One correction: Colorado currently uses semi-open primaries in which independents are allowed to vote in the primary of their choice (but Democrats can't vote in the Republican primary and vice versa). Even this is problematic, however. As you note, "an independent voter registered as a Democrat in a lopsided GOP district or state, or as a Republican in heavily Democratic districts and states, that voter would still have no say in who gets elected." This isn't just a matter of registration; if the voter prefers the Democratic candidates in a GOP-favored district, even in Colorado's system, this voter has to vote strategically in order to have a meaningful voice.
Interestingly, Top-4 RCV often fails to address this issue because RCV functions similarly to partisan primaries in districts that aren't extremely lopsided (e.g. 75%-25%). If a district is 60% Republican and 40% Democratic, and voters behave honestly and in line with their partisan preferences, a Democrat and a Republican will make it to the final round, and whichever Republican makes it there will win the election. Is the same situation you get with partisan primaries: voters who rank all the Democrats above all the Republicans get no say in which Republican gets elected. In more competitive districts voters have to worry about electability for the same reason they have to worry about it in primaries; a failure to consider electability caused Republicans to lose the 2022 Alaska special House election since they would have won the seat if enough of them had strategically ranked Begich over Palin.
True, the Top 4/RCV hybrid is still operating within a "winner take all" system, and so of course will suffer from the significant defects of that method. The best electoral method for independent voters would be proportional ranked choice voting, since that would allow them to have choices along the political spectrum that are viable for election.
On Alaska, I don't agree with your assessment, you assume that Alaska is a solid Republican state but it's not. It's only 24% Rep by voter registration. It is however a solidly conservative state, but the vast majority of those conservatives are registered as "independent." And many of those conservative independents were disgusted by the Fox News celebrity Republican Sarah Palin, their former governor who resigned her position and fled to the Lower 48 amidst charges of corruption. Begich meanwhile was not that well-known. So while Palin and Begich both wore the "Republican" badge, they were two very different types of Republicans. One of them a disgraced Republican, the other one not very well known LOL.
On top of that, they apparently could not stand each other and that caused a split within the GOP itself. Some RCV critics seem to think that the winner of that race, moderate Democrat and native Alaskan Mary Peltola is not the "real" legitimate winner and that RCV somehow failed, instead of recognizing that the RCV election method worked as it should – given the choices among the three candidates, a disgraced Republican, an unknown Republican and a moderate, charismatic Democrat with an appealing personal story, many of those conservative independents PREFERRED Peltola over the other two. Including many Begich supporters, who preferred Peltola over Palin. Peltola was the clear choice of a majority of Alaskans. The election wasn't even all that close. That's the story of that race in Alaska using RCV, yet many of the pundits and "experts" missed it.
I agree with you that Alaska isn't solidly Republican; in my comment I referred to it as a "more competitive district". While I disagree with you about whether Peltola or Begich was the most appropriate winner to elect given the available ballot data (you've written a separate blog post about it and I belated responded in-depth at https://medium.com/@voting-in-the-abstract/rcv-and-core-support-e0d1780a9184), my point here was simply that Republicans would have benefited from strategic voting. If enough Republicans who only slightly preferred Palin to Begich had strategically ranked Begich first instead of Palin, a Republican would have won instead of the Democrat (10% of Palin's supporters would have sufficed for this).
Also, the claim that "Peltola was the clear choice of a majority of Alaskans" is missing important caveats and technically false. Given that 6% of ballots were exhausted, Peltola was preferred over Palin by only 48.4% of voters. The fully accurate statement is, "Peltola was preferred over Palin by a majority of voters who expressed a preference between them." Similarly, Begich was preferred over Peltola by a majority of voters who expressed a preference between them; this seems relevant if we're talking about Peltola being "the choice of a clear majority" in the abstract.
'Some RCV critics seem to think that the winner of that race, moderate Democrat and native Alaskan Mary Peltola is not the "real" legitimate winner and that RCV somehow failed'
Yes, that's correct. 52% of voters ranked Begich higher than Peltola on their ballots, so Begich is the correct winner, and RCV failed.
RCV proponents aren't arguing in good faith, starting from first principles and then following them to their logical conclusions. What they do is start from the conclusion ("we should use RCV"), and then try to work backwards to justify why it behaved the way it did in a particular scenario.
"instead of recognizing that the RCV election method worked as it should"
No, the RCV method merely worked as it does. You can't tautologically define the outcome of an RCV election as the "correct" winner and then claim that it works correctly every time because it always elects the RCV winner.
Top 4 is only a slight improvemnet so long as RCV is NOT used in the priimary. I know you think that it allows minor parties and independents to get in the general election when the majpor parties split teir vote but that ain't gonna happen. The only time a minor part candidate is likely to make the general under this system is when one major marty is so entrenched that the other party doesn't run anyone. We should get rid of government primaries, create reasonable rules for anyone to get on the general election ballot regardless of party affiliation (or not), allow parties to endorse by their own rules and at their own expense, allow candidates to show any party endorsements on the generl ballot, and run that election by RCV.
No, this is actually WORSE than RCV, because the first round is just straight-up FPTP, so the FPTP round can eliminate the best candidates through vote-splitting before they even make it to the RCV runoff.
I don't think you understood what I am proposing. There would be no government primary and no use of FPTP unless a party chose to use it in their PRIVATE process to endorse their preferred candidate. The "first round" of the government sponsored election would only occur in the General under RCV rules.
Top Four is two bad ideas rolled into one, keeping the worst parts of both.
It starts with a "primary" held using FPTP (the system we're all trying to move beyond), which suffers heavily from vote-splitting and can eliminate the most-representative candidates prematurely. It encourages many candidates to run, acting as spoilers, and gives the false impression that it's OK to vote honestly, amplifying vote-splitting so much that the top four are essentially selected at random.
Then it follows with an RCV general election (Hare's Method, specifically), which is marginally better than FPTP but still fundamentally based on the same flaw of looking only at first-choice rankings. So first-choice rankings get split between similar candidates, and each round of RCV can also prematurely eliminate the most-representative candidates.
The overall concept of "Open primary + Top 4 general" is great, but the two voting methods that are always used in practice are obsolete junk, and the people promoting them don't understand what they're doing.
One correction: Colorado currently uses semi-open primaries in which independents are allowed to vote in the primary of their choice (but Democrats can't vote in the Republican primary and vice versa). Even this is problematic, however. As you note, "an independent voter registered as a Democrat in a lopsided GOP district or state, or as a Republican in heavily Democratic districts and states, that voter would still have no say in who gets elected." This isn't just a matter of registration; if the voter prefers the Democratic candidates in a GOP-favored district, even in Colorado's system, this voter has to vote strategically in order to have a meaningful voice.
Interestingly, Top-4 RCV often fails to address this issue because RCV functions similarly to partisan primaries in districts that aren't extremely lopsided (e.g. 75%-25%). If a district is 60% Republican and 40% Democratic, and voters behave honestly and in line with their partisan preferences, a Democrat and a Republican will make it to the final round, and whichever Republican makes it there will win the election. Is the same situation you get with partisan primaries: voters who rank all the Democrats above all the Republicans get no say in which Republican gets elected. In more competitive districts voters have to worry about electability for the same reason they have to worry about it in primaries; a failure to consider electability caused Republicans to lose the 2022 Alaska special House election since they would have won the seat if enough of them had strategically ranked Begich over Palin.
True, the Top 4/RCV hybrid is still operating within a "winner take all" system, and so of course will suffer from the significant defects of that method. The best electoral method for independent voters would be proportional ranked choice voting, since that would allow them to have choices along the political spectrum that are viable for election.
On Alaska, I don't agree with your assessment, you assume that Alaska is a solid Republican state but it's not. It's only 24% Rep by voter registration. It is however a solidly conservative state, but the vast majority of those conservatives are registered as "independent." And many of those conservative independents were disgusted by the Fox News celebrity Republican Sarah Palin, their former governor who resigned her position and fled to the Lower 48 amidst charges of corruption. Begich meanwhile was not that well-known. So while Palin and Begich both wore the "Republican" badge, they were two very different types of Republicans. One of them a disgraced Republican, the other one not very well known LOL.
On top of that, they apparently could not stand each other and that caused a split within the GOP itself. Some RCV critics seem to think that the winner of that race, moderate Democrat and native Alaskan Mary Peltola is not the "real" legitimate winner and that RCV somehow failed, instead of recognizing that the RCV election method worked as it should – given the choices among the three candidates, a disgraced Republican, an unknown Republican and a moderate, charismatic Democrat with an appealing personal story, many of those conservative independents PREFERRED Peltola over the other two. Including many Begich supporters, who preferred Peltola over Palin. Peltola was the clear choice of a majority of Alaskans. The election wasn't even all that close. That's the story of that race in Alaska using RCV, yet many of the pundits and "experts" missed it.
I agree with you that Alaska isn't solidly Republican; in my comment I referred to it as a "more competitive district". While I disagree with you about whether Peltola or Begich was the most appropriate winner to elect given the available ballot data (you've written a separate blog post about it and I belated responded in-depth at https://medium.com/@voting-in-the-abstract/rcv-and-core-support-e0d1780a9184), my point here was simply that Republicans would have benefited from strategic voting. If enough Republicans who only slightly preferred Palin to Begich had strategically ranked Begich first instead of Palin, a Republican would have won instead of the Democrat (10% of Palin's supporters would have sufficed for this).
Also, the claim that "Peltola was the clear choice of a majority of Alaskans" is missing important caveats and technically false. Given that 6% of ballots were exhausted, Peltola was preferred over Palin by only 48.4% of voters. The fully accurate statement is, "Peltola was preferred over Palin by a majority of voters who expressed a preference between them." Similarly, Begich was preferred over Peltola by a majority of voters who expressed a preference between them; this seems relevant if we're talking about Peltola being "the choice of a clear majority" in the abstract.
'Some RCV critics seem to think that the winner of that race, moderate Democrat and native Alaskan Mary Peltola is not the "real" legitimate winner and that RCV somehow failed'
Yes, that's correct. 52% of voters ranked Begich higher than Peltola on their ballots, so Begich is the correct winner, and RCV failed.
RCV proponents aren't arguing in good faith, starting from first principles and then following them to their logical conclusions. What they do is start from the conclusion ("we should use RCV"), and then try to work backwards to justify why it behaved the way it did in a particular scenario.
"instead of recognizing that the RCV election method worked as it should"
No, the RCV method merely worked as it does. You can't tautologically define the outcome of an RCV election as the "correct" winner and then claim that it works correctly every time because it always elects the RCV winner.
Top 4 is only a slight improvemnet so long as RCV is NOT used in the priimary. I know you think that it allows minor parties and independents to get in the general election when the majpor parties split teir vote but that ain't gonna happen. The only time a minor part candidate is likely to make the general under this system is when one major marty is so entrenched that the other party doesn't run anyone. We should get rid of government primaries, create reasonable rules for anyone to get on the general election ballot regardless of party affiliation (or not), allow parties to endorse by their own rules and at their own expense, allow candidates to show any party endorsements on the generl ballot, and run that election by RCV.
No, this is actually WORSE than RCV, because the first round is just straight-up FPTP, so the FPTP round can eliminate the best candidates through vote-splitting before they even make it to the RCV runoff.
I don't think you understood what I am proposing. There would be no government primary and no use of FPTP unless a party chose to use it in their PRIVATE process to endorse their preferred candidate. The "first round" of the government sponsored election would only occur in the General under RCV rules.
Top Four is two bad ideas rolled into one, keeping the worst parts of both.
It starts with a "primary" held using FPTP (the system we're all trying to move beyond), which suffers heavily from vote-splitting and can eliminate the most-representative candidates prematurely. It encourages many candidates to run, acting as spoilers, and gives the false impression that it's OK to vote honestly, amplifying vote-splitting so much that the top four are essentially selected at random.
Then it follows with an RCV general election (Hare's Method, specifically), which is marginally better than FPTP but still fundamentally based on the same flaw of looking only at first-choice rankings. So first-choice rankings get split between similar candidates, and each round of RCV can also prematurely eliminate the most-representative candidates.
The overall concept of "Open primary + Top 4 general" is great, but the two voting methods that are always used in practice are obsolete junk, and the people promoting them don't understand what they're doing.