News Roundup: flocking safety

I don’t know the differences between them, and I don’t know what Concordat means.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting. My reference to Condorcet was to point out that it is complicated. My main point is this: Instant-runoff is merely one way to use ranked votes. There are dozens of different ways, and Instant-runoff isn’t necessarily the best. Ranked Choice Voting/Instant-Runoff (RCV/IR) is better than nothing, but as it turns out, really isn’t very good. As I explained, it only deals with one problem, that of “wasted votes”. Sometimes people vote for “outside” candidates. Nader clearly sits to the left of Gore. Votes for Nader were wasted. If those votes had gone to Gore, Gore would have been president. Instant-runoff would have solved that problem.

However, we rarely have that problem. That is because we have a non-partisan blanket primary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary). This serves as one level of run-off. Under our system, those votes for Nader would have meant nothing. In the general election, Nader wouldn’t have been on the ballot. It would be only Gore versus Bush, and those Nader voters would have chosen Gore. The same thing would have happened with approval voting. In the primary, voters on the left approve of only Gore, or Nader and Gore. Voters on the right approve of Bush. Bush and Gore advance.

It doesn’t mean we never have the “wasted vote” problem in the primary, but it does mean it is a lot less common. As it turns out, approval voting almost always solves the same problem, as well as other problems, like this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting#/media/File:IRVCopeland.png. Under RCV/IR, “B” is eliminated. Nothing changes. With approval voting, it is quite likely “B” advances. That is the simplest example, but let me use the one you brought up:

When Nickels ran in his reelection primary, I followed The Stranger’s advice and voted for a promising new progressive, thinking Nickels would surely get the other slot and I could reconsider between them in the final. But a lot of people did the same, and Nickels came in third and was out.

That was one of those rare elections where the top three were very close. RCV/IR could have changed the election. But so too would approval voting. First, let’s look at the numbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Seattle_mayoral_election (scroll down until you see “primary results”). There were a lot of votes for candidate in fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. Many of these votes could have chosen Nickels as their second, third, (etc.) choice. It really only matters how they ranked the top three finishers. That is because James Donaldson (who ended up in fourth) can not catch the top two, even if everyone below him favored him as their second choice. So that leaves six possibilities:

Nickels>McGinn>Mallahan: Nickels gets the vote.Nickels>Mallahan>McGinn: Nickels gets the vote.McGinn>Nickels>Mallahan: McGinn gets the vote.McGinn>Mallahan>Nickels: McGinn gets the vote.Mallahan>McGinn>Nickels: Mallahan gets the vote.Mallahan>Nickels>McGinn: Mallahan gets the vote.

Notice that it doesn’t matter what their second to last choice was. That is because once it gets to someone who can win the primary (e. g. a top three contender) that’s that. Once all the votes have gone to three candidates, the race is over. If your preference was McGinn, Nickels, Mallahan (in that order) then with ranked choice voting, nothing changes. Nickels doesn’t get your vote. McGinn does, but he advanced anyway.

Now look at approval voting. The first big change is that is that all preferences matter. If everyone approves of James Donaldson, he advances. This seems unlikely, but possible.

Assume that not that many approved of those at the bottom, and look at the preferences again. If you approve of all three, then nothing changes. But chances are, voters do have a preference, and they simple leave out the third choice (amongst the big three). That leads to this:

Nickels>McGinn>Mallahan: Nickels and McGinn get a vote.Nickels>Mallahan>McGinn: Nickels and Mallahan get a vote.McGinn>Nickels>Mallahan: McGinn and Nickels get a vote.McGinn>Mallahan>Nickels: McGinn and Mallahan get the vote.Mallahan>McGinn>Nickels: Mallahan and McGinn get the vote.Mallahan>Nickels>McGinn: Mallahan and Nickels get the vote.

If you are in the “anyone but Mallahan” group, your vote helps both McGinn and Nickels, giving each a chance to advance. You were in that group, and so was I. Maybe we had another candidate, but that didn’t matter, unless that candidate managed to get to lots of votes (in which case, great). As it turns out, approval voting actually gives the voter *more* power. That is because with RCV/IR, once you have picked one of the top three, you are done (in our blanket primary system). In contrast, approval voting actually gives you a chance to note your preference within the top three (by not approving of one of them).

As to which one is better, that is always debatable. There is no perfect voting system. But it is very misleading to suggest that RCV/IR gives voters more of a say. The problem isn’t Ranked Choice Voting itself, but Instant-Runoff.

If you look at our current system (which includes a blanket-primary) and look at recent elections, I can point to very few elections that would likely have a different outcome under RCV/IR. Yeah, maybe that primary. But the same could be said for approval voting. In contrast, I can definitely think of elections where approval voting could have changed the outcome, and RCV/IR would not. Approval voting is designed to get us a consensus candidate. In a city like Seattle — where The Seattle Times is right wing and The Stranger is prone to supporting demagogues — this is a good thing. That’s because demagogues may advance to the general election, but in a head to head race, voters will choose the right wing candidate. It happened twice last election.