Maine's Election Idea

[Sssith]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/maine-new-way-electing-politicians_us_5b16fe45e4b0734a99386f47

WTF are you up to Pixie?

Seems much to complicated to really work out.  I applaud the goal of encouraging people vote for people that they might not otherwise vote for, but this doesn't seem to be the way to do it.

California primaries are now pretty interesting in that the top two candidates go on to the general election, regards of the party affiliation.  The goal was also to encourage people vote differently.

It will be interesting to see if these measures help.

[Pixie]

Ranked choice voting makes absolute sense. What system would be better, I wonder?

Anyway, I voted for this to happen and am glad it did. Of course, it's being obstructed every step of the way by Republicans because of course they would.

[Sssith]

I am in favor of the idea.  But the general voter is lazy and stupid and it seems overly complicated and would discourage people from voting.  You not only have to figure out who you want to vote for but everyone else in order.

In the last general election it would be interesting to see how the GOP candidates would have shaken out with this system?  With Kasich as everyone's' second or third favorite candidate it would it mean that he would have done better?

[syn]

Of course, it's being obstructed every step of the way by Republicans because of course they would.

only because they stand to lose. if the shoe was on the other foot, they'd say it was the best most fair idea in the history of voting.

too bad it's not being used in the general election (yet).

minneapolis and st paul both use ranked choice for local elections. it's really not that complicated, which seems to be the most common rationalization for opposing it. you don't have to vote for 2nd/3rd/etc choices if you don't want to.

[Darkness]

This is effectively Maine pursuing a system of proportional representation for voting, which is the system of voting operated by most of the world's forward thinking democracies. Its only backwards nations, like the US and the UK, which still operate unrepresentative FPTP based systems, which are long past the point of being democratic.

The problem with Maine's approach is that is looks to be the PR system known as Alternative Vote, which is quite complicated and probably the worst option for operating PR.

Still, its a start.

[Timinator]

I’ve voted for a major like this. Makes sense. You work out all the people you’d possibly want on office and order them.  We saw a terrible person once win as the incumbent had been there a long time and had baggage with some people. The one who just scraped in was horrible