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Comment by unethical_ban | Hacker News Reader

I agree, except I can't admit the last part.

We need a system that allows a freer market of political parties. With two entrenched private organizations that are impossible to unseat, an extremist takeover of one is like taking over the country... Which is what has happened. Imagine a system where rational Republicans could have formed a breakaway conservative party and had a chance at success without being a spoiler.

And I think the new voting system has to have preference built in. I know approval voting is simple to explain and calculate, but I want to maximize the "expression of voter preference" as much as possible while keeping the process simple. Ranked choice has some issues but it is conceptually simple and eliminates the spoiler effect. And it's already in use in parts of the US.

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"Ranked Choice" (ballot) needs to be retconned to the decision process of Ranked Pairs rather than Instant Runoff Voting.

It feels like pushing for this (and for effective government structures in general) at the state level is the main backstop we have.

Unless there happens to be some helicopter pilot that ends up taking his oath to defend the United States seriously, or some other exceptional event or sea change that stops the neofascists in their tracks, it seems a foregone conclusion that the federal government will have been thoroughly destroyed in two years.

Agreed on all fronts. The election reform needs to start at local and state level to get people used to the idea, and because it would be easier to do in the first place.

Ranked pairs seem like it would be cumbersome for "the average voter" to fill out on voting day if the number of candidates exceeds about four. And other methods like Schulze which do simple ranking but complicated math on the calculation are too math-y for "the average voter".

I'm open to ideas but I think in this country we need simple simple simple, while getting rid of the spoiler effect.

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EDIT: Since I have been throttled by the "You're posting too fast, thanks" passive aggressive message, I'll respond here.

I thought ranked pair method involved actually going through each pair and doing a 1v1 vote for every combination. If it is the same "input" as RCV, meaning a single list of preference, then I'm really interested.

Ranked Pairs calculation uses a Ranked Choice ballot. And I'd say Ranked Choice ballots should be designed such that people accustomed to plurality (and even multiple plurality - "pick any N") can fill in that kind of preference and have it appropriately interpreted.

It's not only about breakaway people. An appropriate political systems promotes centralism and punishes extremism - but FPTP combined with your loose candidate selection process does the opposite. There is a large body of studies discussing optimal forms of democracy for newly established ones. The guidebook essentially recommends doing the exact opposite of what are you doing.

Being "easy" to calculate is a substantial benefit. It allows for distributed calculation, audible and independently verifiable elections.

Systems that require centralized counting to calculate a winner are much easier to rig and much harder to trust.

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