builtforcameron t1_j6htztv wrote on January 30, 2023 at 1:02 PM

Reply to comment by HeadPen5724 in Debating ranked-choice voting in Vermont by orange_wires

Getting rid of the party designation on ballots would be a bit of a mess, mainly cuz people don't always know the names of the candidates they support, party indicators are a helpful shortcut for that. Ive also thought about how it might phase republicans out (rcv would prevent the left from splitting the vote,) but all it does is ensure the candidate actually has majority support. Having it state wide would be interesting, I'm sure a lot more republicans would lose but that only means they never really had the majority support of their constituents. (Sorry, i work advocating for this stuff, hope this helps)

HeadPen5724 t1_j6hwfgc wrote on January 30, 2023 at 1:25 PM

If you don’t know the name of the candidate you support and are instead using their self described party affiliation then you aren’t really casting an informed vote or participating in democracy in a positive way. I don’t think we should be encouraging or advocating for that.

It IS OK to not cast a vote in every box if you aren’t informed, in fact it’s preferred.

builtforcameron t1_j6hwssb wrote on January 30, 2023 at 1:28 PM

The issue isnt whether we encourage people to make uninformed decisions when voting, its about understanding HOW people vote. If you take party affiliations off the ballot, a lot of people won't vote/won't know who to vote for. We want MORE people voting, which RCV encourages

HeadPen5724 t1_j6hxcvz wrote on January 30, 2023 at 1:33 PM

I disagree. We want MORE INFORMED voters, not more uninformed voters. Uninformed voters are not a positive thing.

And IRV actually discounts the votes of people that don’t rank candidates they don’t know anything about, so it’s not benefitting that aspect either. At least with a traditional runoff it gives the voter some time to read up and learn about the two remaining candidates. And no one should ever be forced to vote for a particular candidate to have their vote count, which in some IRV scenarios is the case.