'There’s a proven solution to the “spoiler” problem that is ready-made for American politics: ranked-choice voting.'
This is a myth, unfortunately. RCV only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which is the same counting method as FPTP, which means it suffers from the same vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems.
The most-preferred candidates can be eliminated prematurely because vote-splitting with other similar candidates takes away their first-choice rankings, so that voting honestly for your true favorite may backfire and help the "greater evil" get elected.
Under RCV, you still have to vote strategically for the "lesser evil" as your first choice to avoid wasting your vote, which is why RCV doesn't fix the spoiler problem and tends to produce a polarized two-party system just like FPTP.
I'm sorry but you really don't understand how RCV works or how the ballots are counted. Your statement "RCV only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which is the same counting method as FPTP" is 200% wrong. RCV actually does solve the spoiler problem, just ask Al Gore and Ralph Nader!
The OP's point here is wrong, but that's because they claim that "it suffers from the same vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems". If they had claimed "it also suffers from vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems", then they would have been technically correct, but not usefully so.
There are some circumstances where the Condorcet winner (the candidate who would beat all other candidates in one-on-one elections) can lose because of spoiler effect under RCV, but what p48h93h438 misses is that those are much rarer situations - in formal mathematical terms, they are a subset of the cases under FPTP, but, more importantly, they are cases that occur rarely in practical politics.
The only cases where a party could feel cheated by RCV is when a third-party actually gets ahead of the major party on their side, which flips the election to the other major party (e.g. a Green gets ahead of the Democrat, which gives the election to the Republican), While a second-place candidate (ie the Green in our example) meets the formal mathematical definition of a spoiler, if a candidate gets that many votes (ie enough to be competitive to actually win), then I don't think the usual complaint that they should not have stood because they were a spoiler can reasonably stand.
As Steven says, this is totally wrong. No voting system is perfect (this is Arrow's theorem) but in practice, the best choice under RCV is almost always to vote in your true order of preference. This is particularly true if your most preferred candidate is a "third party" with little chance of winning. If neither major party has a majority of first preferences, your candidate will be eliminated and your vote will be given to the "lesser evil". There are literally thousands of Australian elections in which this has taken place.
RCV caters for a more nuanced set of opinions - we are not 'all or nothing' binary red or blue voters.
Also, it would give much better data to show dissatisfaction with the 2-party system in the US. Alas, this is part of the problem with advancing RCV. So much current influence and wealth is tied up in the 2-party system -- power structures will always move with swift force to eliminate threats to their existence.
Yes Graeme, what you say is true, but RCV is moving forward anyway. It will be on the ballot to change statewide elections in at least three states this Nov, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, plus on the ballot in Wash DC for local elections. In Oregon, the dominant Democrats actually put it on the ballot, while the other states have been by voter initiative. Little by little...but for sure, it's a darn big country, so it's taking some time. Thanks for your thoughts.
'There’s a proven solution to the “spoiler” problem that is ready-made for American politics: ranked-choice voting.'
This is a myth, unfortunately. RCV only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which is the same counting method as FPTP, which means it suffers from the same vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems.
The most-preferred candidates can be eliminated prematurely because vote-splitting with other similar candidates takes away their first-choice rankings, so that voting honestly for your true favorite may backfire and help the "greater evil" get elected.
Under RCV, you still have to vote strategically for the "lesser evil" as your first choice to avoid wasting your vote, which is why RCV doesn't fix the spoiler problem and tends to produce a polarized two-party system just like FPTP.
I'm sorry but you really don't understand how RCV works or how the ballots are counted. Your statement "RCV only counts first-choice rankings in each round, which is the same counting method as FPTP" is 200% wrong. RCV actually does solve the spoiler problem, just ask Al Gore and Ralph Nader!
The OP's point here is wrong, but that's because they claim that "it suffers from the same vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems". If they had claimed "it also suffers from vote-splitting and spoiler effect problems", then they would have been technically correct, but not usefully so.
There are some circumstances where the Condorcet winner (the candidate who would beat all other candidates in one-on-one elections) can lose because of spoiler effect under RCV, but what p48h93h438 misses is that those are much rarer situations - in formal mathematical terms, they are a subset of the cases under FPTP, but, more importantly, they are cases that occur rarely in practical politics.
The only cases where a party could feel cheated by RCV is when a third-party actually gets ahead of the major party on their side, which flips the election to the other major party (e.g. a Green gets ahead of the Democrat, which gives the election to the Republican), While a second-place candidate (ie the Green in our example) meets the formal mathematical definition of a spoiler, if a candidate gets that many votes (ie enough to be competitive to actually win), then I don't think the usual complaint that they should not have stood because they were a spoiler can reasonably stand.
As Steven says, this is totally wrong. No voting system is perfect (this is Arrow's theorem) but in practice, the best choice under RCV is almost always to vote in your true order of preference. This is particularly true if your most preferred candidate is a "third party" with little chance of winning. If neither major party has a majority of first preferences, your candidate will be eliminated and your vote will be given to the "lesser evil". There are literally thousands of Australian elections in which this has taken place.
RCV caters for a more nuanced set of opinions - we are not 'all or nothing' binary red or blue voters.
Also, it would give much better data to show dissatisfaction with the 2-party system in the US. Alas, this is part of the problem with advancing RCV. So much current influence and wealth is tied up in the 2-party system -- power structures will always move with swift force to eliminate threats to their existence.
Yes Graeme, what you say is true, but RCV is moving forward anyway. It will be on the ballot to change statewide elections in at least three states this Nov, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, plus on the ballot in Wash DC for local elections. In Oregon, the dominant Democrats actually put it on the ballot, while the other states have been by voter initiative. Little by little...but for sure, it's a darn big country, so it's taking some time. Thanks for your thoughts.