The Ranked Choice is the Best Choice Amendment

[Ian Plätschisch]

WHEREAS The Chancery currently uses the First-Past-The-Post method of voting to conduct Senate elections, and

WHEREAS First-Past-The-Post voting is responsible for a variety of electoral ills, such as producing winners who do not actually have majority support, and forcing voters to cast ballots strategically instead of supporting the candidate they actually prefer the most, and

WHEREAS We all know how First-Past-The-Post voting is working out for our giant friendly neighbor this election cycle, and

WHEREAS Ranked Choice Voting (aka Instant Runoff Voting or Alternative Voting) is far superior to First-Past-The-Post and eliminates all of the aforementioned ills, because it allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, and 

WHEREAS This video is an brilliant explanation of why Ranked Choice Voting is so good


THEREFORE Section 6 of Article IV, which currently reads;

Any Senatorial election conducted by the Chancery shall be conducted according to the provisions given in Section 6 of Article VII concerning election to the Cosa, and the candidate receiving a plurality of the vote shall be declared the winner. In case of a tie between two or more candidates, the executive officer of the province shall select one of those candidates to be the Senator.

is amended to read;

Any Senatorial election conducted by the Chancery shall be conducted according to the provisions given in Section 6 of Article VII concerning election to the Cosa, and utilize Ranked Choice Voting.  In case of a tie between two or more candidates, the executive officer of the province shall select one of those candidates to be the Senator.  

Noi urent q'estadra så;

Ian Plätschisch (MC-MRPT)
Lüc da Schir (Sen-BE)

[Lüc da Schir]

I was drafting a similar bill, but the result is the same and I'll happily support and cosponsor this one instead. While researching though I actually took issue with the closing provision of this section.

In case of a tie between two or more candidates, the executive officer of the province shall select one of those candidates to be the Senator.

Doesn't seem right to me that the province's premier should be allowed to select a full term Senator. I would prefer that the election be re-run, or alternatively that (as with the other instance when the premier picks a Senator) the appointee only serves until the next General Election.

By the way, that section doesn't really specify whether it's the outgoing or the incoming premier that picks the replacement. In the first case, it doesn't really have any legitimacy in those provinces where the GE's result directly influences the makeup of the electorate that is soon going to elect the premier (eg. KA, BE) - not a problem for example in CZ where the Senechal is directly elected, or FV where (in addition to that) the Capitan's term is unrelated to national elections.
In the second case, instead, the incoming premier might have to wait a significant amount of time before being elected (just two in BE and MA but more than seven weeks in CZ and KA) and therefore being able to make the appointment.

[Ian Plätschisch]

Sept 17, 2016 7:00:52 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

I was drafting a similar bill, but the result is the same and I'll happily support and cosponsor this one instead. While researching though I actually took issue with the closing provision of this section.

In case of a tie between two or more candidates, the executive officer of the province shall select one of those candidates to be the Senator.

Doesn't seem right to me that the province's premier should be allowed to select a full term Senator. I would prefer that the election be re-run, or alternatively that (as with the other instance when the premier picks a Senator) the appointee only serves until the next General Election.

By the way, that section doesn't really specify whether it's the outgoing or the incoming premier that picks the replacement. In the first case, it doesn't really have any legitimacy in those provinces where the GE's result directly influences the makeup of the electorate that is soon going to elect the premier (eg. KA, BE) - not a problem for example in CZ where the Senechal is directly elected, or FV where (in addition to that) the Capitan's term is unrelated to national elections.
In the second case, instead, the incoming premier might have to wait a significant amount of time before being elected (just two in BE and MA but more than seven weeks in CZ and KA) and therefore being able to make the appointment.

Your idea sounds fine to me, but I am wary of putting two separate reforms in the same bill.  Is it possible to propose another amendment modifying only the last sentence of this section?

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I like the bill without the proposed changed, myself.

[Ian Plätschisch]

I changed the bill slightly to allow the use of Plurality voting when there are fewer than three candidates. This was in response to concerns that using RCV in elections of that size is an unnecessary hassle. Since RCV and FTPT always give the same result in elections of fewer than three people, this change will not have any effect on outcomes.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Sept 23, 2016 14:27:22 GMT -6 Ian Plätschisch said:

I changed the bill slightly to allow the use of Plurality voting when there are fewer than three candidates. This was in response to concerns that using RCV in elections of that size is an unnecessary hassle. Since RCV and FTPT always give the same result in elections of fewer than three people, this change will not have any effect on outcomes.

I like the idea, but who would determine whether plurality voting would be used? (Since it says "may" and not "shall".) Would the province make that choice, or would it be simply a choice made by the Chancery as part of the election rules?

[Ian Plätschisch]

Sept 23, 2016 14:42:48 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

Sept 23, 2016 14:27:22 GMT -6 Ian Plätschisch said:

I changed the bill slightly to allow the use of Plurality voting when there are fewer than three candidates. This was in response to concerns that using RCV in elections of that size is an unnecessary hassle. Since RCV and FTPT always give the same result in elections of fewer than three people, this change will not have any effect on outcomes.

I like the idea, but who would determine whether plurality voting would be used? (Since it says "may" and not "shall".) Would the province make that choice, or would it be simply a choice made by the Chancery as part of the election rules?

It would be the decision of the Chancery.  Provinces are already Organically allowed to run their own elections, and this amendment only mandates that elections run by the Chancery use RCV

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

There shouldn't be any wiggle room. With fewer than three, FPTP or RCV voting should be mandatory. No good can come of discretion in this instance.

[Ian Plätschisch]

Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H., is it simpler for you to use FTPT for elections with fewer than three candidates, or is it simpler to use the same format for all elections?

[Lüc da Schir]

Hmm. There's the well known wild-card of write in votes, though, which are fairly common in Talossa. Don't forget that Patrick came within one vote to actually tying with Pol d'Auribuerg as a write in candidate in the Florencia Senate race two GEs ago.


I'll give you an example. We've got a two candidates race. "A" gets four votes, "B" gets five votes each and "C" (write-in) gets seven votes.


Let's say we've mandated that FPTP is to be used when fewer than three candidates compete as registered candidates. "C" wins despite not actually getting a majority of votes in what turned out to be a three horses race.


If instead RCV is to be used no matter what, "C" does not have a first vote majority and "A"'s voters' second preferences would have to be counted.


Now perhaps "B" and "C" are from the same "X" party, which has a lot of voters in their province, like RUMP and FL, or FreeDems and FV (they indeed got 75% of the votes combined). Maybe "C" only campaigned among his friends, the members of the "X" party in his province. "A" voters (which typically vote for party "Y") might therefore not even know that "C" is competing and would give their second preference to the only other candidate on the ballot, "B", who wins 9-7.



These are all hypotesis, but it does appear that IRV/RCV applied to all situations (instead of FPTP for "duels") makes it much harder for write in candidates to win an election. Of course my example assumed that the write in candidate had actually done a bit of campaigning to justify his first place finish, but it would be of course much worse if "C" was written in without him knowing and campaigning, as a first vote win would be his only favorable outcome.

[Ian Plätschisch]

That's a good point. Any election could go from two to three candidates at any time, so RCV should always be used.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

Sept 24, 2016 4:55:32 GMT -6 Ian Plätschisch said:

Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H. , is it simpler for you to use FTPT for elections with fewer than three candidates, or is it simpler to use the same format for all elections?It's much simplier 

The problem is hat by allowing write-ins, we just don't know how many candidates there are.

The way I would do it is to provide say, up to 5 votes, with ranked drop downs.

Enter your first choice:  [drop-down]
Enter your second choice: [drop-down]
Enter your third choice: [drop-down]
Enter your fourth choice: [drop-down]
Enter your fifth choice: [drop-down]

If you don't want to enter a fitth choice, you leave it empty, if you don't want to enter more than 3 choices, only enter 3.

If you don't even want to fill a 3rd choice, that's your open.

At worst, you can simply only enter your first choice, which would mean that if your candidate doesn't have the most vote, you spoil your vote: it can't be reassigned.

[Marti-Pair Furxheir S.H.]

The problem with the Senate elections is that they are not 100% mandatory, in the sense that someone can vote for the Cosa, and just not vote for the Senate.

Do you really want to make it more complicated to vote in the Senate? Of course not.

so, we use Optional Fill-in RCV.

Voters can select up to (say) 5 candidates (3 would be more logical) and reassign votes from the candidate with the least vote using those with a 2nd rank choice. Those without a 2nd rank are just discarded.

We continue until we have only 2 candidates with vote, and the highest wins, even if he doesn't have the majority due to people who didn't put a second vote.