Ranked choice voting (RCV) — also known as instant runoff voting (IRV) — makes our elections better by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
RCV is straightforward: Voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so forth. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice.
RCV works in all types of elections and supports more representative outcomes. RCV means better choices, better campaigns, and better representation.
Originally Posted By u/Albany50501 At 2025-04-22 02:51:32 PM | Source
I imagine this would be hard to count and validate
STV began permanent and wider adoption throughout Australia beginning in 1907 and the 1910s. The single transferable vote system, using contingent ranked votes, has been adopted in Ireland, South Africa, Malta, and approximately 40 cities in the United States and Canada. The single transferable vote system has also been used to elect legislators in Canada, South Africa and India.
If the Aussies could figure it out a hundred years ago, one would think America could also be up for the task. Then again, America.
The problem is not the voting mechanics. The problem is that there are a lot of idiots voting. Were you around for the 2024 election?
A huge part of the problem is the voting mechanics. People are forced to back candidates they don’t support because of a moronic two-party system that only makes sense as a historical relic, and barely even then.
Will this change the minds of MAGA voters to not vote for a racist dipshit? Your proposal does not deal with the large amount of people who voted for the current jerk. You have a hammer and everything looks like a nail to you.
you misunderstand, I think. The number of people who voted for 47 is a product of the current voting system. changing the system will do a few things:
some people who voted for 47 may have still selected them as their first choice, but in a different system with ranked choices, one of their second or third choices may have been elected instead, if that candidate had more support overall from a greater majority of the voters (depending on the system uses to select the winner) but basically: better to have a large majority’s agreed second choice than a tiny majority’s first choice
secondly, some people who voted for 47 may have chosen someone else as their first choice if they did not feel it was the only way to make sure their least favorite candidate wouldn’t be elected - a ranked system removes the “spoiler” effect.
so if you see that people who voted the way they did, did so because of the FTTP system AND importantly how the FTTP system can be manipulated with certain types of propaganda, meticulously targeted, to elect an extreme candidate, then it’s not a matter of first “changing their minds,” and more a matter of having a system that elects the representative that most represents most of the people. that is an effective tool against extremism.
It’s worth remembering that the majority of votes cast for President in 2024 were for a candidate other than Donald Trump; he got less than 50% of the votes that were cast for President. Making it so that those majority of votes aren’t automatically split (and thus diminished) can be impactful, imo.
Yes.
The biggest problem in American politics is we only have two parties who can win that don’t represent the true majority but the most vocal minorities, the rich and the bean counters.
After this last election I’m starting to hate the Dems as much as reps. Yes they’re better on a mathematical level but most of them don’t listen when the people don’t want what the party wants and are too weak and unlikable to stand up for democracy when faced with a charismatic tyrant.
We gotta figure out how to get out of the nasty self-reinforcing cycle we’re in. Yeah, we absolutely need ranked choice or some other fair voting system, but is that likely with the amount of money that goes into elections these days? But can we get money out with the politicians we have right now?
The usual avenues seem useless - we need to find another way to enforce change.
The single transferable vote is way better:
The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternative preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another.
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is the single-winner analogue of STV. It is also called single-winner ranked-choice voting and preferential voting
Seems like STV is an extension of ranked choice voting for the special case of multiple-winner elections.
