https://www.reddit.com/r/EndFPTP/comments/x9oupk/2022_alaska...
> Two popular suspicions are now confirmed. Nick Begich was the Condorcet winner. Sarah Palin was a spoiler candidate - her presence caused Mary Peltola to be elected, by prematurely eliminating Nick Begich.
Here's another, that got down-voted to hell, because of the audience.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ForwardPartyUSA/comments/xb119e/its...
> If 2913 voters who supported Palin first and Begich second flipped their first and second preferences, they’d have gotten a more preferred result.
(i.e. they would have gotten Begich instead of Peltola, by having Palin eliminated first)
> Even worse, if instead 5825 of those same types of voters just decided not to vote, they’d have also gotten a better result. So merely participating in the election hurt them.
While I do prefer the winner it selected, it's not a great election method. Better than FPTP is a terribly low bar.
1. Even harder to explain to the average voter than RCV
2. Greater likelihood of nobody winning / needing to conduct new election
I am of the belief that RCV is not great, but that it is significantly better than status quo... and it is possible.
But my favorite is approval.
First round:
Begic and Peltola garner the most first-place votes, Palin is eliminated.
Voters who ranked Palin first get their second choice promoted to first. Presumably that would be Begic for most voters.
Second round:
Begic first choice votes + Palin > Begic votes vs. Peltola votes
Looking at the data in the reddit vote breakdown thread it looks like Begic would've won with this method.
Begich had the fewest amount of _first_ place votes, so was eliminated first.
However, Begich was ranked ahead of Palin (and Pelota for that matter) on more ballots than vice-versa.
Ah, I misunderstood that part. Under Australian rules voters who ranked Begich first would have had their second choices promoted to first and added to the respective candidates. In this case ~27k for Palin and ~15.5k for Peltola. Then the totals are compared.
Looking at it that way it's not so clear cut that it was unfair that Peltola was declared the winner. I think reasonable arguments can be made either way.
One thing though is that on Australian ballots all candidates must be ranked.
Exactly what happened. Palin was a spoiler -- had she not run, Begich would ha e won instead.
> One thing though is that on Australian ballots all candidates must be ranked.
That's kind of ridiculous. It's quite unwieldy and leads to many spoiled ballots. And I don't think forcing ordering past the point of caring really changes anything.
If you're tied to a full ranking, there are much better choices than IRV; any of the Condorcet methods, for instance. However, rating systems are far more likely to produce compromise candidates. I like Approval, perhaps with a runoff between the top 2.