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charlesetc | 3 years ago

"How Ranked-Choice Voting elects extremists"

https://psephomancy.medium.com/how-ranked-choice-voting-elec...

This article recommends instead a STAR voting system which is still simple to implement and understand while not electing extremists in some cases. I would be sad to see NYC and others turn to ranked choice without considering all the alternatives.

discuss

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buzzy_hacker|3 years ago

In the real world, moderate candidates (green in the example) get more support/votes than extremists so it’s unlikely they would get the fewest first place votes. Also, if green is only able to get a tiny sliver of first-choice preferences, I don’t think they should be elected, even if they are in the middle of the 1-dimensional spectrum.

mkoubaa|3 years ago

This is quite reductive and ridiculous, people don't measure their difference from a candidate on a single axis and vote for the person with the smallest distance.

godelski|3 years ago

> people don't measure their difference from a candidate on a single axis and vote for the person with the smallest distance.

Good news, that's not how it works. You are minimizing the distance in a hyperspace, not a single axis. People draw a singular axis (or two) to simplify and explain the concept. But still, the distance is measured in a hyperspace.

mnomitch|3 years ago

I am generally an RCV fan, but I think you're writing off this critique a bit too quickly.

Even with multiple axes the critique is still correct right? And I think (far from an expert) that there's decent evidence to support hotelling's law and median voter theorem.

charlesetc|3 years ago

Don't they? Isn't that axis just "how much they like the candidate"?

nerpderp82|3 years ago

This is Neural Vector Space Voting, NVSV.