Unfortunately, the "simple change of allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference" is not enough to fix our democracy. You need to actually *count* those rankings to make a difference.
There are many ways to tally ranked ballots, and some, such as Contingent Vote, Instant-Runoff Voting, Final Five, etc. do not actually count all of the voters' preferences, which means that these "reforms" have no real effect and only perpetuate the polarized two-party problems of our current system, while giving voters the illusion of choice.
A voting system is a ballot type and a tallying method, not a ballot type alone.
Your reply to Mr. Richie is inaccurate; your intention appears to be to convince people to mistrust the proposal to upgrade our plurality voting system by implementing RCV.
RCV is absolutely an improvement over plurality voting. It fixes the "spoiler effect." It produces majority winners; no one gets elected with less than 50%+1 of the vote.
You are mistaken, unfortunately. This form of RCV ("IRV", or the Hare elimination rule) is commonly misunderstood and does not actually accomplish what you think it does.
1. IRV does not fix the spoiler effect:
Honestly ranking your true favorite as #1 takes a #1 ranking away from the Lesser Evil, which can cause them to be eliminated first, and help the Greater Evil win, just like under Plurality Voting. This is because IRV only counts #1 rankings when choosing who to eliminate; it does not count all voter preferences as truly democratic ranked systems do. Under IRV, you are better off voting tactically for the Lesser Evil as your #1 to avoid "wasting your vote", just like under Plurality Voting.
In a two-party system, it *does* prevent weak third-party spoilers from threatening the duopoly, but it does not fix the spoiler problem in general, so third parties remain irrelevant and it perpetuates that same two-party system. Look at how third party representation decreased in Australia's House after adopting IRV over 100 years ago.
2. IRV does not produce majority winners:
Even if a 65% majority of voters ranks candidate A higher than B, IRV can still eliminate A and elect B, since IRV only counts 1st-choice rankings when choosing who to eliminate. If someone votes C > A > B, for instance, their preference for A > B will never be counted and B can win, even though B is not preferred by the majority.
IRV can actually eliminate all of the most-preferred candidates in succession, until only the two worst, least-representative candidates are left, and then people will claim "majority support" because one of those extremists was preferred over the other on the subset of ballots that remain, ignoring the fact that voters would have preferred any of the eliminated candidates over the winner.
Do these explanations make sense?
And yes, I absolutely am trying to convince people to mistrust this proposal, because I want a robust multi-party democracy with more than two choices on the ballot, where it's safe for voters to honestly evaluate all the candidates, and this proposal does not accomplish those goals.
Unfortunately, the "simple change of allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference" is not enough to fix our democracy. You need to actually *count* those rankings to make a difference.
There are many ways to tally ranked ballots, and some, such as Contingent Vote, Instant-Runoff Voting, Final Five, etc. do not actually count all of the voters' preferences, which means that these "reforms" have no real effect and only perpetuate the polarized two-party problems of our current system, while giving voters the illusion of choice.
A voting system is a ballot type and a tallying method, not a ballot type alone.
Your reply to Mr. Richie is inaccurate; your intention appears to be to convince people to mistrust the proposal to upgrade our plurality voting system by implementing RCV.
RCV is absolutely an improvement over plurality voting. It fixes the "spoiler effect." It produces majority winners; no one gets elected with less than 50%+1 of the vote.
People who want to see how votes are counted in an RCV election can do so here: https://www.rankedvote.co/demo
You are mistaken, unfortunately. This form of RCV ("IRV", or the Hare elimination rule) is commonly misunderstood and does not actually accomplish what you think it does.
1. IRV does not fix the spoiler effect:
Honestly ranking your true favorite as #1 takes a #1 ranking away from the Lesser Evil, which can cause them to be eliminated first, and help the Greater Evil win, just like under Plurality Voting. This is because IRV only counts #1 rankings when choosing who to eliminate; it does not count all voter preferences as truly democratic ranked systems do. Under IRV, you are better off voting tactically for the Lesser Evil as your #1 to avoid "wasting your vote", just like under Plurality Voting.
In a two-party system, it *does* prevent weak third-party spoilers from threatening the duopoly, but it does not fix the spoiler problem in general, so third parties remain irrelevant and it perpetuates that same two-party system. Look at how third party representation decreased in Australia's House after adopting IRV over 100 years ago.
2. IRV does not produce majority winners:
Even if a 65% majority of voters ranks candidate A higher than B, IRV can still eliminate A and elect B, since IRV only counts 1st-choice rankings when choosing who to eliminate. If someone votes C > A > B, for instance, their preference for A > B will never be counted and B can win, even though B is not preferred by the majority.
IRV can actually eliminate all of the most-preferred candidates in succession, until only the two worst, least-representative candidates are left, and then people will claim "majority support" because one of those extremists was preferred over the other on the subset of ballots that remain, ignoring the fact that voters would have preferred any of the eliminated candidates over the winner.
Do these explanations make sense?
And yes, I absolutely am trying to convince people to mistrust this proposal, because I want a robust multi-party democracy with more than two choices on the ballot, where it's safe for voters to honestly evaluate all the candidates, and this proposal does not accomplish those goals.