Ranked voting

[GMDino]

I could have sworn there was a thread about this but I can't find it.

Alaska started using the ranked voting system in 2020.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-alaskas-new-voting-system-helped-deliver-historic-win-us-democrats-2022-09-01/

Quote:Explainer: How Alaska's new voting system helped deliver historic win for U.S. Democrats
By Moira Warburton

















4 minute read





1/2
Democrat Mary Peltola, pictured at a temporary office space in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, hours after results showed her to be the apparent winner in Alaska’s special U.S. House election, August 31, 2022. REUTERS/Kerry Tasker



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WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - For the first time since 1972, Alaska is sending a Democrat to occupy its only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives through a new ranked voting ballot, the state's division of elections announced on Thursday.

Mary Peltola has made history by becoming the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress. She defeated Sarah Palin, a former Republican governor who burst onto the national political scene in 2008 as a colorful vice presidential candidate.

Here is how ranked ballots work in Alaska, along with the election results.

WHO WON IN ALASKA'S FIRST RANKED CHOICE VOTING ELECTION?
Mary Peltola, a former state lawmaker and the first Alaska Native to represent the state, beat former governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin through a ranked choice ballot, a first for Alaska.

Peltola could have won through a simple plurality. After the first round of counting she had 39.7% of the vote, compared with Palin's 30.9% and Nick Begich III, a Republican businessman, who got 27.8%.

But under the new ranked choice voting system the winner must get over 50% of the vote, so ballots that ranked Begich first were redistributed according to their second choice.

Even though the majority of Begich's voters ranked Palin as their second choice, enough of them put Peltola as second to put her over the margin of victory.

WHO IS MARY PELTOLA?
Peltola was raised in Bethel, Alaska, a fly-in community roughly 400 miles (640 km) west of Anchorage. She served as a state lawmaker for 10 years from the age of 24, becoming friends with Palin, who at the time was also a young, pregnant representative far from home, Alaska Public Media reported.

She is a Yup’ik Eskimo. Alaska's population is almost 20% Indigenous, the highest proportion of any U.S. state.

During the campaign she identified herself as "the only candidate in this race who isn't a multimillionaire," emphasizing her rural roots and record of bipartisan achievement during her time in the Alaska legislature.

She will serve out the remainder of Republican Representative Don Young's term to the end of the year after his death in March at the age of 88, and face reelection on Nov. 8.
WHAT IS ALASKA'S NEW VOTING SYSTEM?

Most of the United States, Canada, Britain and many other democracies around the world use a "first-past-the-post" voting system, where voters choose one candidate on a ballot and the candidate with a plurality of votes wins.

In 2020, Alaskan voters approved a new system known as ranked choice voting, where they number candidates on a ballot in order of preference. In each round of counting, the candidate with the lowest share of votes is eliminated and the ballots which ranked them first are then redistributed. The candidate with a majority of votes after all ballots have been counted wins.

WHY USE RANKED CHOICE VOTING?
Proponents say the system allows voters to have a meaningful say in the results even if their first-choice candidate is eliminated, and decreases polarization because politicians are incentivized to appeal to voters outside of their bases.

"You can no longer just use your old playbook - you know, reach out to the base, make sure they get out to vote. You have to think differently," said Jason Grenn, executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit that advocates ranked choice voting.

"How do you find common ground with voters when you're going to have to need their second or their third choice on your ballot in order to win?"

Ranked choice is used in Maine for all elections and the cities of San Francisco and New York for local elections, among others.

(This story corrects to remove reference to state capital as Anchorage in 10th paragraph)


Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Now, initially Sarah was not happy about that:

Sarah Palin is not taking her loss well. Thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/Xn8WJrZ55x

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 1, 2022

 


Although I did read somewhere that Palin sent a congratulatory note to the winner at some point.


However he republican opponent is not happy at all...and the article gives some more insight into Palin's "thinking" about it.


https://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-instructed-supporters-not-152202621.html

Quote:‘Sarah Palin Instructed Supporters Not to Rank Candidates’: Alaska’s GOP Candidates Point Fingers after Special Election Loss



Republican congressional candidate Nick Begich reprimanded his rival, Sarah Palin, for Democrats’ Wednesday win in Alaska’s special election for its at-large seat, saying she cost the party by instructing “supporters not to rank candidates” in the state’s ranked-choice voting system.


Democrat Mary Peltola’s victory “really boils down to Sarah Palin,” Begich told National Review. “Sarah Palin’s unfavorables in the state of Alaska are so astronomically high, so high in fact, that the only other more unfavorably thought of politician in Alaska is Joe Biden,” said Begich, who insisted that Palin “cannot win statewide in Alaska.”

According to Begich, Palin’s unpopularity can be attributed to her “early resignation from the governorship, her pursuit of fame, and the monetization of her national notoriety immediately following her resignation.”

Palin’s campaign did not respond to several inquiries from National Review, but it has put out [url=https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/1565514973224529920]statements casting blame for the loss on the ranked-choice system and calling for Begich — who she says “cost the Republicans a seat in Congress” — to drop out of November’s rematch race between the two GOP candidates and Peltola, who now enjoys the advantage of being an incumbent.

“Nick Begich is now a three-time loser. His ego-driven insistence on staying in Alaska’s congressional race after repeatedly failing to garner a majority of Republican votes, while I have consistently won the vote, has just cost Republicans a seat in Congress. Fortunately, there is still time for Begich to do the honorable thing and withdraw before the November election,” Palin said.

Peltola won the special election on Wednesday and will now serve until at least January. The seat opened up when Republican Don Young passed away in March, after having served as Alaska’s sole representative in the House for over 49 years. Peltola is the first Democrat to be elected as a U.S. Representative in the state since 1972, as well as the first woman and Alaskan native to hold the seat.

As a result of the ranked-choice-voting system, Begich was eliminated after the first round after coming in third place with 28.52 percent. His 53,756 votes were then divided up between Palin and Peltola, depending on how the voters chose to rank the other candidates. After the ballots were tabulated following Begich’s elimination, Peltola received 15,445 extra votes, while Palin got 27,042. Over 11,200 people only voted for Begich, without ranking anyone as their second-place candidate.

That last group ultimately proved decisive, as Peltola ultimately prevailed over Palin by a margin of just 5,219 votes (91,206-85,987.)

Although Republican lawmakers, including Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, have blamed Peltola’s win on the ranked-choice-voting system, Begich said the system is not at fault and that Palin is the culprit.

“Unfortunately, Sarah Palin instructed her supporters not to rank candidates, and this had a spill over effect across the electorate. I on the other hand, ranked Sarah Palin second on my ballot and encouraged people to do the same. Either Sarah Palin doesn’t understand the ranked-choice voting system, or is more interested in herself getting elected than supporting other Republicans,” Begich said.

“Ranked-choice voting comes kicking in and then it becomes convoluted, complicated, like oh ‘how many second place votes you get? How many third place votes you get?’ I don’t know! I was telling people all along, ‘don’t comply!'” Palin told voters at a campaign event.

In another video, Palin can be seen pointing at Peltola when she’s asked who she would put as her second choice on the ballot.

Palin issued a statement after the special election, blaming the “confusing” ranked-choice voting system for disenfranchising “60% of Alaskan voters.”

“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. The people of Alaska do not want the destructive democrat agenda to rule our land and our lives, but that’s what resulted from someone’s experiment with this new crazy, convoluted, confusing ranked-choice voting system. It’s effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters,” Palin said.

Begich said he is not going to change anything about his approach in November’s campaign.

“We’re going to campaign hard. . . . We’ll continue to travel the state and meet as many people individually as possible. At the end of the day, Alaska is a big state with a small population. We all know one another, and the way that you gather support in Alaska is to have conversations,” he explained.

Palin has said she’s going to “reload” for November, and hopes “that Alaskans learn from this voting system mistake and correct it in the next election.”

Palin from the article: 

Quote:Palin issued a statement after the special election, blaming the “confusing” ranked-choice voting system for disenfranchising “60% of Alaskan voters.”

“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. The people of Alaska do not want the destructive democrat agenda to rule our land and our lives, but that’s what resulted from someone’s experiment with this new crazy, convoluted, confusing ranked-choice voting system. It’s effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters,” Palin said.

So the majority voted for a democrat, even as their second choice, but that does not "reflect the will of the people" because she lost?
That is gop logic if I've ever heard it.

[Belsnickel]

I don't like the Reuters headline. It actually does harm to the RCV movement. If we were using the traditional voting method we were used to the outcome would have been the same. Palin is an idiot in her comments and the video for suggesting RCV is to blame. Here is what happens with this article, though. Twitter and Facebook users, where most of these people will see this, will share this article and ay "see! This is why we don't want RCV!" However, just below where the little snapshot of the article usually ends in those social media previews is the line that she would have won regardless.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(09-03-2022, 07:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't like the Reuters headline. It actually does harm to the RCV movement. If we were using the traditional voting method we were used to the outcome would have been the same. Palin is an idiot in her comments and the video for suggesting RCV is to blame. Here is what happens with this article, though. Twitter and Facebook users, where most of these people will see this, will share this article and ay "see! This is why we don't want RCV!" However, just below where the little snapshot of the article usually ends in those social media previews is the line that she would have won regardless.

Yeah, this is why I don't get the point of the article or this thread. She won the vote. What does ranked voting have to do with that?

If anything it kind of belittles the first Alaskan Native Congressperson from her victory, doesn't it? Makes it seem like she needed special rules to win, when she just... won. By nearly 9%, no less.

[Vas Deferens]

(09-03-2022, 09:05 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: If anything it kind of belittles the first Alaskan Native Congressperson from her victory, doesn't it?

SPOT.

ON.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

If they didn't have two Republicans on the ballot, there's a good chance Palin wins.

My problem with RCV is that the 2nd place votes for Palin supporters and Peltola supporters were never factored in.

Only the people that wanted the least popular candidate had their 2nd choice tabulated. The people that were more in line with what the state wanted, their 2nd place votes were never added in.

I voted Peltola 1st and Begich 2nd with no ranking for Palin at all. I'm curious what Begich's numbers would look like when adding in Peltola and Palin voter's 2nd place numbers.

[Belsnickel]

(09-04-2022, 02:28 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: If they didn't have two Republicans on the ballot, there's a good chance Palin wins.

My problem with RCV is that the 2nd place votes for Palin supporters and Peltola supporters were never factored in.

Only the people that wanted the least popular candidate had their 2nd choice tabulated. The people that were more in line with what the state wanted, their 2nd place votes were never added in.

I voted Peltola 1st and Begich 2nd with no ranking for Palin at all. I'm curious what Begich's numbers would look like when adding in Peltola and Palin voter's 2nd place numbers.

So, I think you are misunderstanding the way the process works and what it is intended to do. RCV is over called the "instant runoff" method of voting. The reason for this is because the way it works creates the results of a runoff election without having to hold another one. In a runoff election, Begich would not have been on the ballot and it just would have been Palin and Peltola. So the people that voted for them ranked first would have voted for them again (theoretically) and those that voted for Bergich would have to vote for someone else. Because of this, only the voters of the eliminated candidate have their votes shifted to their second ranked option because he would be the only candidate not on the ballot in the runoff election.

Having the second ranked votes of the voters for the candidates still in the running counted just doesn't make sense.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-04-2022, 06:52 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, I think you are misunderstanding the way the process works and what it is intended to do. RCV is over called the "instant runoff" method of voting. The reason for this is because the way it works creates the results of a runoff election without having to hold another one. In a runoff election, Begich would not have been on the ballot and it just would have been Palin and Peltola. So the people that voted for them ranked first would have voted for them again (theoretically) and those that voted for Bergich would have to vote for someone else. Because of this, only the voters of the eliminated candidate have their votes shifted to their second ranked option because he would be the only candidate not on the ballot in the runoff election.

Having the second ranked votes of the voters for the candidates still in the running counted just doesn't make sense.

I know exactly how it works and what it's intended to do. My point doesn't appear in this case because there was only three candidates because a 4th candidate dropped out.

Let me use this as an example.

Let's say that there are four people running for city librarian(not an electable position, just bear with me)
The four candidates are three authors and a raving lunatic you do not want in charge of a library.
Stephen King
Dean Koontz
Diane Palmer
Marjorie Taylor-Greene

Let's say that King and Koontz are both around 39%, Palmer with 12% and MTG with 10%.

Their first run is to grab all of MTG's 2nd place votes and apply them to their candidates. If the people voting for the least popular candidate have 90% 2nd place votes for King and 10% for Koontz, King now leads 48% to 40% due to the people voting for the person that's most out of touch. Then it goes to the last round and Palmer is eliminated. Her second place votes are 2/3 for Koontz and 1/3 for King. Their final round will be 52% for King and 48% for Koontz as the voters for two losing candidates made the final push.

But what if we look at the King and Koontz voter's 2nd place votes and over 1/2 of King's voters put Koontz as their #2 but very few of the Koontz voters put King as the #2? Suddenly things are flipped and we get what I think is a more balanced system that takes into account everybody's 2nd place votes, not just for the voters of the least popular candidates.


Personally, I think if they were going to implement a ranking system, they should come up with something similar to the college sports polls with points per ranking with six points available for three of the four candidates.

My #1 choice would be Koontz = 3 points
My #2 choice would be King = 2 points
My #3 choice would be Palmer = 1 point
#4 or no listing = 0 points

Most people already understand that system or know someone that can explain how simple it is. There would be no need of knockout rounds or transferring votes or any shit like that. It's a point based system that there is one decisive total when all of the votes are tabulated.

[GMDino]

Yeah, I think people got confused:

The "reason for the thread" was that we have discussed Ranked Voting before and here was an example of it actually being used.  It takes nothing away from anyone's victory...it's an example of how Ranked Voting was used in a real time scenario.

And also an example of how it was accused of disenfranchising voters by the person who lost...even though she would have lost anyway, maybe.

[Belsnickel]

(09-04-2022, 09:30 AM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I know exactly how it works and what it's intended to do. My point doesn't appear in this case because there was only three candidates because a 4th candidate dropped out.

Let me use this as an example.

Let's say that there are four people running for city librarian(not an electable position, just bear with me)
The four candidates are three authors and a raving lunatic you do not want in charge of a library.
Stephen King
Dean Koontz
Diane Palmer
Marjorie Taylor-Greene

Let's say that King and Koontz are both around 39%, Palmer with 12% and MTG with 10%.

Their first run is to grab all of MTG's 2nd place votes and apply them to their candidates. If the people voting for the least popular candidate have 90% 2nd place votes for King and 10% for Koontz, King now leads 48% to 40% due to the people voting for the person that's most out of touch. Then it goes to the last round and Palmer is eliminated. Her second place votes are 2/3 for Koontz and 1/3 for King. Their final round will be 52% for King and 48% for Koontz as the voters for two losing candidates made the final push.

But what if we look at the King and Koontz voter's 2nd place votes and over 1/2 of King's voters put Koontz as their #2 but very few of the Koontz voters put King as the #2? Suddenly things are flipped and we get what I think is a more balanced system that takes into account everybody's 2nd place votes, not just for the voters of the least popular candidates.


Personally, I think if they were going to implement a ranking system, they should come up with something similar to the college sports polls with points per ranking with six points available for three of the four candidates.

My #1 choice would be Koontz = 3 points
My #2 choice would be King = 2 points
My #3 choice would be Palmer = 1 point
#4 or no listing = 0 points

Most people already understand that system or know someone that can explain how simple it is. There would be no need of knockout rounds or transferring votes or any shit like that. It's a point based system that there is one decisive total when all of the votes are tabulated.

RCV is simple as well. The idea behind it is to require a majority of votes, like in a runoff, but not multiple elections. You're taking only the second choice of the eliminated candidates because the point of the second choice is that is who you would vote for if your first choice isn't running. So why would you count the second choice of those whose candidates are still in the running? That makes no sense.

Your system also would be difficult to implement and have to be constantly changing depending on how many candidates there were on a ballot as you would need to reassign point values and would be more difficult to handle for elections with multiple winners.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-04-2022, 01:18 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: RCV is simple as well. The idea behind it is to require a majority of votes, like in a runoff, but not multiple elections. You're taking only the second choice of the eliminated candidates because the point of the second choice is that is who you would vote for if your first choice isn't running. So why would you count the second choice of those whose candidates are still in the running? That makes no sense.

The flaw is that it favors the voters that supported the idiotic candidate. That's the problem that most of us up here are talking about. This system was presented to us that it helps a more moderate candidate but that won't always be the case.

Quote:Your system also would be difficult to implement and have to be constantly changing depending on how many candidates there were on a ballot as you would need to reassign point values and would be more difficult to handle for elections with multiple winners.

How? The only time there would need to be a change would be like the recent election when there are only three people. If there are eight people on the ballot you still only need to rank your top three, not #1 through #8.

[Belsnickel]

(09-04-2022, 03:24 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: The flaw is that it favors the voters that supported the idiotic candidate. That's the problem that most of us up here are talking about. This system was presented to us that it helps a more moderate candidate but that won't always be the case.

How did it favor those voters?

(09-04-2022, 03:24 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: How? The only time there would need to be a change would be like the recent election when there are only three people. If there are eight people on the ballot you still only need to rank your top three, not #1 through #8.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of instances where you would rank all of those on the ballot. It happens more in elections where multiple winners are selected from the candidate pool, though.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-04-2022, 03:42 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: How did it favor those voters?

The fringe wind up getting two choices in the matter or a mulligan . . . all of the voters that were more mainstream and think along with the majority will wind up only getting one. That's our issue. This may not be the topic of almost every bar in your state, but it is in mine.

[Belsnickel]

(09-04-2022, 05:59 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: The fringe wind up getting two choices in the matter or a mulligan . . . all of the voters that were more mainstream and think along with the majority will wind up only getting one. That's our issue. This may not be the topic of almost every bar in your state, but it is in mine.

I'm a political scientist, trust me when I say RCV is a topic at my social hours as well.

The idea behind RCV is that it allows independents and third-party candidates to have a fighting chance. In a first-past-the-post, plurality wins election, voting for a third-party or independent is a spoiler vote. Those candidates typically have no chance to win and voting for them is just taking a vote away from another candidate. RCV allows you to vote with the candidate that best represents you.

Say that instead of the way things turned out, Peltola had 34% and Palin had 35%. In FPTP voting, Palin wins. That's it. End of story. But in RCV if more of Begich's voters prefer Peltola because Palin is batshit looney, Peltola wins the election because their second choice goes to Peltola. It's not the system giving the fringe anything. The system allows everyone to make these choices and vote as they choose. To vote for the candidates they actually want to see in office. If you have a terrible candidate with a sizeable support base, like Palin, Trump, etc., then RCV can actually prevent them from winning.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-04-2022, 05:59 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: The fringe wind up getting two choices in the matter or a mulligan . . . all of the voters that were more mainstream and think along with the majority will wind up only getting one. That's our issue. This may not be the topic of almost every bar in your state, but it is in mine.

I think it's better than the current system. 

You can vote for whom you want to win first, then your second choice. 

The mainstream voters aren't likely going to flip to the other parties candidate, so I'm not seeing the same conflict you are trying to make?

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-04-2022, 08:16 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: I think it's better than the current system. 

You can vote for whom you want to win first, then your second choice. 

The mainstream voters aren't likely going to flip to the other parties candidate, so I'm not seeing the same conflict you are trying to make?

I think it's better also, I'm just pointing out what's bugging many people up here in AK, that's all.

Alaska has 55% independent voters, most of any state. Most lean one way or another but aren't committed completely to one side.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-04-2022, 08:04 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm a political scientist, trust me when I say RCV is a topic at my social hours as well.

The idea behind RCV is that it allows independents and third-party candidates to have a fighting chance. In a first-past-the-post, plurality wins election, voting for a third-party or independent is a spoiler vote. Those candidates typically have no chance to win and voting for them is just taking a vote away from another candidate. RCV allows you to vote with the candidate that best represents you.

Say that instead of the way things turned out, Peltola had 34% and Palin had 35%. In FPTP voting, Palin wins. That's it. End of story. But in RCV if more of Begich's voters prefer Peltola because Palin is batshit looney, Peltola wins the election because their second choice goes to Peltola. It's not the system giving the fringe anything. The system allows everyone to make these choices and vote as they choose. To vote for the candidates they actually want to see in office. If you have a terrible candidate with a sizeable support base, like Palin, Trump, etc., then RCV can actually prevent them from winning.

I understand all of that. But you keep referencing this election, which I already said doesn't pertain to my argument because the 4th candidate pulled out. The scenario that's worrying people up here didn't happen this time. It's new. People that were already skeptical of elections are confused and pissed. That's where the college sports points comparison was brought up in the discussions because most people already know or understand that system.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(09-04-2022, 09:13 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I understand all of that. But you keep referencing this election, which I already said doesn't pertain to my argument because the 4th candidate pulled out. The scenario that's worrying people up here didn't happen this time. It's new. People that were already skeptical of elections are confused and pissed. That's where the college sports points comparison was brought up in the discussions because most people already know or understand that system.

How would they understand that??? 
When was the last time AK had a team ranked?? 

[Belsnickel]

(09-04-2022, 09:13 PM)Forever Spinning Vinyl Wrote: I understand all of that. But you keep referencing this election, which I already said doesn't pertain to my argument because the 4th candidate pulled out. The scenario that's worrying people up here didn't happen this time. It's new. People that were already skeptical of elections are confused and pissed. That's where the college sports points comparison was brought up in the discussions because most people already know or understand that system.

Most people you're talking to know or understand that system. I had never heard about it before this discussion and I am willing to bet the majority are in the same boat. You're basing your position on the convenience sample from barroom conversations where the population is more likely to know the system. But that's not an apt representation of the overall population.

[*michaelsean*]

Damn now I might have to rank them? I have enough trouble voting for one without gagging.

[Forever Spinning Vinyl]

(09-05-2022, 07:01 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Most people you're talking to know or understand that system. I had never heard about it before this discussion and I am willing to bet the majority are in the same boat. You're basing your position on the convenience sample from barroom conversations where the population is more likely to know the system. But that's not an apt representation of the overall population.

OK

Which system do you think is easier to explain to a general population where a large section thinks the last election was stolen?

I've already stated that most people know the college sports system . . . or knows someone that does that can explain it to them. <----that's a key point

How many people understand the RCV system or knows someone that can explain it to them? All that the Fox/OAN/Newsmax voters know is that it was only implemented in Democrat run states or cities before being "crammed down their throats" and in the first election, a Democrat wins for the 1st time in about 50 years.