Ranked voting would make this less of an issue, but good luck getting current politicians to support it.

The NY Democratic primary was RCV, and Yang still lost.

But because it was RCV, his loss didn’t spoil the election.

I mean it was a primary....the competitors were all democrats so no real harm done. It's an instant win in NYC for a dem afterwards as long as they don't fuck it up somehow.

Regardless of whether he lost or not, RCV allows you to vote for who you really want to support without being concerned you may be wasting your vote.

To be a pedant, you should rank those likely to make it to the last round, but with the spots left over (working your way from your last choice up) you can rank whoever you want.

Eric Adams won by a smidgen, and yet 15% of ballots were invalid by the last round. Perhaps those 15% gave 0 fucks about Garcia vs Adams, or perhaps they were mistaken about how best to vote.

We really need proportional representation, but don't get me wrong IRV (instant-runoff voting) is still better than FPTP.

None of these systems are perfect. I lived in Italy for a number of years and... boy oh boy does proportional representation have its own series of problems.

RCV seems like an attainable reform though, and better than the current system.

I've heard Italy used as such an example before, but wonder whether the problem could be mitigated by choosing a different proportional voting system. For example, elections for the Chamber of Deputies use closed party lists (whereas other countries manage with open lists, or no lists).

Which political problems in Italy do you think would go away if they switched to a less proportional system? Wouldn't the same divisions and deal-making just end up happening within parties rather than between parties?

Some things I dislike about what I saw in Italy's system:

* It gives small parties disproportionate amounts of power at times: "do what we say or we leave the coalition and the government falls".

* It gives parties disproportionate power, since they pick the candidates on their lists.

* I think have a person represent a geographic area and be beholden to it has some benefits.

Mostly, it's the government stability problem, as lots of fractious parties, some of which are personal projects rather than longer-term movements just don't offer much continuity.

Replacing "Joe Manchin" with "small coalition partner" still sounds like an improvement :).

The US has plenty of defects too. Not sure what really stands out as a good one to me that exists in the real world. Australia seems to have some good bits...but maybe that's just because I'm not familiar with it.

Parliamentary systems with proportional representation, but the research does show they are better over all --- both theoretical and empirical. The situation in Italy is unfortunate, but I don't think it is a good reason for the US to rest on its laurels.

Yep, and to add, we have proof there is no perfect system: http://tech.mit.edu/V123/N8/8voting.8n.html

(Not to suggest we shouldn't move on from the very flawed FPTP!)

Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem often gets brought up in such discussions, but less commonly mentioned is the fact that it only applies to ranked voting systems and not score-based / cardinal voting systems. It also says that a voting system can't produce a total ranking of all options (which is a stronger requirement than just picking a single winner), and it assumes "independence of irrelevant alternatives"[0] which seems rational but doesn't reflect how humans actually behave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alt...

Mirror how it succeeded in Maine.

Maybe there should be a strong third party precisely for the reason you're describing - could be disastrous for the Democrats. It could also be disastrous for the Republicans. My point being that, if a third party is sufficiently strong to cause significant damage to either of the two major parties, then said affected party would be fairly motivated to help bring about electoral reforms that we badly need.

This should be Yang's strategy. He should encourage Democrat voters to lend their support to his party in states where Democrats control the legislature, and Republicans to vote for his party in Republican run states. The threat would be that those legislatures have to enact a spoiler-free voting system before the next state elections or they would lose their majority.

> However a third party could be disastrous for the democrats,

The US has several hundred political parties. New ones rarely move the needle on national campaigns even on the margins, and the exceptions invariably are founded by candidates that made major marks in recent-prior national campaigns as an independent without a party apparatus energizing their nee party drive, and still underperform the founder’s independent campaign before fading into irrelevance.

Yang might launch an Nth party, but it’ll make less difference in 2024 than Kanye West did in 2020. to

> A third party could be really beneficial in some areas where democrats dominate everything.

In a number of those places, nationally-minor parties (e.g., Greens) already outperform Republicans (and in some, they dominate local offices, though Democrats tend to win the State/Federal ones.)

Pretty much what's happening in Canada. The NDP (left) currently polls at about 20% which would usually go to Liberals (center-left). Liberals and Conservatives (right) are now tied at 35% because of this.

Unfortunately the current Liberal PM promised "election reform" last election but didn't follow through. Now he might lose his minority gov.

Canadian here.

I understand the appeal of ranked choice voting for citizens, but I don't see either the Liberals or Conservatives supporting it.

On the Liberal side, they will always have the idea of strategic voting, where they tell progressive voters "A vote for the NDP/Greens is a wasted vote that will get the Conservatives elected."

On the Conservative side, the next closest party is the Liberals. So their voter base will choose Liberals as their second option (Assuming the PPC is irrelevant).

I think we'd see a more left-leaning government overall though. But it would essentially be a permanent minority in parliament, which is not appealing to some people who want a more active government.

> PPC is irrelevant

Let's just hope they stay that way, the guy in my (very liberal) riding is completely off the handle with antivax stuff on twitter.

With society becoming more left-leaning with the growth of the NDP, this will pull Conservatives more to the left perhaps creating a void on the right that the PPC may fill.

For now, the PPC is irrelevant, but that may soon change. Only time will tell.

Couldn't the democrats form a coalition with him (similar to other countries)?

The Democrats completely screwed him in 2020. Karma.

How exactly did they screw him? Yang was always a longshot in a super-crowded field. And 2020 wasn't the greatest cycle to swoop in as an outsider/business person with no political experience.

My impression of Yang—and I liked the guy—was that mainstream Democrats were never really his primary audience anyway. His Twitter account seemed to be a raucous mix of Bernie bros, socialists with trollish leanings, memesters, and other oddballs whose politics—and dedication—appeared somewhat amorphous.

I don’t think the party screwed him at all. I think most Dems weren’t really in his camp anyway and the ones who were either gravitated towards Bernie or didn’t ultimately vote at all.

I think Yang is a little like Ross Perot. He tells the truth but no one wants to listen and those who think he's a threat ridicule him and bash him --that doesn't mean I agree with all his points, but on the whole, I think I agree with him more then others.

Who knows, if he runs as a third party candidate, I hope he does well. I'd probably give him my vote. The two incumbent parties trip over themselves to please entrenched interests and don't take the interest and plight of the people they represent seriously.

If people had taken Ross seriously we would not be in the economic mess we find ourselves with much of our manufacturing and know-how outsourced in return for some new financial products which only the wealthy benefit from. You go Andrew!

Perot was a viable candidate. And as someone who didn't take him seriously... my lord was he right about the 'giant sucking sound'