Rigged Choice Voting

[Ben]

Apparently the commie pinko hippies in Boise got enough signatures to get Ranked Choice voting on our ballot this November. I doubt they will get enough votes for it to pass.

I have always thought of it as a tool for a minority party to use to try and dilute the candidates from the other side. I notice it doesn't seem to be a popular concept in California. It seems like it pops up more in purple states, and always benefits the dems.

I learned about it making it on our ballot from the Idaho 2nd Amendment Alliance, and something I was unaware of is that you MUST rank candidates. In other words, you have to assign a number to every candidate running for an office. If you only approve of one candidate and hate the rest, and you only rank that candidate and not the others, they throw away your ballot. So in essence, you are forced to vote for people who you may vehemently disagree with. There is nothing American about that.

[griz]

I didn't know they would only count ranked votes.  My first impression is it would hurt mainstream candidates.  If a voter only knew of the two R&D candidates, he might list his actual pic as number one, and rate all the unknowns in front of the one he disliked.

[Jim147]

Look at what happened in Alaska with Palin. Two republicans and neither would drop out. The dem flipped the seat by getting all the other votes.

[Ben]

Look at what happened in Alaska with Palin. Two republicans and neither would drop out. The dem flipped the seat by getting all the other votes.

That's exactly why it's so popular with Idaho commies and why they're pushing so hard for it here.

[French G.]

Look at what happened in Alaska with Palin. Two republicans and neither would drop out. The dem flipped the seat by getting all the other votes.

The dem flipped the seat by funding the other republican which is what will happen every place rcv is tried.

[Hawkmoon]

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

[Ben]

What is Ranked Choice Voting?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Note that there are a bunch of variations, which makes it even more confusing and non-standardized. For instance, I mentioned above that the ranked choice voting they want for Idaho forces you, as Australia does, to put a mark by every candidate. Some systems apparently let you leave slots blank. So different states could be using different ranked choice systems in the same election if this were to become the standard for us.