Відео

@@איתןשי there are various PR comments on this overall thread, but the video was already 14 minutes long… great topic for a follow on piece :-)

@UnifyTheVote awesome 😃 Remember there are multiple types of PR as well, my personal favorite is the Belgian system (minus the Flanders-Wallonia thing)

RCV has been around for more than 150 years and has a very long history of adoption and repeal in the US. After the drubbing RCV took at the ballot box this last cycle, the notion we should continue to sideline much better solutions and keep pushing RCV alone is hard to endorse.

@@UnifyTheVote People complain about ranked choice being too complicated. They will be utterly repelled by STAR voting; it's even more complicated. Also, STAR and Approval voting probably won't stand up in courts, because they violate the principle of "one voter, one vote." You can't vote for this candidate AND that candidate -- it violates common sense. You can, however, vote for this candidate, but in the event they fail, then another instead.

@ no, on pretty much every point. STAR is objectively simpler than RCV by every reasonable measure: starring 0-5 is simpler than ranking, particularly as the number of candidates increases. STAR always counts in two rounds using basic addition, while RCV can take many rounds of tabulation with inscrutable results to get to the final winner. And finally, “one person, one vote” doesn’t mean that you only get to vote for one candidate- it means that all the voters’ votes are to carry equal weight. In a rank order system, your preference order is your vote. In STAR, your 0-5 opinion on all the candidates is your vote.

Two thoughts - first, yes! Now seems like a great time for vote reformers to debate options and settle on cohesive pushes for the 2026 ballots and beyond. Particularly given RCV's rejection across the board at the state level (despite massive spend and no meaningful opposition), alternatives that have been sidelined should have fair air time and consideration. All that said, constraining the dialog to self-anointed "reformers", leaves out an important core constituency, namely, uh, all of us... the voters. Actually understanding the questions we are all being asked in terms of upgrading our core franchise seems pretty important.

Yes! Though this video is specific to single-winner methods, the goal of radically more reflective representation of the electorate is a pressing concern. Proportional methods including STV are one proven way to move in this direction. What remains to be conclusively demonstrated is whether legislatures composed of single-member districts elected using equal voting methods will result in legislative outcomes that match or exceed proportional bodies' results in terms of collective popular will. Thanks for checking in!

Thanks for taking the deep look. The goals shared by advocates of RCV and other methods are worthy, just gotta make sure the product lives up to the promises :-).

@UnifyTheVote Exactly. If we don't examine our notions, we can fall into dogmatic thinking vs. actual analysis. There's no one magic bullet for the systemic issues as much as one could desire them

@@DunYappin you done yappin' yet? 🙂

@@UnifyTheVote In A MINUTE

@@DunYappin take yer time 🙂

Something like 11 states have now banned RCV, in no small part because of its failure right out the gate in Alaska in the summer of '22. One reason why it's important to push for voting methods that don't break with three or more viable candidates.

The extreme of this would be a classic spoiler candidate who gets lets say 5% of the vote in a 48%/5%/47% election, and the second choice votes are overwhelmingly center, lets say 10%/90%/10%. You could say that the center candidate would be a good compromise between the right and the left, and the center would win round-robin. But if 90% of those center votes go left, or right, would it not make sense to declare that party the winner, what metric could you really use to say whether the party who gets 51% in a run-off is worse than the party who people see as a compromise, in fact that compromise vote could be incredibly unpopular, or barely be running, having only joined the race recently, or have not campaigned much. I don't think Star or approval really address this either. TLDR, a hyper-polarized political environment breaks a lot of systems and make who should be the winner, not just unclear, but also arbitrary, like there isn't a good answer sometimes to who should have won.

The fruit example is a close analogue for what happened in Alaska in the summer of '22: there were three candidates in the race - one Democrat and two Republicans. The much more broadly-supported Republican got eliminated in the first step of RCV's count, since it only looks at the top portion of each vote in each step, so the Republican voters were broadly split between two options. Both of the other two candidates were actually opposed (ie ranked last or not at all) by majorities of the voters, while the more centrist Republican was 1st or 2nd on a super majority of ballots. You might check out this earlier video on this channel - ua-cam.com/video/-4FXLQoLDBA/v-deo.html -- I think it gets to the point you are trying to make regarding some systems (ie Score) giving a "center expansion" advantage to candidates politically between others.

@@UnifyTheVote yesss, I watched this too, I think the main thing that makes this situation seem so uncertain or odd, is the lack of second choice votes. Similar to low turnout in a runoff, it has a lot of potential to skew votes. I think a ranked choice system would have to have a better system of making sure people rank all three options. It’s definitely not a perfect representation of peoples opinions. I think the place we really need ranked choice is when multiple candidates are being selected.

RCV is not perfect, but it is the most feasible method to replace our current flawed voting system and has national and statewide organizers trying to make it happen. I encourage people to organize behind any system that is better than our current one. There is no perfect voting system, but with RCV, we can begin to discuss the flaws in our current system and take steps to get as close as possible to a perfect system.

@@MrVideoVero the drubbing RCV experienced at the ballot box this last cycle should put to rest the notion that it is somehow "most feasible". Further, RCV is regularly so oversold, that when it fails, the blowback on reform generally is significant, and the most significant flaw of our current system, vote-splitting, is unfortunately still very much present in RCV. We can do way better...

​@UnifyTheVote ya better to sell even more complicated systems that literally no one but poltical junkies like us know about... RCV has been proven in the courts. Other systems haven't. Let's get RCV first and then move on from there.

@@TheFireGiver did you watch the full video? The three alternatives (Approval, Ranked Robin, and STAR) are all substantially less complicated than RCV and deliver more accurate results. After RCV's shellacking at the ballot box this last cycle and outright bans in 11 states and counting, the "let's get RCV first and then do better things" argument falls way flat.

No thank you. American Democracy is rooted in the notion that we are to elect single representatives that best match the will of the people they represent, and this concept goes back before the adoption of the Constitution itself (see Federalist 57). Unfortunately we have been using broken, unequal voting methods from the beginning, which regularly fail to elect the most representative option in the field. Would PR.be generally better than any single-winner system? Possibly, but the introduction of parties as the intermediaries of popular will is itself problematic. In that concept, representatives owe their allegiance first to the party and then to the people. Something the founders expressly warned against (see Washington's Farewell Address).

@@UnifyTheVote Are there any other lies you want to tell? American democracy is rooted in the notion that landowning, white, men, who have reached the age of majority, should be the only ones allowed to vote (13% of the population). Additionally to that it is rooted in affirmative action which allows for minority rule (electoral college). The lie that the system is broken is either spread through ignorance or malice. The system is working exactly the way it is supposed to work. Which is the problem. I should clarify that I do not think PR is universally good for every office. For example executive offices (Mayor, governor, president). A problem is that the parties are already intermediaries, and this is not openly recognized as an inherent part of the system creates serious negative consequences. But that isn't even the biggest problem. I want you to go back to the first two decades of the country and look at the ratio of voters to representatives. It averages out to 200 voters for every 1 representative (that is state level). Note I said voters and not populous. The system hasn't scaled. We are talking about very small overlapping circles when the reps were as a rule on the first name basis with every voter. That didn't really change until 1870. Look at the population size of any of the 13 original states, and then look at the population of it's largest city today. it's a scaling issue. It's about HOW the system is organized as much as it is about the systems used to elect individuals to a given office. As far as the legislature goes the general body (House of Representatives, Council, etc) should be elected using PR. This ensures that every vote counts and every vote matters. In terms of Senate or Senate type bodies (Select men) having something like STAR or RCV is a good choice. Having a dual system like this allows for balanced representation that matters. But lets actually get to *THE* problem. Politicians have no (zero) business writing laws. Passing yes, writing no. This isn't 1780. We are talking about complex issues which it takes people decades to master. It is unrealistic and idiotic to expect an individual to be informed enough to actually be able to write laws. The role of the politician is not to write laws, their role is to discuss and pass bills brought before them after reaching consensus understanding. In addition to that their job is to facilitate communication to the general public about what a law is, why it is needed, and what it does. The proper role of a politician is first and foremost an educator. The role of the party is properly to write laws, or to query specialists (of a given field) to write laws, and then present them to the politicians. Fundamentally though you are asking the wrong questions, and seeking the wrong answers. Listen I am a firm believer in "If you don't know how it works don't break it". That said I am also a believer in figuring out what a system is meant to do, and seeing if there isn't a better way. A problem is that people are not willing to think radically enough. Chuck all of it. The whole system. Start from scratch. If you were one of the founders how would you design a system from the ground up using liberal (enlightenment) principles? What problems are you trying to solve for? How does what you propose solve for the problem? *And* what problems does it create. (If you can't think of the problems it creates then you screwed up somewhere or are lying to yourself). Once that is done you do a practical evaluation. The founders built into our system mechanisms for changing the system because they knew what they built was imperfect. THE issue with your star system is you don't even know what problem you have created. That is a huge problem.

@@alananimus9145 apparently you haven't read Federalist 57, the Declaration of Independence, nor the first three (really big font) words of the Constitution. Yes, the founders built upgrade into the process, for very good reason. No, parties aren't specifically better at writing laws (or asking legislative counsel to draft laws) than individuals elected by the will of the people they represent. But yeah, happy to have a collegial debate at your convenience.

@@UnifyTheVote So interesting side note, I just finished a massive six month project in which I updated the language of the constitutions, federalist papers, anti-federalist papers, and declaration of independence. Really a fascinating project. I think the most interesting challenge was to insert the references and context in a way that the modern reader wouldn't realize it happened. And let me tell you that was a challenge as some of the references are really obscure to most modern readers. Now let's address your attempted flattening of nuance. Let's actually take a look at the first three words of the constitution shall we? "We the People..." ... Who is the We reference here? Is it the entire population of the US including infants? No. Is it blacks and Native Americans? No. Is it women? No. Is it men? No. That we is looking awfully small. So let's actually look at what "We the people" means shall we. Translating the words "We the white, male, landowners, of the age of majority..." The "People" is a very small select group of generally high education. Anyone who isn't them isn't people. They don't have rights. Looking at your comments about parties. I actually agree with you parties are not better at writing laws. That is why I specifically indicated that it is one of the roles they should fulfill, and did not indicate that it was something they currently do (because they do not). But lets look at the idea that legislators are better at drafting laws. Big picture here, how many areas does a legislator need to be specialized in to legislate effectively? Education, Health Care, Transportation, Economics, Labor, Environmental Science, Safety, Crime, Social Services, Civil Rights, Technologies, Communications, Agriculture, Housing and Development, Taxation, Budget, Culture, Recreation. That is only the most broad overview and the devil is in the details. It's made even more complex when you realize that understanding each of those things individually is a large enough task, but understanding which things interact which which other things makes the task even greater. In 1780 it was possible for a single politicians to be an expert on all of those topics. Today not a chance. And again I very strongly recommend that you look at the politician to voter ratio over time. The fundamental flaw which you are not accounting for in your proposed system, is scaling. You are not taking into account that on a state level every house Rep was on a first name basis with every one of their voters. Under PR this isn't an issue as voters can select the candidates and rank them. The seats then get assigned based on how many seats a given party wins. This means the voters are selecting their candidates. But to close off my argument here let's return to examining yet another phrase that you used. "The will of the people". First, the assumption that "the will of the people" is always right is... an assumption. Not only is it an assumption but it's a dangerous one at that. When the populous is well informed the "will of the people" is more trustworthy (note I say more). The will of the people at one point was that we have slaves after all. The will of the people was that women couldn't vote. Even today the will of the people isn't always right. Good politicians have the spine and moral courage to tell the people when they are wrong. But we have very few good politicians. And when they do the right thing they are punished for it. Second, which touches on the first. The assumption was that the voters (ie people as opposed to non-voters who were not people) would be well informed. Realistically most people though they have an opinion, are not qualified to hold half the opinions they do. By qualified I don't mean that they have a degree, I mean that they are actually materially familiar enough with a subject to give a well reasoned and informed opinion. Third, there is this phenomenon on UA-cam called "Audience Capture". It's a great term as it applies to more than just UA-cam. In the realm of politics the issue we run into is "Audience Capture" of politicians. What this means in practice is that rather than focusing on promoting good policy, and acting as educators, the politician focuses on telling the voters what they want to hear. This is why parties are important (I am not defending either of the existing parties and would like to see them both destroyed). Well built institutional parties are capable of providing frameworks to both prevent audience capture and to incorporate participant feedback. Lone politicians cannot do this. The lone politicians is fundamentally what is at the root of our political problems. Audience Capture is a problem that needs to be solved for.

@@alananimus9145 pushing back on the "white landowner" assertion - again - Federalist 57 (and look at its title), but specifically, "Let me now ask what circumstance there is in the constitution of the House of Representatives that violates the principles of republican government, or favors the elevation of the few on the ruins of the many? Let me ask whether every circumstance is not, on the contrary, strictly conformable to these principles, and scrupulously impartial to the rights and pretensions of every class and description of citizens? Who are to be the electors of the federal representatives? Not the rich, more than the poor; not the learned, more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscurity and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. They are to be the same who exercise the right in every State of electing the corresponding branch of the legislature of the State." Did they realize that goal in the 1700s? Nope. Was it important that the intent be clarified in arguing for the Constitution in the first place? Yep.

This video barely touches on strategic voting (though that's a topic we mean to cover in future videos). The issue with RCV is that while it allows voters to express a more nuanced preference regarding the outcome, it doesn't bother to count a bunch of the voters' expressions in a way that is obviously unfair and counter to the messages used to sell RCV in the first place.

RCV is not so much susceptible to strategic voting, as it _requires_ strategic voting in order avoid spoiler effects. It's similar to first-past-the-post in that regard, except that correct strategy is much more difficult under RCV. With approval voting, it's expected that all voting is strategic. But in this case optimal strategy aligns well with intuitive behavior. There's never an incentive to down-rank your favorite as there is with RCV.

You're describing star voting. :) not sure if on purpose or accidentally, but that's basically how Star works.

@@MeldaRavaniel not exactly -- the system described above is the Borda Count, which turns ranks into points. STAR allows you to express a 0-5 star rating on each candidate and elects the majority favorite between the two who get the most stars overall.

​@@UnifyTheVoteyes, more complexity. That's exactly what RCV needs. Voting reformers are our own worst enemy.

@@TheFireGiver RCV is one of the most complex of the bunch - Portland's first use in this cycle, as just one example, took 19 rounds of tabulation to determine the RCV winner. STAR, in sharp contrast, is always counted in exactly two rounds, and the full system is described in four words (Score Then Automatic Runoff). If complexity is your worry, suggest switching horses :-).

We can focus on multiple things at once because there are a lot of people in the country. If that's your cause, go advocate for it!

@@MeldaRavaniel thats not really what i mean. Electoralism is not going to yield meaningful change with the amount of money corporations are allowed to dump in, you're trying to work within a system to change the system, which has also specifically engineered to prevent that. I don't have better answer but this is obviously not working

@@johnkeller2952 Biden/Harris spent over $880 million this cycle, compared to Trump's $425 million. Campaign spending is not everything.

​@@johnkeller2952limiting money in politics and getting a better electoral system are two things, both of which are needed. What is your point?

While voting method reform and campaign finance reform are distinct topics, the varying vulnerability of different methods to the influence of cash bears mention. Our current "choose only one" plurality method in particular gives an unassailable advantage to the money, since "viability" is measured in large part by the size of the campaign war chest. Better voting methods don't eliminate this problem, but with a fair method at least all candidates get a fair count.

🤣. Don't hate on the player, repair the game!

If I read you right, this would be an approval + ranking on the same ballot -- ie choose the majority favorite with the rankings between the two most approved from the voters. As a historical point of interest, this was the original proposal that led to the creation of STAR. At that time the concept was passed over due to ballot complexity issues, but there was at least one recent very cool ballot concept that separated a six-rank ballot into two three-rank columns (approve 1,2,3 - not-approve 4,5,6). The single-ballot approach solves for the "turkey-raise" issue of separate approval/top two elections, but arguable whether STAR's forced tiering is actually preferable.

The number one reason RCV isn't more popular is that it's too complicated. You're proposing even more complicated alternatives.

@@TheFireGiver RCV is the most complicated of the methods described in this video -- it's the only one that can't be summed by precinct, and can take many rounds to compute the winner. Keeping better solutions on the sidelines doesn't seem warranted at this point.

@@TheFireGiver The ones I'm suggesting would be precinct-summable and Ware RCV is not. Do you count a need to bring the ballots (or a copy thereof) to the counting center as contributing to your measure of complexity? To me, it contributes many more points than the dividing mark "||" between the Approval categories contributes.

@@UnifyTheVote Not just between two; that's STAR. I'm promoting (not invented by me) tallying in these steps: First, the candidates are ordered by Approval strength. Then the bottom two are compared by count of voters preferring one to the other minus count of voters showing the opposite preference. Eliminate from the list, whichever candidate loses that comparison. Repeat such bottom-two comparisons until one candidate remains. This elimination procedure mirrors Llull but differs in logistical details.

yeah it gives a lot of room for corruption at multiple steps. i’m calling propaganda.

There is some debate about whether the term "Ranked Choice Voting" refers to a single rank-order voting method or the entire class, but given the huge amount of media and advocacy explaining RCV as synonymous with the "instant runoff/hare/ware" method of sequential elimination, that's how we use the term.

@@UnifyTheVote IIRC the name was given by a San Francisco elections official because Instant Runoff was anything but "instant."

@@captsorghum - yes, to the original point -- the SF naming was specific to the "instant runoff/hare/ware" method, not to the concept of rank order voting in general.

@@UnifyTheVote It is good that the readers know how you are using the term and that I am using it in the opposite way.

The biggest problem with a system like Approval or RCV is that it essentially forces everyone to the system and kills any hope of reform... This is why there is no real alternative to PR

Also prices for gasoline and diesel fuel for vehicles should be subsidized for people with insurance by an increased price for those who do not. Again not perfect but hey. Food for thought.

Make your power an inverse of your tax bill. The poor have more at stake.

@@b43xoit it already would be because the “poor people” as you call them, pay the majority of taxes.

They shouldn't be.

The United States is a federation, not a unitary state. They know this, so the reason behind attacking it is political. And as it's political, there goes any chance for support from the Right. Or indeed anyone else who doesn't seek to dissolve the country.

The United States is a federation, not a unitary state. They know this, so the reason behind attacking its constitution is political. And as it's political, there goes any hope for support from the Right. Or indeed from others who aren't unwittingly seeking to dissolve the country.

@@b43xoit The United States is a federation, not a unitary state. They know this. So, the reason for attacking the conditions under which the states agreed to join the union is partisan. And, as the coalition is evidently partisan, there goes your hope for broad support. Or indeed from others who don't unwittingly seek to dissolve the country.

@@dreamcore The only way it is partisan is only up to the extent of advocating for democracy. "Demos" does not mean 'state'.

Yes, this is correct. Ranking systems that allow equal ranks or require full rankings and also count those rankings equally comply with the equality criterion. This has been updated on the Equal Vote site with the description of Ranked Robin and others.

What is STAR voting?

You can take that strategic approach, and it might work to keep them out of the runoff round. Or it might not. And if you gave both finalists 5 stars, you've effectively not shown up to vote. And while maybe you can on occasion get your best outcome with strategy, tests have shown that tactical voting tends to backfire in STAR. Contrast that with Plurality, where every election necessitates tactical voting. A vote for third party is a vote for the opposition. I can't say what weighting each ballot to a net 1 point might do to the system. Maybe better, maybe worse, maybe nothing. I'd have to let the election scientists answer that. I can say that it will make the system a little more complicated, and by a little, 3/4 of voters will denounce it as quantum physics + witchcraft. If you've watched states try to implement IRV, you'll have noticed that it has to be dead simple or they won't go for it.

Well. If you are worried about that just give them a 5.

You would be best served by giving your preferred choice a 5 and your worst a 0. For the rest of them, whether any strategy enters in or you score them sincerely might depend on the election, but it seems like those first two scores are always a given.

This is as simple as it gets without being Plurality. If a voter really doesn't care to express a preference, they don't have to. They can just go all 5s and 0s the whole way. Those who do care can express a more nuanced opinion about each candidate. I would further argue in favor of incentivizing voters to have an opinion. I'm not willing to coddle those whose first thought about the candidates is seeing on election day which ones have an R or D next to their name.

If voters are strategic, Score devolves into approval voting. I expect that STAR does close to the same thing, although the runoff component would make optimal strategy slightly more complicated.

So it just devolves into approval voting in both score AND star. That is STILL better that plurality voting. I think score plus proportional would be better.

Yes, this. In reality, if we improve voting to discourage strategic voting and, reward sincere voting, the public happiness will go up as people feel their honest votes weighed against their communities. Over perhaps 10 years or so, it will kill two-parry dominance and the divisiveness that it brings. The political spectrum will expand dramatically, and problem solving will be valued above all else. So I would like to see successive iterations to the models over many voting generations, as the electorates mature and there are no longer ANY dominant parties.

Cardinal voting methods behave essentially the same, if not better. Ranked methods (including Condorcet) can get increasingly erratic in higher dimensions, depending on the voter distribution and how evenly split voters are on each dimension.

And Gore got more votes and let the SC decide the election

That is false lol. Just because the big two candidates were that much more popular than the "spoilers" doesn't change the fact that the margin of victory (537 votes in Florida in 2000 and <1% in 3 states in 2016) was small enough that the "spoilers" probably did spoil the race