Look at the range around those scatter plots. This is fishing for a pattern.

2 hours ago, vikas83 said:

I asked a genuine question to others, not trolls.

Is anyone posting here at all supportive of this guy's agenda?

We only support his ability to trigger trumptards, as @Gannan indicated.

Beyond that he's nearly as retahded as the average cvon trumpbot.

2 hours ago, vikas83 said:

It's such an unbelievably terrible idea, but people support it as more democratic for some reason until you see it in practice. It simply encourages backroom deals among candidates and leads to those who could never win an outright majority getting elected by gamesmanship.

To be fair, in this case, Mamdani got the plurality of 1st place votes. In the 2022 Oakland mayor race, that was not the case (same thing happened in 2010 I believe).

I'm open to RCV. It seems to have the effect of punishing more extreme candidates.

2 hours ago, Gannan said:

Isn't that basically how caucuses work in presidential primaries?

It kind of goes back to the whole "Kamala just got hand picked" thing. Parties can do what they want ultimately. Having voters choose the party's candidate is a fairly recent thing in the grand scheme of it all.

I'm pro-smoke-filled-rooms

2 hours ago, vikas83 said:

The much simpler and fairer way to do things is a 2 round primary -- advance the top 2 vote getters to a runoff if nobody gets over 50%. Make it a binary choice between 2 options, not a complicated ranking which generally disenfranchises older and non-English speaking groups who don't understand it. There's a reason RCV favors younger, college educated white voters (i.e., very progressive).

RCV doesn't favor outlier views.

RCV got Murkowski a win in Alaska.

This idiot won because Cuomo was pretty polarizing and he's doing what Trump does: promises unicorns and magic while triggering the political opposition.

RCV didn't deliver this.

13 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Libertarians gate keep each other almost as much as Democrats hate each other.

For a groups of people that hate rules, all they do is fight over the freaking rules.

29 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I'm open to RCV. It seems to have the effect of punishing more extreme candidates.

In practice it does the opposite.

1 hour ago, vikas83 said:

In practice it does the opposite.

Where?

29 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

In practice it does the opposite.

Because of two elections you didn’t like the outcome of? I ask this seriously because I’ve sat through several "lectures” on voting systems by election nerds who run election models and simulations on various voting systems, and RCV consistently outperforms plurality voting. I realize the limitations on models, but aside from the complexity of RCV, just about every con of RCV is also a con for other systems, especially plurality.

Cuomo staying in per CNN

5 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Where?

Oakland in multiple elections. The votes of older African-Americans and Hispanics were disproportionately disqualified because they failed to fill out the ballots properly - ranking more than 1 person as 1st choice as an example. The ballots are too confusing and lead to large numbers of disqualified votes.

Almost 20k votes were basically thrown out of 134k cast. 5k because they got confused and didn’t vote properly, 3k as overvotes and 11k were exhausted by the end (mostly people who only ranked one candidate). So almost 15% of those who voted basically had no voice.

https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/248/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor

5 hours ago, Tnt4philly said:

Because of two elections you didn’t like the outcome of? I ask this seriously because I’ve sat through several "lectures” on voting systems by election nerds who run election models and simulations on various voting systems, and RCV consistently outperforms plurality voting. I realize the limitations on models, but aside from the complexity of RCV, just about every con of RCV is also a con for other systems, especially plurality.

I didn’t care who won - but the criminal who won in 2022 was convicted by the FBI and recalled. See post above - the confusion leads to large numbers of ballots being thrown out.

Models and simulations are cute. In reality, people’s votes are tossed out because they mess up the ballots. It’s Palm Beach county on steroids and crack.

6 hours ago, vikas83 said:

Oakland in multiple elections. The votes of older African-Americans and Hispanics were disproportionately disqualified because they failed to fill out the ballots properly - ranking more than 1 person as 1st choice as an example. The ballots are too confusing and lead to large numbers of disqualified votes.

Almost 20k votes were basically thrown out of 134k cast. 5k because they got confused and didn’t vote properly, 3k as overvotes and 11k were exhausted by the end (mostly people who only ranked one candidate). So almost 15% of those who voted basically had no voice.

https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/248/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor

If your argument is that it can be confusing for some then yeah, it can be.

But implemented properly with a population that largely understands what to do (list candidates in order of preference) in a field of 3+ candidates, more centrist candidates tend to be selected.

RCV makes no sense for races with only two candidates. Part of its appeal is that centrist candidates, those that might be eliminated in a primary on favor of a more extreme candidate, can win on second ballots.

6 hours ago, vikas83 said:

Oakland in multiple elections. The votes of older African-Americans and Hispanics were disproportionately disqualified because they failed to fill out the ballots properly - ranking more than 1 person as 1st choice as an example. The ballots are too confusing and lead to large numbers of disqualified votes.

Almost 20k votes were basically thrown out of 134k cast. 5k because they got confused and didn’t vote properly, 3k as overvotes and 11k were exhausted by the end (mostly people who only ranked one candidate). So almost 15% of those who voted basically had no voice.

https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/248/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor

There are feasible solutions to this. Even if electronic voting machines aren't preferred for whatever reason (which would make this type of error impossible to submit), you could still use paper ballots processed and flagged by a scanner immediately, which then alerts the clerks to hold to voter aside for them to cure their ballot on-site.

So Mamdani is favored to win as of right now. If the final election were also run as RCV however and the choices were Mamdani, Cuomo, and Adams do you really think that would still be the case? And doesn't that kind argue against RCV favoring extreme candidates?

17 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

If your argument is that it can be confusing for some then yeah, it can be.

But implemented properly with a population that largely understands what to do (list candidates in order of preference) in a field of 3+ candidates, more centrist candidates tend to be selected.

RCV makes no sense for races with only two candidates. Part of its appeal is that centrist candidates, those that might be eliminated in a primary on favor of a more extreme candidate, can win on second ballots.

Um…”a population that largely understands what to do?” You do know we are talking about the voting public here, right?

16 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

There are feasible solutions to this. Even if electronic voting machines aren't preferred for whatever reason (which would make this type of error impossible to submit), you could still use paper ballots processed and flagged by a scanner immediately, which then alerts the clerks to hold to voter aside for them to cure their ballot on-site.

Unfortunately most votes are mail in votes in Oakland.

16 hours ago, DEagle7 said:

So Mamdani is favored to win as of right now. If the final election were also run as RCV however and the choices were Mamdani, Cuomo, and Adams do you really think that would still be the case? And doesn't that kind argue against RCV favoring extreme candidates?

It favors extreme candidates, particularly on the left, because those who vote extreme (younger, college educated) are the ones who understand it.

6 hours ago, vikas83 said:

Um…”a population that largely understands what to do?” You do know we are talking about the voting public here, right?

You're using a single outlier to try and prove your point. RCV has been used successfully for multiple elections in Alaska and have helped deliver moderate candidates like Murkowski who fended off an extreme Trump backed GOP candidate.

Maine has also had RCV for multiple election cycles.

Virginia GOP used RCV in Youngkin's primary win.

In the NYC mayoral general RCV would give a better path to defeating Mamdani by not forcing the collective opposition to his candidacy to try and arrange for a single candidate. If both Adams and Cuomo were to run against Mamdani for example, voters that would split between them could rank Adams and Cuomo in no particular order 1 and 2 on their ballots and whichever gets the most votes would survive to round 2 to pick up the majority of those who voted for the alternative.

8 hours ago, vikas83 said:

Unfortunately most votes are mail in votes in Oakland.

Yea that makes it harder then, especially if mailed close to the deadline.

Roy Minet is one of the election system geeks that I mentioned earlier. He was the Vice Chair of the Lancaster County LP, when I was the Secretary. He is a huge advocate of Approve-Approve-Disapprove Voting. Here is a paper he had published in Reason.

https://royminet.org/about-roy-minet-1941/

Oakland voters not being properly communicated to about how to list their candidates in order of preference is insufficient to me to draw a broad conclusion that it favors extreme candidates.

Primaries tend to be the only elections where more extreme may gain preference over mainstream candidates, because you're already (mostly) limiting your voting pool to one side of the political spectrum.

RCV also allows voters to signal directional support for third party candidates without "wasting" their vote. We may have avoided Trump in 2016 had Stein voters been able to put Hillary at #2. Think about THAT alternate history.

I surely hope the commie wins as mayor of NY.

I have an entire thread worth of responses to predictable outcomes. 🤣🤣🤣