politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
There are multiple ways to interpret what you said.
If one state uses RCV only for their primaries, then they could do something like vote for Sanders - let's say that e.g. 42% of votes do that - but then unless Sanders got the top vote, redistribute all of the votes that would have gone to him to someone else. So if, say, Biden got 45% of votes, then Biden now wins, but still there was value in allowing people to vote for Sanders who otherwise would have been too afraid that a vote for him would have split the vote away from Biden and towards some crazy candidate instead. Also, being able to see those stats can be really helpful for the next election, if Sanders were to run again, or even for the current one to let Biden know that he should perhaps adjust his stance to court those other voters.
But the above is to use it purely for the primaries, and yet RCV could also be applied to the general election too. Although really, what need do you even have for a primary anymore, since you could just use RCV straight from the start? If the Dem vs. Repub voters are split 50/50, then 42/2=21% of voters picked Sanders, and 22.5% picked Biden, yet with the latter as the 2nd choice on all votes for the former, Biden would get rather 43.5% of the vote overall, and the same with the other Dem candidates, and similarly on the other side as well.
RCV is all about increasing choice. According to the devil's advocate argument you put forth:
No, b/c Biden would still get all 43.5% of the votes that he would have before. So according to this, nothing would be lost?
Although that ignores what would happen if people were not divided solely into two camps: if a bunch of Dem voters picked Sanders as their first choice, and a bunch of Repub ones did the same, then that is where something could get "lost" - Biden in that case could have lost to Sanders!! In that case, yes something gets "lost", but that is the very intent of the design, to allow voters to choose such a scenario in the first place!?!?
Whatever the people want, that's what they should get. As opposed to right now where you have to make a guess about who you think is more likely to win, regardless of who you want. No matter how you slice it, RCV increases choice.
With one exception, which I mentioned: if a progressive state gives up their vote to whatever the will of the country is overall, then they lose some of their power. However, (a) the candidate would have to win the popular vote - which in some sense means then that they should deserve that vote?; (b) lately liberals always win the popular vote, so it is not much of a risk. But it is an - admittedly odd - way to go about setting up a RCV-like system, where a state could e.g. vote for Sanders, but then if Biden overall won the popular vote, then switch it over to him. So there, people still end up not having to play that "guessing game" where they pick whoever they think can win, b/c with that fallback mode engaged, they can afford to be more risky, and e.g. vote for Sanders. Again, the risk would be if Trump somehow won the popular vote instead but... that seems extremely unlikely, and yet if he did, then wouldn't he "deserve" that vote? Yeah this one is a bit round-about and backwards, but it does work towards the same goal... if I am understanding it correctly, which I may not?
I just wanted to highlight that voters aren't stupid so today the overwhelming majority will vote for biden or trump, not for a third party.
With a better progressive voting system, better candidates will be elected, but only in progressive states. Whereas in the other ones trump will be elected.
Only if the RCV was applied solely at the primary level, whereas if it is applied rather at the level of actual elections, e.g. the last scenario i mentioned, then the only way for a better candidate to be elected is if they won overall across the entire USA. Otherwise the next candidate would get the votes - e.g. Biden in that example, unless somehow Sanders won the popular (plurality) vote.