What arguments are there against ranked-choice voting?

Question

In America, most elections are based on first-past-the-post voting, where whoever gets a plurality of the votes wins. For instance if candidate A gets 40% of the vote and each of candidates B and C get 30% of the vote, then candidate A wins, even if 60% of the electorate are steadfastly opposed to candidate A.

This problem can be solved by a system called ranked-choice voting, aka instant-runoff voting, where voters rank candidates from best to worst. Suppose there are six candidates. Then each voter ranks the candidates from 1 to 6. Then the voters's first-choice votes are all tallied up, and whichever candidate gets in 6th place is eliminated, and his voters are reallocated to whoever was their second choice. Once this reallocation is done, the 5th place candidate is eliminated, and this process is repeated until only one candidate is left. (And there are some rules on handling ties, just as there are in the first-past-the-post system.) For more information see here.

Ranked-choice voting has many advantages. It eliminates the concern that third party candidates act as spoilers. And if the Republican primaries had used ranked-choice voting, Trump wouldn't have won the nomination, since a majority of the electorate was against him, it's just that the anti-Trump vote was split.

But my question is, what arguments have been made against ranked-choice voting. It seems like an obviously superior system to me. The only downsides I can think of is that it may be too hard to understand for some voters, and there may be implementation costs. But it's been implemented in San Francisco and several other jurisdictions, and it doesn't seem to have caused any catastrophic problems.

EDIT: My question is not about the difficulties of switching to ranked-choice voting, but about what disadvantages (if any) there are of the system itself.

Possible duplicate of Are there any practical difficulties with switching to alternative voting systems in the US? — Be Brave Be Like Ukraine, Jan 22 '17 at 01:46
That's rather extreme, as that question is closed as a duplicate of What steps need to happen for the alternative vote to be implemented? And that has nothing to do with arguments against ranked choice other than implementation details. And yes, those exist. — Brythan, Jan 22 '17 at 03:53
Do you want to discuss ranked choice voting? Or the specific implementation IRV/alternative vote? Because some of the arguments against IRV do not apply to other ranked choice methods. And of course, some do. — Brythan, Jan 22 '17 at 04:00
@Brythan I thought ranked-choice voting and instant runoff voting are synonyms; that's how the term is used here: http://www.fairvote.org/rcv — Keshav Srinivasan, Jan 22 '17 at 04:33
This isn't extensive enough for an answer, so I'll put it here. The main "argument" against is that it offers options to the two-party system. The two parties that monopolize (dualopolize?) political power basically call the shots, so they're not going undermine themselves, because that would put the citizens' interests above their own. We know that's a non-starter. — PoloHoleSet, Feb 06 '17 at 15:53
@PoloHoleSet that's somewhat true. There are also those in the two major parties that realize what 3rd parties we do have often wreak havoc on the two party system (one could argue that happened in the presidential election). So there are actually arguments from within the two major parties to allow things like IRV. But, yes, it's likely still a minority viewpoint within the party leadership. — , Feb 07 '17 at 00:31
@KeshavSrinivasan FairVote uses "ranked-choice voting" to refer to "instant-runoff voting", essentially as a form of propaganda. There are many other methods that use ranked-choice ballots, though. — endolith, Feb 09 '17 at 01:11
Does the question only concern elections that require one winner (like presidency) or many representatives (in which case proportional representation is a good contender)? — Communisty, Aug 02 '17 at 07:31
@Communisty This is about elections that only have one winner. — Keshav Srinivasan, Aug 02 '17 at 12:59
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3057/text#toc-H8E0C137AD4A044FF9658E6745E639A21 Worth mentioning that their a bill currently introduced to establish ranked choice voting for Congressional elections. It also establishes multimember districts so its slightly off of the focus of this question. — Tyberius, Aug 02 '17 at 16:00
You say that ranked voting 'solves a problem'. What is the problem that you believe it will solve? — tj1000, Nov 20 '17 at 15:15
Just a comment - after losing elections, the losing side often suggests that with a different voting method they would have won (i.e., no electoral college, or ranked-choice ballots). The error is that, if the rules were different, strategies would differ too. If we went to ranked-choice, both parties would presumably nominate two or more candidates instead of just one, or find some other way to strategize around the change. — , Nov 20 '17 at 15:22
@tj1000 The problem is that "candidate A wins, even if 60% of the electorate are steadfastly opposed to candidate A" in the first paragraph. (It's a myth that IRV fixes this, though.) — endolith, Nov 20 '17 at 15:42
Ranked voting is not proportional voting. Isn't this a good argument? — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Jan 29 '18 at 20:50

endolith · Answer 1 · 2024-03-20T14:53:40.653

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This problem can be solved by a system called ranked-choice voting, aka instant-runoff voting

First off, there are multiple voting systems based on ranking your choices. The system you're describing is just one example, and it's a pretty bad one, so it's frustrating that people refer to it as "ranked-choice voting", as if it's the only ranked system.

This system is more specifically referred to as "Instant-Runoff Voting". (Though taken literally, there are other systems that use instant runoff rounds, but "IRV" always means this particular system.)

Second, it has a number of problems:

IRV has a spoiler effect

You said:

It eliminates the concern that third party candidates act as spoilers.

It doesn't, though. It actually leads to two-party domination in every country it's adopted in.

It's true that voting honestly for a fringe candidate (Yellow) is safe, since they'll be eliminated immediately and your second choice will go to a mainstream candidate (Green). So IRV is better than plurality in this case (where Red would win even though a majority opposes Red):

However, when the third party candidate becomes more competitive (which is the whole point of adopting an alternative voting system), voting honestly for them takes away votes from your second choice, who will get eliminated first, and then your most-disliked candidate will win in the following round. If the third party hadn't run, your more-preferred candidate would have won, so the third party is acting as a spoiler, and in fact the effect is worse than in plurality (red bar extends further to the right):

(These images are from Voteline)

Video illustration of this effect:

Video thumbnail Favorite Betrayal in Plurality and Instant Runoff Voting
Favorite Betrayal in Plurality and Instant Runoff Voting

Primer also has a great video showing this effect:

Simulating alternate voting systems

These effects have been modeled graphically on 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional political spaces, and produce bizarre win regions where the population moving toward a candidate causes them to lose, and vice versa. In this example, if the population's opinions shifted to the right, reducing support for Red and increasing support for Yellow, it would cause Red to win instead of Green!:

In 2 dimensions, we can see IRV giving the election to Green even when the population is centered exactly on the Yellow candidate. There's also a bizarre Yellow island that's nowhere near the Yellow candidate, and not present in any of the other voting systems pictured.

Approval voting or Condorcet ranking both have results that make sense, with the candidate nearest to the population center winning:

Animated 2D comparison of different systems:

Video thumbnail
Yee Animations 0.8

IRV excludes moderates

Similar to above, if there are two more-extreme partisan candidates and a moderate/compromise candidate in the middle, the compromise candidate is eliminated early (for not being anyone's first choice), even though they are the best representative of the population as a whole, and a more partisan candidate is elected instead. This is called the "center-squeeze effect".

This is essentially what happened in Burlington Vermont's 2009 election, which led to IRV being repealed. Montroll was in the center relative to the other major candidates, but was eliminated in the 4th round, and a more extreme candidate won, even though Montroll had a higher approval rating than the winner.

Here are the ideal win regions for 14 candidates, with each winning if the population center is nearest to them:

Here's what happens in IRV. All the candidates near the center are eliminated, and only the more extreme fringe candidates can win:

You can also see the center-squeeze effect by measuring the probability distribution of winners along a political spectrum as this 2024 paper did, showing that RCV has a moderating effect compared to FPTP, excluding extremist candidates from winning:

However, if you extend this same metric to include other voting systems, you can see that almost every other system does a better job of electing the most representative candidate, and RCV actually still has a pretty bad center-squeeze effect, with that same divot in the middle:

This effect gets worse the more candidates there are on the ballot, and the more representative they are. More choices and better candidates on the ballot? Under IRV ("Hare"), this leads to worse results:

These two effects lead to political polarization and two-party domination. You can see how IRV skews Australia's House in favor of the two main parties even though 1/4 to 1/3 of the population would prefer third parties (while STV leads to a more proportional Senate):

IRV is not a Condorcet system

In the Burlington election, Montroll was also the Condorcet winner, meaning he would have won against every other candidate in head-to-head elections. The overall preferences of the population were unambiguous:

Montroll > Kiss > Wright > Smith > Simpson

But IRV is not a Condorcet system; it eliminated Montroll and elected the population's second favorite Kiss instead.

Likewise, in the 2022 Alaska congressional special election, 54% of voters preferred Begich over Peltola, and 61% of voters preferred Begich over Palin, with an unambiguous Condorcet order of

Begich > Peltola > Palin

Yet because Hare RCV only counts first-choice votes in each round, and Palin and Begich split the Republican vote between them, Begich was eliminated before the others. If Palin had strategically dropped out before the general election, Begich (also Republican) would have won the election, but she acted as a spoiler, causing the Democrat Peltola to win.

If your system doesn't elect the most-liked candidate (the "Utilitarian Winner"), it should at least elect the most-preferred candidate (the "Condorcet Winner"). IRV guarantees neither.

Some argue that although it doesn't guarantee a Condorcet winner, it is still likely to elect one. This may be true in a two-party system with only one or two strong candidates, but in an election with multiple similar candidates, simulations show it to not perform particularly well:

(Performance is similar when measuring the likelihood of electing the "most-liked" candidate.)

IRV enables tyranny of the majority

Here's a (contrived) example:

Candidate A is loved by 55% of the population, and hated by 45% of the population (55% overall approval rating)
Candidate B is liked by everyone (85% overall approval rating)

Under IRV, the polarizing Candidate A would win, because they are preferred by a majority, even though the population as a whole would be much happier with Candidate B winning the election.

"Utilitarian" or "consensus" voting systems like Score/Approval choose the candidate with the higher approval rating, which is considered a better outcome by advocates of these systems.

Another way of viewing this is that Candidate A is a great representative of half of the population, while Candidate B is a good representative of the entire population.

Majoritarian voting systems are not as inclusive, leading to adversarial politics, inefficiency, and even civil wars.

2016 election

And if the Republican primaries had used ranked-choice voting, Trump wouldn't have won the nomination, since a majority of the electorate was against him, it's just that the anti-Trump vote was split.

There's not much good data about this, but it's likely that IRV would still have elected Trump:

Score or Condorcet voting would likely have elected Sanders or Kasich, as they had the highest approval ratings:

edited Mar 20 '24 at 14:53

answered Jan 27 '17 at 03:53

endolith

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I actually like the "tyranny of the majority" feature you mentioned at the end. Are there voting systems that keep the tyranny of the majority in place but fix the rest of the flaws of IRV you mentioned? – Keshav Srinivasan Jan 27 '17 at 05:00
@KeshavSrinivasan Why do you like it? – endolith Jan 27 '17 at 05:18
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Well, I think the point of elections is majority rule, and then you should use other mechanisms like checks and balances and the like to deal with the fact that there's a minority who doesn't agree with the majority. In any case, do you know of any voting system that improves on IRV in other ways but still makes A win over B in the example you gave at the end? – Keshav Srinivasan Jan 27 '17 at 06:46
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@KeshavSrinivasan I'm just curious how you came to that conclusion. Isn't the purpose of elections to choose the candidate who best embodies the will of the people? Anyway, Condorcet systems are also majoritarian, so you might like those. Schulze is the only one I've seen talked about, so I assume it's superior to the others in some way, though I don't know the details. – endolith Jan 27 '17 at 15:26
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@KeshavSrinivasan Score Runoff Voting uses Score for the first round, to choose the two candidates with highest approval ratings (replacing party primaries), then faces them off in an instant runoff where one will get a majority of the votes. So it's majoritarian in a sense, but only after eliminating the extremely polarizing candidates first. Simulations say it resists strategic voting better than pure Score, as well. – endolith Feb 06 '17 at 15:12
Is that 'excludes moderates' true of all forms of IRV (or is there only one form?) My understanding of IRV was that it excludes the fringes more so than the moderates. It gives fringes a chance, but allows the moderate fall-back. But maybe I'm thinking of ranked choice? – Feb 07 '17 at 00:37
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@blip There are many ranked-choice systems, but the phrase "ranked choice voting" is typically used to mean this system in particular, at least in the US. I guess taken literally, there are other voting systems that use "instant runoff" rounds, too, but likewise the term "IRV" almost only refers to this system. I'll edit to be more specific. Center squeeze does not happen in all ranked systems. Condorcet ranked systems like Schulze would have elected Montroll, for instance. – endolith Feb 07 '17 at 01:40
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@blip Center squeeze also doesn't happen in rated systems like Score or Approval (which I think I prefer over ranked) – endolith Feb 07 '17 at 01:55
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Where did you get (or how did you make) these figures? I love them. – indigochild Feb 07 '17 at 03:33
@indigochild There are links in the text, but I'll repeat them: http://zesty.ca/voting/voteline/ (click "Help") http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/ http://bolson.org/voting/sim_one_seat/www/spacegraph.html http://rangevoting.org/IEVS/Pictures.html – endolith Feb 07 '17 at 03:48
@CraigHicks The bell curves are 1-dimensional, and fit the actual data just fine. See 2014 Political Polarization in the American Public for graphs. Anyway, if you go to voteline, and then double-click on the bell curve, it will switch to bimodal or uniform distributions, but it doesn't matter; they still have the same problems. Why would IRV get more voters to the polls? – endolith Feb 08 '17 at 06:39
@endolith - Thanks for your comment. I've deleted my previous comment feeling I ought to look into the data more first. IRV has the capacity to field more candidates. If you consider the multidimensional space of election issues and the voters distributed as points in that space, then with more candidates it will be possible to have a lower sum of distances between each voter and their closest candidate, compared to if there were only two candidates. – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 07:33
@CraigHicks I think people usually talk about the centroid of voters, not the minimized sum of distances (geometric median), since a single voter moving around can move the median around a lot – endolith Feb 08 '17 at 13:51
@endolith - I was actually talking about a hypothetical issue space, whereas I think you are talking about a candidate space - but it doesn't matter let me restate my hypothesis: // Hypothesis 1 - Voters are more like to get up and vote if they feel great affinity for at least one candidate, than if they feel only neutral or unhappy about all candidates, even if they are more unhappy with some candidates than others. // Hypothesis 2 - An IRV general election would produce candidates aiming for each niche set of #1 votes. // Lemma 1 - given Hyp 1 and Hyp 2, the turnout would be large. – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 18:38
@endolith - (cont.) Of course, if the niche voters only vote for their #1 niche candidate and specify no other rankings, the IRV would not work as intended. Although the resulting ballot information might be useful for forming practical and popular platforms for future elections. – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 18:42
@CraigHicks The voters are plotted in issue space, and the centroid of voters is compared with candidate positions in the same space. That's where the 2D diagrams come from. I think I agree with your argument (though if people turn out to vote honestly for niche candidates, IRV's flaws will not make them happy). – endolith Feb 08 '17 at 19:42
@endolith - Re Burlington, can we be certain that if Montroll had won, the IRV system still wouldn't have been repealed? The second and third place losers might both have been upset, and convinced that there candidate should have won. – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 23:32
@CraigHicks No, we can't be certain, but they didn't repeal it after the first election. – endolith Feb 09 '17 at 01:09
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endolith @blip This is a real example of IRV "working" - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/us/politics/12bcvoting.html . A know it can fail for the "center" (see my self-deleted answer below), but to say it always or usually fails might not be correct. – Craig Hicks Feb 09 '17 at 04:23
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@CraigHicks IRV doesn't "always or usually" fail, but it fails more often than most other proposed systems. Simulations show that many other systems perform better than IRV (VSE, BR) and that IRV's non-monotonicity happens unacceptably often: WP – endolith Mar 16 '17 at 00:20
@endolith - I am certainly open to the idea of other voting systems. However, sometimes the evaluations in the literature are weak. E.g., in the example you cited "Instant-runoff voting and the two-round system are not monotonic", it shows two true right-left voters conspiring to vote false left-right in order to get center elected instead of left. Which implies that their true second choice was center, not left. Hence, a contradiction in what their true choice was. And and if right-center was really their true vote, they could have voted that way and center would have been elected. – Craig Hicks Mar 16 '17 at 18:08
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@CraigHicks I agree it's poorly worded. Think of it this way: If those two voters' preference is L>R>C, and they vote honestly, their least favorite wins. If they dishonestly decrease support for their favorite, and vote R>L>C, then their favorite wins. No sane voting system should behave in this way. Decreasing support for a candidate should not cause them to win, nor vice versa. – endolith Mar 16 '17 at 18:33
@endolith - "... But if at least two of the five voters who ranked Right first, and Left second, would raise Left, and vote 1st Left, 2nd Right; then Left would be defeated by these votes in favor of Center. ... " I'm looking, but I don't see what you are saying ("... If those two voters' preference is L>R>C, and they vote honestly, their least favorite win...") as being the scenario depicted. – Craig Hicks Mar 16 '17 at 19:28
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@endolith - Nevertheless, in IRV, it is easy to see that many may be left wishing they had voted differently because then a different preferable (to them) outcome would have been achieved. I do understand that shortcoming, and that other methods try to address that.
At the same time, it is interesting to note that many object to what they consider a system that elects compromise candidates. What kind of election is needed to select the criterion? – Craig Hicks Mar 16 '17 at 20:11
@Craig The first scenario in WP is my "dishonest" case (R>L>C causes L to win), and the 2nd scenario is my "honest" case (L>R>C causes C to win). I'm interpreting it backwards from the description. You're right that the "raise Left" text doesn't make any real-world sense. – endolith Mar 16 '17 at 20:23
Let us continue this discussion in chat. – endolith Mar 16 '17 at 20:23
@KeshavSrinivasan Can you ask your majority rule question as a separate question and we can delete the conversation here? – endolith Aug 02 '17 at 03:48
@CraigHicks Do you think we could turn the discussion about "contradiction in what their true choice was" into a separate question (even if we've already answered it), so it can be deleted from here? – endolith Aug 02 '17 at 03:50
@endolith Do any of the IRV methods for a single office (not a legislature) start the elimination process by getting rid of the person with the most lowest rankings? And perhaps alternate after than between the the most lowest ranks and the least highest ranks? I'm curious as to how that would effect the outcome. – Readin Jan 30 '18 at 05:52
@Readin That's Coomb's method, which works better than IRV in some senses. – endolith Jan 30 '18 at 14:43
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hay, @endolith . i see another contribution from you about a topic close to my heart. – robert bristow-johnson Apr 02 '19 at 06:06
Wrong Conclusion in Tyranny of majority example : You say that A is Loved by 55, hated by 45, but B is liked by 85 . So you conclude that A will be voted, while B would be the better choice. You call this a flaw of IRV, but the same things will happen in current majority system too – Nick Asher Nov 09 '20 at 23:48
@NickAsher First, yes, it's a flaw of FPTP, Runoff voting, RCV, Condorcet systems, STAR, etc. But systems like Score and Approval would choose the broadly-liked candidate. Second, I actually said that B is liked (but not loved) by everyone. The "not loved" is why the favorability is less than 100% – endolith Nov 10 '20 at 00:07
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I question the statement that IRV "leads to" two party domination. At most it could be said that it fails to eliminate it. The example which purports to show how voting for a third party can cause all your choices to be eliminated it theoretically possible but unlikely. If Green and Yellow voters really don't want Red in power each one will put the other non-Red party as their second choice. If Green is eliminated surprisingly then most of their votes will go to Yellow and Yellow will win not Red. If polling ever shows this is likely expect Green to make "give Yellow your 2nd" a policy. – Eric Nolan Mar 18 '21 at 10:28
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@EricNolan Well it leads to two-party domination just as much as FPTP does. There are FPTP countries with multiple strong parties, etc. Half of Green voters did put Red as their last choice, and 100% of Yellow voters did. You're ignoring that half of Green voters prefer Red as their second choice. Everyone who advocates IRV talks about one specific contrived two-party scenario and says "See, it eliminates the spoiler effect!" while ignoring the much more common scenarios like the one I've shown. – endolith Mar 18 '21 at 14:42
@EricNolan In other words, the colors aren't parties, they're voters. Right-wing Green fans can tell Left-wing Green fans to "give Yellow your 2nd" all they want, but that's not going to happen because it's not what Left-wing Greens want. – endolith Mar 18 '21 at 14:45
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@endolith, i wanna point you to my recent paper and to this 2004 Scientific American article coauthored by Nobel laureate Eric Maskin (and FairVote dishonestly counts Maskin as a supporter of their IRV version of RCV). – robert bristow-johnson Jun 14 '21 at 02:58
@robertbristow-johnson The first paragraph sounds like you're advocating Score-based systems :) – endolith Jun 14 '21 at 20:13
@endolith Regarding the related question: What are the pros and cons of ranked-choice voting compared to first-past-the-post voting?: I have just awarded the first bounty in a series of a few bounties. I posted the second bounty. I value your answer above. I also encourage you to convert your comment about the Nazi Germany on item 8 of my question into an answer. The comment was probably deleted by mistake by the moderators (not intended). I will be happy to consider your answer, no matter how brief, for the bounty! TYIA. – Timur Shtatland Mar 31 '24 at 14:47

score 16 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 22 '17 at 05:22

Trump

And if the Republican primaries had used ranked-choice voting, Trump wouldn't have won the nomination, since a majority of the electorate was against him, it's just that the anti-Trump vote was split.

Maybe. However, by the end of the primaries, Donald Trump was winning an absolute majority of the vote. Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) or plurality, an absolute majority is a winner. It's possible that ranked choice would have helped in the early primaries (and Trump would have never achieved the inevitability at the end), but it's by no means guaranteed.

If your goal is getting rid of Trump, then I would suggest getting rid of partisan primaries instead. That could have led to a candidate like John Kasich or Jim Webb winning.

IRV might have helped in the general election. Presumably Jill Stein voters preferred Gary Johnson and Hillary Clinton to Trump. And Clinton voters probably preferred Johnson and Stein to Trump. It's not clear how Johnson voters felt though. Libertarians have traditionally been split on second choice candidates. In any case, IRV is heavily dominated by the first choice. Since Trump and Clinton were the overwhelming first choices, it would have still been mainly between them.

Ranked choice in general

Ranked choice ballots are more complicated to fill out. Instead of filling out a single choice, voters have to fill out a list.
Ranked choice voting is harder to understand. It's not as obvious why one candidate wins over another.
Ranked choice is harder to process. Instead of just counting votes, the system has to count ordered lists.
Ranked choice doesn't fix problems with partisanship or oppression of minority groups in favor of majority opinion. But those are common complaints about the current system.

Note that these aren't insurmountable details. In particular, computers make the implementation difficulties much less important. But they are problems with every ranked choice method.

Also note that this doesn't include any of the arguments for ranked choice voting methods. This question only asks for arguments against. Balancing the competing arguments would be more opinion-based.

IRV in particular

Plurality is better than IRV by some criteria. In particular, monotonicity, consistency, and participation. Quick summary, there are tactical reasons to list different orders than one's actual preference.

IRV does not meet the Condorcet criterion. So in a high partisan environment, it tends to devolve into the same choices as plurality voting.

Of course, IRV is also better than plurality voting on some criteria. In fact, every voting system has some criterion on which another voting system is superior. In particular, the Condorcet criterion and Later No Harm are incompatible, so no voting system fulfills both.

Regarding using the 2016 Republican primaries as an example: 1. One of the biggest advantages of ranked voting is that tactical voting is far less necessary, so you can not just take results of a majority vote and assume people would have had the same 1st preferences if it had been a ranked vote. And 2., with ranked voting, primaries are no longer necessary, because a party has no disadvantage anymore by running multiple candidates. But the rest of this answer is a really good synopsis. — Philipp, Jan 22 '17 at 12:25
@Philipp IRV/"RCV" does not have those benefits, though. It still has vote splitting and spoiler effects which require tactical voting. — endolith, Feb 06 '17 at 16:32
While I like the 'Trump' part of the first, it's likely much fairer to say "fewer fringe candidates winning". IRV ultimately (in theory, at least) leads to a more centrist result as the 'less extreme option' tends to be shared by more people that the extreme options. — , Feb 07 '17 at 00:33
Hmm...I need an analogy here. Without IRV, you could end up with pepperoni and licorice flavored ice cream for dessert. With IRV, you might end up with French Vanilla. Not everyone would choose French Vanilla if they only had one vote, but most people would agree French Vanilla is an OK compromise. :) — , Feb 07 '17 at 00:35
@Brythan I think you make a lot of good realistic informative points, but the speculation of results of the last election if they had been held under IRV are not so useful - e.g., Bernie and others would probably have been candidates under IRV so your starting hypothesis about the candidates present is already wrong. — Craig Hicks, Feb 08 '17 at 18:20
@blip IRV would choose Pepperoni or Licorice. It excludes compromise candidates. Score voting would choose French Vanilla. — endolith, Feb 08 '17 at 23:46
"However, by the end of the primaries, Donald Trump was winning an absolute majority of the vote." Wasn't this largely due to the fact that he was the only candidate left in the race for the last 2 months? Before the April 26 primaries, Trump had achieved an absolute majority in only a single state (his then-home state of New York) and one territory (N. Mariana Islands.) — reirab, Mar 07 '21 at 02:21
"Libertarians have traditionally been split on second choice candidates." No not really, the Libertarian party typically tends to spoil for Republicans and there is a strong Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. They certainly would have elected Hilary in 2016 as Libertarians tend to be opposed to big government in general, and Hilary was the "Big Government Candidate" of that election cycle, so it's not likely she would have been picked as a second choice. — hszmv, Nov 14 '22 at 16:43

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 15 '22 at 01:55

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Ranked choice voting would increase the amount of time it takes to determine the winner of elections.

Elections in the US are already painfully slow - the very act of taking weeks to determine a winner in some races has contributed to the crisis in confidence of democracy among some fraction of republican voters.

By switching to a more complicated system, election results could be even further delayed. This would cause more people to think the results were rigged. These would be undesirable effects.

answered Nov 15 '22 at 01:55

Everyone_Else

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Ranked choice does not have to increase how long election results take and most of the delays with results are caused by restrictions put in place around counting mail in votes before election day and other restrictions. Also as there is a long delay between the election and taking office there is no need to have same day results. – Joe W Nov 15 '22 at 02:05
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Actually, you do need same day results, like any other functioning democracy to install confidence in elections. In practice, ranked choice does increase the time taken to determine a winner, like Alaska senate 2022 or NYC mayor 2021. – Everyone_Else Nov 15 '22 at 03:37
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No you don't, there is no reason to have same day voting results and forcing that to happen causes more people to be excluded. When you have states that make it illegal to count and mail in or early ballots until after the polls close on election day it becomes an impossible goal. Not to mention we have never had the official results on election day and never will do the the short amount of time between polls closing and the end of the day. What people need are accurate results not speedy results. Remember the fact that we never get final results on election day just predictions. – Joe W Nov 15 '22 at 13:36

dannyf · Answer 4 · 2017-02-07T13:52:45.837

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A. Big part of an election IS to show a mandate for the winner. To show a mandate, you need to have popularity. Or "absolute preference" for a candidate - " I like candidate XYZ too win".

Ranked voting shows only "relative preference" - "I like candidate XYZ more than ABC" but it could very well be that I dislike both.

Thus a winner of a ranked voting cannot assure the voters that he or she has the mandate to govern.

Edit: another way to look at this, the winner of a rank voting system is the least disliked candidate, while a regular voting produces the most popular winner.

edited Feb 07 '17 at 13:52

answered Feb 07 '17 at 12:13

dannyf

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suppose 3 cands a, b, c with ranked voting: // a > c > b = 50% // b > c > a = 50% // c > * > * = 0% // Cand "c" the extreme case of the least disliked but never most popular candidate. But c will be eliminated in the first round and it will be a toss up between a and b. // On each round IRV eliminates the candidate with least #1 votes in that round - that gives an intuitive explanation of why c, the compromise candidate, could not win. – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 15:41
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i can make the example simpler for you. Say you have two candidates and two voting systems, one is popular vote and another is rank vote. Candidate A is declared a winder in a popular vote. you can infer from that, correctly, that Candidate A has the most support thus the mandate; – dannyf Feb 08 '17 at 15:49
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I can give an example where "mandate" becomes questionable in your scenario. Two candidates, A and B, are the only ones running in the election. A has 25% support, B has 25% support, but 50% are completely dissatisfied with both candidates and do not vote. Either A or B will get elected, but 75% of the electorate are completely dissatisfied with either.
Is that a "mandate"? – Craig Hicks Feb 08 '17 at 17:32

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 20 '17 at 12:27

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One of the problems with ranked choice is that it not show how much do you like or rate someone.

If some brothers are voting between an spider and a dog to be their pet, if an the arachnophonic kid vote "dog is better than spider", it will have the same meaning than a kid that likes both (but prefer dog) and vote "dog is better than spider".

answered Nov 20 '17 at 12:27

minoceo

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This is more of a comment than a real answer. – Alexei Nov 20 '17 at 12:54
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Is there any system that does do this? In such a system, wouldn't the dog-preferer just pretend to be arachnophobic so their vote counts for more? – Reasonably Against Genocide Mar 18 '21 at 10:11

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 02 '17 at 20:30

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Any election system is unfair if it has single-member districts. Fair representation can only be achieved with multiple-member districts.

Of course, executive governments are usually single-member. But parliamentary / congress systems with single-member districts can be easily abolished.

answered Aug 02 '17 at 20:30

NaBUru38

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Can you make this more of an answer to this specific question? IRV is a single-winner election method, but it's used in multi-winner constituencies like Australia's House, which is a valid criticism. – endolith Nov 20 '17 at 15:45

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 12 '22 at 19:16

This answer is directed at instant runoff voting vis-a-vis multiple round voting, such as systems where a majority of the vote is required to win the final round.

The big virtue of multiple round voting is that it is easier for many voters, in terms of both time expended for candidate research, and conceptual difficulty, to make a first choice pick only, than it is to rank other contenders in a race beyond the first choice candidate.

In a multiple round voting system, if your first choice candidate doesn't win in the first round, you have additional time to research the candidates who remain, knowing that the research is directly relevant to the outcome, without having to have spent a lot of useless time researching second and third priorities in races where it will never come to an "instant runoff" because first choice decisions will end up resolving the race, or where a voter's first choice makes it into the next round.

Thus, the decision on second choice candidates in a second round is likely to be better informed and hence higher in quality, than in an instant runoff voting conceptual "second round".

The downside of having multiple rounds is that often this is framed as a "top two candidates in the first round" make the second round, and when this happens, the candidates who make it into the second round may not accurately reflect the second choices of the voters whose first choice candidates are eliminated.

score -1 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 21 '17 at 17:19

With situations you outlined, there are some bad assumptions you're making. First, in the scenario where A gets 40% of the vote and B and C get 30% of the vote apiece, you assert that 60% of the population does not approve of candidate A, despite his win. You get this number by adding B and C together. However, this does not mean that B and C attract equal opposition to A. Rather, it means that 60% of the electorate opposes A, but 70% opposes B and 70% opposes C. A first past the post system does not mean that the candidate is disliked by the electorate if he doesn't receive a vote, but rather he was not the first pick. C supporters may lean more towards A, but see C as the better candidate. However, if C dropped out, they still like A more than B. These metrics can't be accounted in a first pass the post system, which does not care about the votes not received, so long as the winner receive the most.

This is true with the assertion that Donald Trump would not win. All we know is that the support of the less successful candidates meant that Donald Trump was not their first pick, as opposed to #NeverTrump. You can only assume that Trump will get a portion of the support of people who still liked him over other candidates.

If we look at the original set up of a 40%/30%/30% split, Candidate A is still likely to win in a First Pass the Post because he only needs to secure 36% of C's support (11% of the total available voters) to win. Where as B would need to secure 70% of C's support (21% of the total available voters). Keep in mind that C's support does not mean disapproval of A or B. It could be B < A < C or A< B < C. In our real world model, You assume that Kasich Supporters would support Cruise before Trump, without taking into account that Kasiche supporters might have stronger feelings of opposition to Cruise than Trump.

So that's just with some math of yours not with your system.

With your system, lets add to the mix of canadates A, B, C the new comers D, and E. If I arrange my ballot so that C < B < A and never rate D and E because I cannot stand either of them (effectively never voting for them), what happens to my vote if A, B, and C are eliminated? Here my vote is never given to a any candidate because I did not choose either. To correct would you require to rate D and E? If so, what if I use my freedom of speech to still choose not to rate D and E and my ballot is thrown out because it is not complete? What if I do cast a vote for a winning candidate in my order, and still refuse to vote D or E... does that discount my vote?

You have a good and overlooked point here. Taking the 2016 election, and assuming that ranked voting replaced the primary, we would have 5 Democrats (not Sanders), 3 third party (Sanders, Johnson, Stein) and 17 Republicans. The GOP will win this election just by exhausting the field, assuming that no Democrats rank any Republicans. Also, the winner will not be Trump, Bush, Cruz or any top candidate, because those were all eliminated in early rounds. It will be somebody far down the list, like Santorum or Jindal, and the more Rs the Ds rank, the farther down the list of candidates we go. — Chris Strickland, Dec 20 '17 at 19:38
Could that be solved with a weighted choice? One has 100 points, to distribute between the candidates (instead of just ranking them), in the case you described D and E would get zero points. The vote would still be correct. — WoJ, May 13 '19 at 09:40
@WoJ: On it's face, I would say no... the first, second, third... ect choice is weighted in that your vote will only move if your first choice is the runner up, you don't get your vote changed, but if your first choice is eliminated, it will go to the next favorite that has not yet been eliminated. It solves the issue of third parties spoiling as those parties saw high numbers in 2016 because the two major parties were both considered terrible candidates. — hszmv, May 13 '19 at 13:04

score -8 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 21 '17 at 22:32

A prime argument against ranked choice voting is - there's nothing particularly wrong with the current voting system. Why change? What could that change bring that we don't have today?

Yes, we had a dismal 2016 presidential election, with two decidedly flawed candidates. Even the third party candidate sucked that year. The 2016 US election was a perfect storm of lousy choices.

That isn't the fault of the voting system. It's the fault of the parties for letting the situation devolve, and the fault of the voters for not demanding better.

Doesn't matter what voting system you have. As long as you have an electorate who is so easily distracted by smokescreens and irrelevant platforms, and doesn't focus on what is important for the future of the nation, you'll get poor results.

There's plenty wrong with FPP, the inability for a third-party candidate to get traction is the most obvious one. — Reasonably Against Genocide, Mar 18 '21 at 10:11