Instant Runoff Voting Violates Voter's Civil Rights

[texasholdum]

Run time: 09:27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvwXzQyGgQM   Posted on YouTube: November 20, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 23, 2009 By DU Member: texasholdum Views on DU: 920

 
Video shows studies from recent Minneapolis election and San Francisco.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Increases the chances of everybody's 2nd choice winning over 1st choices. nt

[bbgrunt]

2. this is bs. It basically says that our citizens cannot

be educated to use rank choice voting. Of course it is a new idea to many people here and extensive educational efforts must be taken. But in Australia, for example, it has been going on for years and people have learned the system very well.

I submit that you will find the same biases against poorer and less educated or even older populations when using the butterfly ballot. It is not instant run-off that is the problem.

Likewise, it might be more likely that you get your second choice rather than your first when using this type of voting, but it insures against getting your worst or last choice when more than two options are available and your first choice happens to be an option that doesn't seem likely to win.

The whole effort to block and discredit instant runoff voting is an attempt by the 2 parties to keep out third parties and force voters into voting for the lesser of two evils rather than for what they really prefer.

[pattyt]

3. Voting is mandatory by law in Australia!

Yes, Australia uses RCV, but most voters do not. Unlike RCV in US, the ballot has a selection called Party Block, which all you do is fill ONE CIRCLE , and ALL your RACES are "party line". A bullet vote for the one party fills in the rest.

Easy enough. So easy, they can do hand count in Australia (smaller population than California). Voting is also mandatory in Australia.

If everyone supported their first choice, without fear of what other people think, maybe your candidate would get more traction.

90% of those that supported Nader didn't vote for him. They SHOULD HAVE, it would have strengthened the third party. Never second guess your convictions.

[bbgrunt]

4. I understand that

in Australia the "party block" facilitates the voting procedure, but there is nothing to prevent that adaptation here.

That adaptation would probably be necessary if, like Australia, the ballot often included more than 20 options.

Of course the fact that they fine people who don't participate in voting is a separate issue that only means that uninformed and disinterested people are required to vote. It does not really impact the efficacy of the vote method of deciding the winner. This requirement forces them to randomize the order of names/parties on the ballot to reduce the "donkey vote"--the vote by those disinterested voters whereby they simply rank order in the order the names appear on the ballot. (We might also benefit from randomizing the order on the ballot)

Finally, the counting of the vote should not be prohibitive. I am sure that ballots could easily be counted using computers......but given the black box voting and counting problems we have already seen, I will agree that this could present some problems.


Theoretically, the RCV method is superior in producing an outcome more representative of actual social preferences but in reality the verification by hand count could be cost prohibitive. This video, however, does not even touch that point.

[paulkienitz]

6. hand count is doable

"in reality the verification by hand count could be cost prohibitive."

No it wouldn't. The worst case scenario is that if there are 20 candidates you have to redo the count 20 times. That's a significant bump but it's still only a linear increase, and in practice, by applying a little mathematical logic most close elections could almost certainly be settled in two or three passes.

[paulkienitz]

5. this is a Glenn Beck grade pseudo-crisis

I'm sure every one of these drawbacks occurred when people first started getting used to the party-primary system, when it was new. It's at least as complicated and arbitrary and hard to understand. A bit of confusion is an effect of making a change in any direction, not of one system being better than another.