Thanks Bob for raising our conversation on Rick Wilson's page to the level of a post of its own merit. That's a very good use of Substack material, and I may follow suit.
I wonder, however, if you could edit your subtitle to include my link, as in:
"Our Framers loathed Faction. The evils of Faction are all over the Federalist Papers and there's not a word in the Constitution about political parties."
Bob,
It's a shame that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) wasn't conceived until the nineteenth century. I want to believe the Constitutional Founders would have mandated it in the Constitution had it been available to them. With the plurality, first-past-the-post voting system they were apparently stuck with, the Voters' Dilemma was created, which in turn created the Spoiler Effect, the guarantor and sustainer of the Political Duopoly (from Federalist vs. Democratic Republican (Jeffersonian)--to Democratic (Jacksonian) vs. Whig--to Democratic vs. Republican. The only outsider to overcome the spoiler effect was Abraham Lincoln, who accomplished it because the Democratic Party in 1860 split into two pieces over the slavery issues. Those two pieces united would have defeated Lincoln. Lincoln's victory flipped the Duopoly: Whigs out, Republicans in.) With RCV, overcoming the Voters' Dilemma is simple: make your favorite candidate your first choice and your "lesser of two evils" from the Duopoly your second choice. Without the penalty of "wasting your vote", non-Duopoly candidates would have a reasonable chance of winning--no Spoiler Effect. In time, without the maintaining safeguard of the Spoiler Effect, the Duopoly would weaken and eventually dissolve. In addition, for a candidate to eventually cumulate an absolute majority over the course of the rounds of Instant Runoffs enabled by RCV, he or she would need to be rational and conciliatory to accumulate second choice, third choice, etc. votes. Firebrands and demagogues would lose.
While the Constitution sets out much of the mechanics of elections, it's absolutely agnostic about political parties. Our Framers knew they were a thing and most of them probably ruefully acknowledged that they'd become part of our system, but what they concretely did not do is set up a parliamentary system where the prime minister is essentially a coalition manager. I think that's a weak point of the Constitution in that it seems like they simply tried to wish Faction away, trusting too much in adversarial government through checks and balances.
Condorcet voting (of which ranked choice voting is a subset) is much more complex than it seems at first glance. Fire up ranked choice voting in the 'pedia and you'll see links to over a dozen articles on different flavors of the idea. There's a distinction between ordinal (flavors of ranked choice) and cardinal (STAR voting, which I admit I don't fully understand yet).
In the US, we like IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) because it almost exactly replicates a runoff election, but none of these systems are entirely immune from gaming by strategic voting. I strongly support it as well, but note that the Constitution gives states the authority to manage their elections and every state would have to adopt it to have more than a marginal effect on presidential elections. Some states are already using it, ME and AK as well as some localities. But in states with jungle primaries (highest two vote getters in a primary run in the general) it's moot, because in that case parties become irrelevant. As a major reform, it's a long, hard slog.
I have to say I'm a little allergic to the "duopoly" discourse. I think political ideas are naturally dichotomous, the paradigmatic one being liberty vs. equality and I don't think all 50 states adopting IRV would cause the two major parties to wither away (apologies to Karl Marx). What I do envision is IRV validating multi parties and their voters, but they'd have the same challenge of coalition building if they hoped to win an election as the major parties. I completely agree that it would quash the incentive for lunatics and we've already seen that in Alaska, where Sarah Palin and Mark Begich were bounced by Mary Peltola for the House thanks largely to IRV.
The real reform to break the so-called duopoly would be to do away with first-past-the-post and adopt proportional representation which would allow a slew of parties access to government. But I caution anyone advocating this to consider the example of Israel, where you have a bunch of hardcore ultra-religious parties that can effectively hold the government hostage (and make Bibi Netanyahu look like a "moderate," LOL). Parliamentary systems are inherently less stable than ours, but the UK has first-past-the-post which makes the PM contest effectively between Tories and Labour every election, despite vigorous participation by other parties. If the best the Lib Dems can do is ally with the Tories in a coalition government, that's not a great advertisement for their core beliefs. They also endorsed a nationwide campaign for Alternative Voting, the UK's version of ranked choice, and it failed, which is a shame.
I have a question about this: "...the Constitution gives states the authority to manage their elections and every state would have to adopt it to have more than a marginal effect on presidential elections"
The Constitution Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 says: "The Times, Places, and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives are to be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. However, Congress has the authority to make or alter such regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators" The key words in this appear to me to be "Manner" and "Congress has the authority to make or alter such regulations". Do the voting systems used by the states fall under the heading of "Manner", which Congress is authorized by this part of the Constitution to "alter"? If so, can't they mandate RCV for all Federal elections?
I am the last thing from an election law expert, Don, and I don't have a definitive answer. But we do have to look at the vast patchwork of federal election law across all the states. Ease of ballot access (deadlines, signature qualifications) for federal offices varies widely; some states allow a gazillion fringe presidential candidates on the ballot (just by kicking a few hundred dollars to the court clerk), others can make it difficult for major party candidates. Even something you'd think would be eminently federalizable like allocation of presidential electors is different from state to state. Some are proportional, some by district and some winner-take-all.
And of course right now we have the 14th Amendment case where SCOTUS is going to have a difficult time hammering out a universal standard for keeping insurrectionists off the presidential ballot. Expect that decision on the last day of the term; it's more complicated than all the oral argument hot takes make it out to be.
I have heard nothing about a national movement for a federal IRV. I certainly don't object to the idea in principle, but all the movement for it has been on the state level.
Thanks Bob for raising our conversation on Rick Wilson's page to the level of a post of its own merit. That's a very good use of Substack material, and I may follow suit.
I wonder, however, if you could edit your subtitle to include my link, as in:
An antifascist Substacker (https://neofascism.substack.com/) who's furious at disinformation.
Thanks again, and welcome to Substack. We may be preaching to the choir, but we need to motivate every possible Dem voter to get out and defeat Trump.
Oh, no problem, bro. I'll do that right now.
"Our Framers loathed Faction. The evils of Faction are all over the Federalist Papers and there's not a word in the Constitution about political parties."
Bob,
It's a shame that Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) wasn't conceived until the nineteenth century. I want to believe the Constitutional Founders would have mandated it in the Constitution had it been available to them. With the plurality, first-past-the-post voting system they were apparently stuck with, the Voters' Dilemma was created, which in turn created the Spoiler Effect, the guarantor and sustainer of the Political Duopoly (from Federalist vs. Democratic Republican (Jeffersonian)--to Democratic (Jacksonian) vs. Whig--to Democratic vs. Republican. The only outsider to overcome the spoiler effect was Abraham Lincoln, who accomplished it because the Democratic Party in 1860 split into two pieces over the slavery issues. Those two pieces united would have defeated Lincoln. Lincoln's victory flipped the Duopoly: Whigs out, Republicans in.) With RCV, overcoming the Voters' Dilemma is simple: make your favorite candidate your first choice and your "lesser of two evils" from the Duopoly your second choice. Without the penalty of "wasting your vote", non-Duopoly candidates would have a reasonable chance of winning--no Spoiler Effect. In time, without the maintaining safeguard of the Spoiler Effect, the Duopoly would weaken and eventually dissolve. In addition, for a candidate to eventually cumulate an absolute majority over the course of the rounds of Instant Runoffs enabled by RCV, he or she would need to be rational and conciliatory to accumulate second choice, third choice, etc. votes. Firebrands and demagogues would lose.
While the Constitution sets out much of the mechanics of elections, it's absolutely agnostic about political parties. Our Framers knew they were a thing and most of them probably ruefully acknowledged that they'd become part of our system, but what they concretely did not do is set up a parliamentary system where the prime minister is essentially a coalition manager. I think that's a weak point of the Constitution in that it seems like they simply tried to wish Faction away, trusting too much in adversarial government through checks and balances.
Condorcet voting (of which ranked choice voting is a subset) is much more complex than it seems at first glance. Fire up ranked choice voting in the 'pedia and you'll see links to over a dozen articles on different flavors of the idea. There's a distinction between ordinal (flavors of ranked choice) and cardinal (STAR voting, which I admit I don't fully understand yet).
In the US, we like IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) because it almost exactly replicates a runoff election, but none of these systems are entirely immune from gaming by strategic voting. I strongly support it as well, but note that the Constitution gives states the authority to manage their elections and every state would have to adopt it to have more than a marginal effect on presidential elections. Some states are already using it, ME and AK as well as some localities. But in states with jungle primaries (highest two vote getters in a primary run in the general) it's moot, because in that case parties become irrelevant. As a major reform, it's a long, hard slog.
I have to say I'm a little allergic to the "duopoly" discourse. I think political ideas are naturally dichotomous, the paradigmatic one being liberty vs. equality and I don't think all 50 states adopting IRV would cause the two major parties to wither away (apologies to Karl Marx). What I do envision is IRV validating multi parties and their voters, but they'd have the same challenge of coalition building if they hoped to win an election as the major parties. I completely agree that it would quash the incentive for lunatics and we've already seen that in Alaska, where Sarah Palin and Mark Begich were bounced by Mary Peltola for the House thanks largely to IRV.
The real reform to break the so-called duopoly would be to do away with first-past-the-post and adopt proportional representation which would allow a slew of parties access to government. But I caution anyone advocating this to consider the example of Israel, where you have a bunch of hardcore ultra-religious parties that can effectively hold the government hostage (and make Bibi Netanyahu look like a "moderate," LOL). Parliamentary systems are inherently less stable than ours, but the UK has first-past-the-post which makes the PM contest effectively between Tories and Labour every election, despite vigorous participation by other parties. If the best the Lib Dems can do is ally with the Tories in a coalition government, that's not a great advertisement for their core beliefs. They also endorsed a nationwide campaign for Alternative Voting, the UK's version of ranked choice, and it failed, which is a shame.
Bob,
I have a question about this: "...the Constitution gives states the authority to manage their elections and every state would have to adopt it to have more than a marginal effect on presidential elections"
The Constitution Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 says: "The Times, Places, and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives are to be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof. However, Congress has the authority to make or alter such regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators" The key words in this appear to me to be "Manner" and "Congress has the authority to make or alter such regulations". Do the voting systems used by the states fall under the heading of "Manner", which Congress is authorized by this part of the Constitution to "alter"? If so, can't they mandate RCV for all Federal elections?
Looking forward to your insight on this matter.
I am the last thing from an election law expert, Don, and I don't have a definitive answer. But we do have to look at the vast patchwork of federal election law across all the states. Ease of ballot access (deadlines, signature qualifications) for federal offices varies widely; some states allow a gazillion fringe presidential candidates on the ballot (just by kicking a few hundred dollars to the court clerk), others can make it difficult for major party candidates. Even something you'd think would be eminently federalizable like allocation of presidential electors is different from state to state. Some are proportional, some by district and some winner-take-all.
And of course right now we have the 14th Amendment case where SCOTUS is going to have a difficult time hammering out a universal standard for keeping insurrectionists off the presidential ballot. Expect that decision on the last day of the term; it's more complicated than all the oral argument hot takes make it out to be.
I have heard nothing about a national movement for a federal IRV. I certainly don't object to the idea in principle, but all the movement for it has been on the state level.