Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.
Obligatory: “Ranked Choice” is a specific use of ranked ballots. It’s subpar. It beats what we’re doing now, but anything beats what we’re doing now.
What you want is a Condorcet method like Ranked Pairs, where the winner is whoever beats everyone else. RCV just picks whoever can scrounge together 50% first. RCV would not elect a candidate who is literally everyone’s second choice. Ranked Pairs would.
The simple alternative is Approval Voting, where you let people check all the names they like. It matches Condorcet results… somehow. There is no good reason we’re not using it everywhere.
But ranked choice is easy to implement and in practice if everyone would put a candidate second they aren’t likely to be knocked out in the first round. There are very limited practical examples where it doesn’t provide the optimal outcome.
It also seems to have some level of support and momentum in the US and it seems to me like it’d be better not to get caught in the weeds fighting over which new voting system should be implemented there.