Ranked-Choice Voting, Explained in 60 Seconds

Ranked-choice voting. You’ve probably been hearing about it, but how does it work, and why are places like New York City using it to decide their elections? Ranked-choice voting can seem confusing at first, but it’s a common sense reform to primary elections with more than two candidates.
Get the full story at: www.rollingstone.com/

[@waspwrap1235]

How about using five star voting, where you rank each candidate out of five stars. It allows for the benefits of a cruel voting where are you can vote for two candidates at an equal level, but also the benefits of rank choice voting where you can support some more than others.

[@deethy19]

Mmm, Rum and Raison….you’ve got my vote!😋

[@aresmars2003]

Ranked Choice Voting is GREAT! But it must be done right. We need to eliminate partisan primaries and instead use open/blanket primaries where all candidates are on the same ballot and all voters decide who the top candidates are. NOW, two parties can have tiny fraction of voters in partisan primaries choose candidates, and then we're stuck between extreme-A, extreme-B and no viable candidates between. An open RCV primary could eliminate the weakest candidates until all have at least 20%. Then if the prolife extremists get their 20% candidate in (which happens all the time in partisan primaries) the more moderate candidate in the party can still advance to the general election, if he/she can also get 20% primary threshold. That gives voters up to 4 choices in the general election and fall debates to let all voters evaluate them all. Presidential primaries are more troubled but we still could have an August Presidential open primary so we could advance say Sanders, Biden, Trump and voters would have a choice between 3 old white men. OOPS, well, getting diversity is still going to take some work.

[@wprandall2452]

There's no way it can be, because it's a useless system!

[@aresmars2003]

@@wprandall2452 How is that?

[@wprandall2452]

@@aresmars2003 Everything is partisan, and ranked voting does away with the ability to produce the best candidate. We need primaries to choose the person who best represents the Republican Party, so we have a chance to win the main election. The opposition will not be fooling around with ranked voting, and will have their best candidate ready. So you're being fooled. Ranked voting is a con game.

[@aresmars2003]

@@wprandall2452 Why is partisanship harmed? If you have an open primary and one Republican gets 40% of the vote and other Republican has 25%, why can't both advance to the general election? Is there a problem with giving voters a choice between two Republicans and one Democrat? If its a matter of money, sure, I can see why the 25% Republican might decide to drop out and endorse the other. But if they have distinct goals, let them both speak! But if the 40% Republican is far-right, and the 25% Republican is a moderate, and the Democrat on the left, you imagine the 25% moderate Republican might win a general election if he can beat the Democrat for second place and compete in the final round. And some Democrats might decide to abandon their favorite and support the Moderate who can actually win a majority of the vote. Runoffs have lots of fun, whether sequential or instant.

[@wprandall2452]

@@aresmars2003 Because the vote for Republican will be divided and the vote for Democrat won't. The Dems will see to that. They don't do what you think is fair - only what they think is fair to them!

[@OrenLikes]

This and Approval Voting are much better than the "regular" voting. This is about one winner. What about seats in a parliament (unfortunately, by voting/selecting parties and not people)?

[@waspwrap1235]

Exactly

[@bigdre7628]

If it goes to a 3rd round, do they use the 3rd choice on the ballot of the candidate that was eliminated first ?

[@YoYoBobbyJoe]

No, they only use the third choice of the people that were eliminated specifically in the SECOND round, because the votes for the people eliminated in the first round were already counted. Now, there is a specific overlap here, where a second choice for a voter eliminated in the first round is also eliminated in the second round, in which case, yes, that person's third choice is counted in the third round.

[@Jose04537]

It's better and I like, it but it's not a Panacea. This works with candidates in the same party (primaries), or just one candidate per party. Also, It doesn't solve the problem with a heavy gerrymandered districts. Solution? You also need to get rid of districts and distribute the seats proportionally, like Germany. You need two elections, the first one to get an order of priority candidates using ranked choice (public primaries). Then another ranked choice election with the parties, not the candidates. Dependeding of how many seats a party got in the second election, fill those seats using that list of priority of the first (primary) election.

[@matthewmcgee6923]

So according to this explanation, you have 4 people running on the ideology of strawberry, and 1 person who wants to make a change gets the majority vote. Now the strawberry party can eliminate the popular vote to maintain control?

[@dannyg.4421]

lets say there is 3 strawberries and one rum ice-cream. if 26% wants rum and 74% wants strawberry, the popular vote is strawberry, but by having to choose between strawberries the vote is split. so the rum would be 26% and the rest is 25% (rounded up). so the least popular candidate wins. this causes political pressure to vote for a strawberry you preferred less or else get rum. the ranked based voting allows you choose your icecream first with out having to "throw your vote away".

[@rodrigo445678]

@@dannyg.4421 but is it mandatory to select a second or third choice? Because if that's the case the system is BS. If I want the rum-ice cream why should I be forced to select any strawberry candidate? That system basically makes sure that the centrist parties win, but that isn't necessarily good at all circumstances. The system would be good only if you can opt out of assigning preference to parties you don't like. Otherwise you are forced to vote for things you don't support and that's even less democratic.

[@dannyg.4421]

@rodrigo445678 you could choose just the 1 you want if you want or 4 in order of preference. It's up to you, but there isn't much harm in choosing multiple because your top pick will get the most points and you still get a say in who else you'd perfer if your favorite loses.

[@travelsphere4467]

Rolling stone

[@rumdog117]

Love your channel, but have to ask. How does ranked voting help the left more than the right. One thing I could see is that with the republican party being mainly older people and the democratic party being younger, maybe the older people can't understand it. I give older people the the benefit that they can learn it see how it works and what it cam do for the people. It's been around since the 13th century and goes back to 1912 in the US. It has been repeatedly found constitutional and in a country where one party has constantly fought against making voting day a holiday so more people can vote, it is a way to essentially do a run off that everyone has the chance to vote in.

[@dannyg.4421]

it helps the left because the left is more progressive. while the right is more traditional. there are many more ways to be progressive than there are ways to stick to the same old belief systems. the left is more split in candidates. imagine there are three popular candidates, A and B are left and C is right. 40% of people want right and 60% wants left but the left is split. the end result is 40% C 30% B 30% A. majority loses. this creates pressure to vote for the perceived popular candidate and handing the election to the the right. the ranked based voting allows you to choose who you want first and the speculative popular one second. its not only constitutional but allows you to vote more freely. it still helps republicans though too because it gives the people more power in voting except having to accept our current systems pressures to vote one way or lose. it also helps independent parties by break the duopoly so prominent because this political pressures and the risk of "throwing your vote away".

[@streetcar6080]

In practice, it does not help any one side, it helps candidates/ideas that have the most supports. That's how democracy is supposed to work. You vote will not be wasted, your preference will still be counted in subsequent rounds.

[@myeyeglassclub]

The ice cream example is misleading. Party politics is different then desert politics because people are often aligned with a party.. not desert choice. People register for a party, and they often vote based on party lines. If a town predominantly leans 60/40 toward a particular party this will insure the party always wins as opposed to the most popular candidate. I think elections should be a referendum on the best candidate, not the most popular party... Rank choice voting is sure to discourage voting because if your person is in the less popular party, their odds just got a whole lot smaller...In short , I like strawberry ice cream, but occasionally I WANT SOME DAM RUM RAISIN TOO..

[@jinglebearr]

You really don’t understand RCV, do you? RCV would more or less help dismantle voting based solely on party politics as you’ll be ranking people mostly based on the issues they run, If I’m a Republican then I want the Republican as my first choice but then the next person who’s issues I don’t mind is a democrat is my 2nd choice so if my Republican doesn’t win then I’m okay with this other person to represent me and then my last choice would be Sarah Palin, because she is awful. The Democrat ends up winning and I’m okay with it because they were my second choice even though I am a Republican. It allows people to make educated decisions on preference and not blind party loyalty.

[@Handheldsounds]

@@jinglebearr Your explanation/concept works in theory but in this age of divisive politics do you really see most people put as a second choice a person from a party they are not affiliated with? I don't think so...

[@myeyeglassclub]

@@Handheldsounds exactly , Sarah Palin lost her seat and a democrat occupied the position for first time in 50 years . In Maine , a republican occupied a certain governorship position for the first time in a long time as well. There are many mathematical examples were an independent who gets a 30%, majority will end up losing to the predominant party. RCV will further add to the divisiveness in an area by promoting a party rather than the candidate.

[@Handheldsounds]

@@myeyeglassclub Ultimately this is the result of a 2 party system, which hinders any incentive for inventive mindset. I much prefer cabinet-based governments that support pluralism as it is in various countries in Europe.

[@myeyeglassclub]

@@Handheldsounds rvc wxacerbates the 2 party disadvantages even further

[@UninvitedGuestSpeaker]

Ehhh

[@axxxx3308]

Who came here from Mrbeast?

[@kb3809]

Way to centralized and way to many hands on ballots

[@lynnjackson5077]

Rigged Choice Voting

[@waspwrap1235]

Nah

[@verihimthered2418]

I know a country that did this in the 1930, I think it was next to poland.

[@EchoBravo370]

Actually it was first done in Australia in the early 20th century and it still exists there today - for all elections. And they have a pretty peaceful democracy.

[@alypayne1647]

@@EchoBravo370 Tgats because they took the citizens guns and now the citizens will do exactly what the government says. That’s not a peaceful democracy.

[@myrhh6506]

@@EchoBravo370 Except we are a republic 😏

[@austinbyrd4164]

@@myrhh6506 a republic still has democratic elections. It's merely split up into different states to provide accountability, checks & balances, & decentralization to provide alternatives for varying communities & cultures. I love republics too, & *they're compatible with ranked choice voting.* It's simply better for local, state, senate, & house elections.

[@gregnixon1296]

Why is Rolling Stone talking on political topics?

[@daddygrace253]

Because they can; it's a free country to express different views and topics. Plus, you don't own Rolling Stone Magazine and they can discuss whatever they like.

[@MusikCassette]

Instand run off is not the only ranked choice voting. It s even one of the worst ones out there. It is quite misleading to call it so.

[@CowboyTech]

Wow, Rolling Stone readers cannot be all that bright if you are using ice cream as an example.

[@danielfallon5131]

It’s a scam

[@loturzelrestaurant]

It de-insentivized SO MUCH bad.

[@SassInYourClass]

Ranked Choice (Instant Runoff) Voting does NOT eliminate vote splitting or the spoiler effect. Exhausted ballots, limited ranking slots, thrown out ranks, and a variety of other problems ensure this method, which is literally just our current Choose-one Voting method iterated over and over again, promotes the same polarizing effects we’ve always dealt with. Voting methods like STAR Voting and Approval Voting, among others, ACTUALLY deal with these issues in a simple, securable fashion that uses ALL of the voter preference data to find accurate winners. If you want to get out of the duopoly, Ranked Choice (Instant Runoff) Voting will not help.

[@austinbyrd4164]

If over 50% of the population choose candidate X as their first choice, then they (rightfully) win. Done. If nobody passes the 50% mark, then the candidate with the lowest amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. At the end of that round, if still nobody has passed the 50% mark, then the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. This is continued until somebody passes the 50% mark. The candidate the majority like above all wins. Stop spewing nonsense. You have zero clue how this works

[@CavemanSynthesizer]

You would think an explainer piece would go into both the pros and cons of ranked choice voting. This comes off more as an advocacy piece than a neutral explainer.

[@grimaffiliations3671]

what are the cons of voters having more choice?

[@rainynight02]

@@grimaffiliations3671 That's what I'm currently trying to figure out. I thought this was a wonderful idea years ago but suddenly people are saying it's a bad day, looking up stuff to try to figure out why that view is held.

[@richardjones5608]

​@@rainynight02 That's because there isn't any genuine argument that it produces worse results than our current system. The criticisms of it are things like, it's complicated, it requires voters to learn about all the candidates to make an informed vote, or that it's positive effects are not as great as expected. No one has actual point about how it's worse than our standard plurality based system. Negativity around this topic is driven by people who either don't understand it, don't like change, or benefit from exploiting the flaws in our current system.

[@rainynight02]

@@richardjones5608 I've watched several videos on them all and each one has their own flaws. "Spoiler affect" and whatnot. Most of the videos I watched didn't go over potential issues at all, basically "this is better and perfect!" Which weren't being honest at all. Only two videos I came across talked about the potential problems of each system. Though the problems all seem roughly equivalent to me but still potentially better than what we currently got.

[@XIIchiron78]

Ranked Choice (Instant Runoff) is a disaster. You can't solve FPTP by doing it more times in a row. The spoiler effect exists in each round, and niche candidates often eliminate popular ones with large second choice support. Not only does it not fix anything; it obfuscates the problems from the voter, leading them to make bad choices, all while being incredibly difficult and expensive to run (as we saw in NYC). And that's the tip of the iceberg - there is also non-monotonicity, non-precint summability, ballot exhaustion and spoilage, lack of transparency, and more. We need real solutions like STAR or Approval. Check out the Equal Vote Coalition and Center for Election Science if you want real change.

[@XIIchiron78]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aV7QgJiLjaaejJI www.equal.vote/ www.starvoting.us/ kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpOZhKyvqJeZo6c electionscience.org/ electionscience.org/approval-voting-101/

[@EchoBravo370]

I am from Australia where ranked choice voting was invented and first occurred in the early 20the century and still exists today. The way NYC did its rcv election was too long. In Australia, election winners are announced on the day of the election. No problems. I have no idea why NYC did it the way they did. It was not the concept of rcv that is bad, m it was NYC's execution.

[@XIIchiron78]

@@EchoBravo370 Australia is actually a great example of RCV failing to deliver on any of the stated goals. It remains a broken duopoly despite using a combination of ranked methods (including the oft-touted STV for the senate) for over a century. The only thing instant runoff is good at is ignoring irrelevant candidates by transferring their votes to the duopoly, which is why it was originally introduced in Australia - to protect the conservative coalition from internal division that was allowing Labor candidates to win. It completely falls apart if there are ever more than two competitive candidates, and thus allows no real competition or challenge to the status quo.

[@austinbyrd4164]

You have zero clue how this works. You don't do fptp "more times in a row." It's an entirely different process. If over 50% of the population choose candidate X as their first choice, then they (rightfully) win. Done. If nobody passes the 50% mark, then the candidate with the lowest amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. At the end of that round, if still nobody has passed the 50% mark, then the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. This is continued until somebody passes the 50% mark. The candidate the majority like above all wins.

[@rodrigo445678]

How does that solve anything? Why should I be forced to assign a rank to parties I don't want to vote for? @@austinbyrd4164

[@alitlweird]

If Rolling Stone is in favor of it, then I know I should vote “No” on Question 3. Thanks, RS!

[@FireStarter2805]

what a joke...

[@austinbyrd4164]

What do you dislike about this? There's literally nothing wrong with this system.

[@rodrigo445678]

How is it democratic to be forced to assign votes to options you don't care or support? What if I don't want any second or third choice? That's not democratic, it's just an strategy for the political middle to ensure infinite power.@@austinbyrd4164

[@clayfouts135]

Say there are 20 flavors to choose from. A few people choose strawberry as their first pick, a few choose salted caramel, or vanilla, so on. But every person chooses chocolate as their 2nd. What happens? Chocolate is eliminated in the very first round. RCV's runoff process immediately eliminates the broadly appealing flavor.

[@ben8557]

That seems unlikely though. If something is so broadly appealing it will probably have some decent 1st choice support too.

[@clayfouts135]

@@ben8557 I use an extreme example just to demonstrate the concept, but in essence this is the “center squeeze” pathology of RCV. It's rare inasmuch as it doesn't happen in most elections that we've seen, but when it does happen, voters perceive it as a huge failure. It rewards candidates with the most zealous base, rather than candidates with broad appeal. It's what prompted Burlington, VT to repeal RCV, for example. There's a high likelihood it will come up again in Senate election next year in Alaska, where broadly popular incumbent Murkowski could get squeezed out unless enough Dems defect and rank her first. Every voting method has its failure modes, but what makes this one extra egregious is RCV advocates put the “you can always safely rank your favorite first” front and center of their rationale for adopting it. And people believe it _and then vote like that's true_, despite it being false.

[@ben8557]

@@clayfouts135 No voting system is perfect and there are better ones than RCV but I think it's far better than FPTP. Separating voters into 2 separate primaries squeezes the middle pretty horrible, much worse than RCV ever could.

[@EchoBravo370]

@@clayfouts135 It is still better than FPTP. Every system can have extreme circumstances where it doesn't perform how people want. But that is rarer in RCV.

[@clayfouts135]

​@@EchoBravo370 Is it? In most elections, IRV will work out just fine, just as most elections work out fine with FPTP. The issue is how surprising and upsetting to voters those few failures are. IRV being sold on the lie that “you can always safely rank your favorite first” makes its failure cases extremely surprising and upsetting to voters. And while IRV does help with some scenarios that FPTP fails, like spoiler-style vote splitting, the way it helps has knock-on effects that can skew the overall political discourse. For example, and contrary to its advocates' assertions, minor parties actually lose influence under IRV. Why would a major party candidate adopt any minor party planks when the minor party candidate no longer presents a threat of spoiling an election? These broader effects are why the Australian House is still overwhelmingly two-party dominated after a century of IRV.

[@augustdeeismyoppa4096]

Noice

[@wprandall2452]

What's with the ice-cream cone analogy? This is supposed to be serious politics.

[@joshuakelly9390]

Analogies are what people with bad opinions use to justify them. It's a manipulative way to cloak the problems with something because you're not actually explaining the real thing anymore. You can hide whatever you want in an analogy by dumbing it down as far as you want to.

[@buckiemohawk3643]

rank choice voting is the biggest scame EVER

[@radvtxz4638]

First haha

[@incognito8448]

its a way for democrats to vote multiple times without having to case out a graveyard

[@Kingdeme]

I like this. too bad they’ll never let us have this.

[@MusikCassette]

better get a bit more knowledge on the subject Instand Runoff is perhaps the worst ranked choice voting system.

[@geraldmiller9960]

Ranked choice voting, where the losers get to pick the winner!

[@markmidgley416]

Ya, STAR Voting would be way better. Everyone's vote can matter equally with picking the winner! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aV7QgJiLjaaejJI

[@austinbyrd4164]

You're dumb. If over 50% of the population choose candidate X as their first choice, then they (rightfully) win. Done. If nobody passes the 50% mark, then the candidate with the lowest amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. At the end of that round, if still nobody has passed the 50% mark, then the candidate with the least amount of votes is eliminated & *those who voted for them* have their next choice counted. This is continued until somebody passes the 50% mark. The candidate the majority like above all wins.

[@radar0412]

I don't think we should change to rank choice voting just yet. Primarily because we haven't even tried to tweak our current Political system. We should make some minor changes to our current system by ending The Reelection Campaign, and extending the length of service for all three houses. When Congress can no longer be Reelected, the problem of Divisiveness, too much money in Politics and Political dysfunction all will be greatly diminished.