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May 18, 2022·edited May 18, 2022

"In particular, any kind of rank voting, where the voter is trying to pick the top rank candidate, will be flawed."

I disagree with this intensely - both in terms of what the voter is trying to do, and that ranked choice voting (preferential voting, instant run-off voting) is flawed.

The voter is usually demonstrating their clear first preference, but also how they rank all other candidates after that. This serves two purposes: (1) it provides a much more finely grained understanding of how voters collectively think, and (2) it ensures that a vote isn't "wasted" if the candidate they voted for first is not one of the top two candidates.

In Australia, unlike much of the US, under Ranked Choice, quite a lot of seats are "marginal", and depending on which way the political winds are blowing, they can go to either major party, and change hands reasonably frequently - not necessarily every cycle, but every two or three.

The situation often looks like this in terms of voters' first preferences:

Major Party (Centre Right) 37.2%

Major Party (Centre Left) 38.8%

Minor Party (Right) 7%

Minor Party (Left) 7%

Fringe Right or Independent 4%

Fringe Left or Independent 4%

Others 2%

Every voter is required to number the candidates 1-n.

In some seats, (mostly conservative rural ones, or inner-city lefty ones) a Minor Party is able to actually finish in the top two, but the principle remains the same.

So quite a few seats are on a knife's edge, and in general, reflects how people feel about the political spectrum. But without a Ranked Choice system, you can't get to a fair result, but after the distribution of preferences, one of the top two will emerge with 51% of the vote, and they will be the winner.

While this purportedly infringes a number of the Condorcet Principles, it does mean that "the least disliked" (ie, the most broadly approved) candidate will emerge as the winner, which is much fairer than a FPTP winner with less than 40% of the votes.

The system is also very suitable in encouraging minor parties to exist and trying to be a player - and that is a good thing.

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