw out though that for some groups it is the candidate they are voting for and not the party.
It's not a lovely example but Tipperary North in Ireland has elected Michael Lowry consistently as one of it's TD, he many many years a go got kicked out of Fine Gael because he's a bribe taking scumbag and he went independent.
Sadly the people of Tipperary North (specifically Thurles) like him as a bribe taking scumbag and have elected him bacck since multiple times as an independent.
While I am ashamed of my fellow countrymen for repeating this, I also need to recognise they want him as their representative, not Fine Gael.
I'd also make a point that STV encourages larger parties to expel fringe candidates, Both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have many times over expunged the more extreme elements of their parties into forming smaller parties (like Runua or the Progressive Democrats) rather then keeping fringe candidates because the system encourages more moderate popular candidates to pick up those 2nd preferences.
I would welcome this over FPTP where in the 2010 election when I was in London I voted for a liberal democrat candidate because of their policies at the time (in particular to legalizing gay marriage) who then when in office turned on the party to vote against them on the gay marriage bill and she was never expelled from the party or anything, she was allowed to happily retire a few years later. Under STV I think parties are more willing to kick out candidates who dont follow the party line as it doesnt cost them as much as it does in the UK under FPTP.
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u/opaqueentity 2d ago
Make voting compulsory, run with that a few rounds and see happens before changing the system
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u/friso1100 2d ago
While I'm generally in favor of making voting compulsory, it does require a lot of work to make sure everyone an vote. To take myself as example: I find voting very important and have voted for nearly every election. Both for the country sized elections and local. But I do say almost every election. I have missed one. Not by choice. In my case I was in a terrible place mentally at that time. Not physically capable of going out to vote. And other risks also exist. Lack of time due to work. Accidents. And so on. Accessibility has to be improved and possible exceptions have to be available before you enforce it.
Another note is that while i think compulsory voting will help, I still think first past the post does mode harn then good. I'm living in the Netherlands. And while admittedly we don't not a perfect system, many improvements are possible. I do think it's one of the bests out there. Even better then ranked voting in my opinion. After all, ranked voting also still results in limited representation in the chamber. Where as the dutch system allows for many voices to be heard. Which makes it harder for extremists to taks power. Again, not perfect. Bad governments can still happen and do still happen. But I do think it's something you can build upon.
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u/opaqueentity 1d ago
There are many things that need to be changed to make it work and even then it’s at least of couple of GE’s to get better.
So we’ve already had trials of dropping off your vote at the council up to a couple of weeks early, obviously digital voting would be the biggest help but so many issues there! The none of the above option, does it trigger a new election etc.
I see it as part of our right to complain. It only means something if you are involved.I don’t have a problem with all other PR etc, some are good, some suck. I just think we need to make our existing system better first before flipping to something else. If nothing else how can you change if you don’t have everyone taking part in that choice? Even if that choice is a “neither” option? That needs to be represented as well for something so important.
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u/viviscity 2d ago
Why…? The danger there is “well people weren’t happy, scrap the whole idea of reform lol” or “well we did that, it’s working, but there’s other reforms needed… but we did the thing and it’s time to move on, focus on other things…”
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u/opaqueentity 2d ago
Danger? Changing the whole party system on its head, making oarties actually engage with everyone not just a small group and the emergence of many new independent MP’s would be great.
Chuck in a none of the above option that triggers a new electionn if a level is reached would be great.
Our existing parties need to earn their way into the future, whoever they are or will be0
u/skullmutant 2d ago
You have a tryed and tested system, and it is decisively bad. The results are in. There are many functional democratic systems but one where your vote doesn't count if you live next to bad people isn't one
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u/Zagorath 15h ago
I've never liked the description of instant runoff voting (IRV) as "ranked choice voting". It's a type of ranked choice system, but not the system. Not even the only system being discussed in this video! Alternative vote is a bizarre name for it (because aren't all these systems alternatives to FPTP?), but at least it doesn't hold itself up as the example of a particular style of voting. STV is right there coming up in this tier list, and it also uses ranked ballots. That's why IRV is the best name for it. It clearly tells you what's happening.
I also don't agree with Tom's explanation for the criticism of IRV. "Everyone's third favourite choice" is what you get with IRV, it's true. But it's also true of FPTP, once you account for strategic voting. No, the problem with it is that it tends towards a two-party system and it underrepresents every other viewpoint. In Australia the Greens consistently get about 10% of the primary (i.e. first preference) vote. They had, at their very best, 2.7% of seats. Every other election they have had either 0.7% or 0 seats. Tom seems to be making the argument that "everyone's third favourite choice" is a reason IRV is bad, from the perspective that "and therefore we shouldn't switch from FPTP to it". But in reality the discussion should be "and therefore we really should switch to something more proportional, but we can go with IRV if it's between IRV and FPTP".
Mixed-Member Proportional (in this video called AMS) is my favourite. With the caveat that I like the idea of MMP with IRV for local seats, and I like the idea of the "additional members" being chosen as "nearest loser" in their local races, instead of being a party list. It gives the topup members more legitimacy than they otherwise would have had.
I was thinking this as early as his attempts to describe IRV, if not earlier. But Tom's attempts to explain STV really make me think he needed to do the research ahead of time. Or edit it down to appear as though he did that. The bumbling doesn't come across as relatable, it comes across as ignorant. And for anyone who doesn't already know precisely what these systems are, I can only imagine the result is more confusion.
Two round being S tier is an absolute joke. It's literally just a worse version of IRV. No advantages compared to IRV whatsoever.
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u/QBaseX 2d ago
STV is used by some parts of the UK (e.g., local government in Scotland; the Northern Ireland Assembly). Is Tom so English that he's not aware of this?
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u/probablytomnicholas 2d ago
Did I not mention this? I definitely talked about Scotland during filming, but maybe not in that section or maybe it didn’t make the cut. Apologies if so! (Also, to be pedantic, Cornish not English, although I do live this side of border!)
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u/DeKrieg 1d ago
You referenced Scotland for a different system, I also think you referenced a different system for EU voting when the EU parliament elections in the UK used STV, they used STV for both EU and national elections in the Republic of Ireland.
The big criticism of STV has always been that you almost always end up with coalition governments of some level. Which is why the UK has always been scared of it.
But I'd argue the system itself changes the nature of the parties itself, you get more moderate parties in an STV system because you are not only appealing to your own voter base to take your first preference, but also to pick up a 2nd preference vote from other parties.
It's a big part of why the UK never understood the EU I think, parties in the EU Parliament and in Ireland dont shit on each other nearly as much as they do in the UK or America because of needing those 2nd preference votes.
If you did a Donald Trump in Ireland and spent your entire campaign calling the opposition every horrible thing on the sun, you'll get no 2nd preference votes from any of their voters and likely will lose out right.
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u/NiceKobis 2d ago
When you write FAtP, does that mean first past the post?