When there is a giant herd of candidates in a primary, it is clear evidence that there is no party discipline or that the party doesn't care which person in the herd wins. In either case, ranked voting would still provide the party with the best possible candidate for the general election, assuming it was a contested seat. I assume that part of the reason the Democratic party wouldn't be interested in ranked voting, is that they generally don't have contested races. And they like the current system, that allows them to promote Bailey and guarantee that there is no viable alternative candidate.
Right. Play out an Alaska-like system here -- a non-partisan primary followed by a ranked-choice contest between the top four vote getters -- and you'd get Irvin, Bailey, Sullivan and Pritzker in a ranked-choice race. Most of Pritzker's voters wouldn't even HAVE a second choice, but it would be safe to assume that the Irvin/Bailey/Sullivan voters would all rank the others 2 and 3, so i Pritzker didn't win a clear majority and assuming Sullivan finished last, all of his second place votes would be split among the others. If that put Irvin in last place, HIS second choice votes (or third) would go to Bailey and Bailey might well win.
A plausible scenario. But I would guess that seasoned rank voters in the Alaska model that put Pritzker first would put Irvin second, if only to block Bailey. Particularly if they buy the Bailey ads claiming Irvin is a closet Democrat. Similarly, I can see Irvin voters putting Pritsker second because the other two are too far right or Trumpy. And who knows what the mix of candidates would be? Maybe Susanna Mendoza or Toni Preckwinkle would test the waters. The ranked voting would also add new wrinkles to the Dem. Gov. Assoc and Pritzker ad spend on other candidates. They might push Baily and Sullivan as two of a kind to push that 1-2 ranking among opposing voters.
Possible. I'm not sure how RCV elections are resolved when there are not enough second-place votes to move to a candidate to give him or her a majority rather than a plurality.
A littler confused here. IRV will always produce a two-candidate race in the final round and thus always produce a "majority" winner among the non-exhausted ballots. The problem is that many ballots could theoretically be thrown out along the way. One way of thinking about it is that if nobody ranks any choices, IRV will simply reproduce the outcome of a plurality election. So IRV doesn't actually guaranty a true majority preference, nor does it guaranty that the winner would have beat all other candidates in a head-to-head matchup (the Condorcet winner criterion).
One potential problem with IRV I see is that you can never "revive" a previously eliminated candidate, so any votes for that candidate during any subsequent round will not count, and those ballots will go to the voter's next choice or, if there aren't any subsequent ranked choices for a candidate that's still alive, thrown out.
This can have real-world consequences. Suppose a candidate (Irvin, maybe, in the scenario you describe?) gets tons of second choices but very few first choices. If you were to look at the first-round voting, you might think that Irvin seems to have widespread relative acceptability, even though the vast majority would prefer some other candidate. You might even think that Irvin would beat any single candidate in a head-to-head matchup, because he seems to be preferred by more voters over any other candidate. And yet, because IRV only looks at first choices when eliminating candidates, he could be eliminated in the first round, and none of those second choices would count for anything.
Very simple example, three candidates, A, B, and C:
400 people rank as follows: A, B, C
300 people rank as follows: C, B, A
200 people rank as follows: B, C, A
Under IRV, nobody has a majority of first choices (450), so B, with the fewest number of first choices, is eliminated. B's votes are given to B voters' second choice, C, so C ends up beating A, 500 to 400.
And yet, under this scenario, lots more voters preferred B over C than preferred C over B (600 vs. 300), suggesting that B would have easily won a head-to-head matchup with C. B also beats A, 500 to 400. B seems to beat everyone and yet is the clear loser under IRV.
I found the following, suggesting that something like this happened in a Burlington, VT mayoral race that used IRV, where a candidate with lots of second choices (and even a decent number of first choices too) ended up being eliminated despite the fact that he was preferred over the winner (as reflected in the rankings) by a substantial margin.
I've long found the anti-spoiler effect of IRV very attractive. The more I've looked into it, though, the more it seems there's no perfect voting system. You have to decide what conditions or potential anomalies you care most about. Maybe IRV is the best. If you google "problems with IRV," you will be presented with a fun rabbit hole to go down if you're so inclined.
Regarding old letters, if someone from my past reached out unexpectedly I would think they want something other than just returning my letters. I would not be offended but I would decline their offer because I've learned that its best to leave the past in the past.
“ If an old acquaintance offered to return all the old letters of yours in their possession, would you feel offended? Intrigued? Indifferent?”. I would never return a letter. It seems mildly insulting. If it was someone I was in touch with or would like to reconnect, I might scan and email to them (or mail if necessary) with a note. If i didn’t care about the person, put in recycling bin.
That's the risk, of course. It might feel like an insult.It could easily be read as "I no longer care about you enough to want to have in my life these remembrances of you, even though they don't really take up much room."
I agree with Torres, I prefer Hispanic and have never heard any of my acquaintances use the term Latinx. But I think that the people that are promoting the use of Latinx are attempting to address the gender specific nature of Spanish (which does not conform to the current progressive gender agenda) and to also undermine what they view as the patriarchal nature of Hispanic culture. It is not referring to a group by their preferred name, it is correcting their misapprehension about how they ought to refer to themselves. But I assume that the 57% in the poll that had no preference are part of the vast majority that never use any of the terms because when they speak about heritage, they refer to their actual cultural roots in a specific country. Hispanics are only a group because the media and politicians think that they are.
Frederick Taylor's scientific management and his use of time and motion studies evolved into methods management and is a standard part of improving operating efficiencies. One of the drawbacks has been that the periodic presence of someone or something doing measurement tended to alter the method of work and skew the results. People behave differently when they know they are being watched. Amazon continuously tracking all activity solves this problem because it is a part of the normal environment. Used correctly it can support development of safe and efficient work environment and methods. Used poorly, it is an ineffective, intrusive, and insulting substitute for good supervision and management.
I would never return correspondence. If I found an interesting exchange that I thought would be fun to revisit, I would share it in a new letter and reminisce. If there was a photo included, I would copy it and send it along too. Otherwise, it gets saved for future review or pitched. I am also currently going through my archives and thinning them, knowing that some of the memories that are triggered will now fade permanently, since I won't see that document again. And knowing that future historians will bemoan the lack of material in researching me (hey, I might have a notable descendant!) I would want the same from people to whom I have written. I wouldn't want a generic document dump of unreviewed stuff but I would assume the offer was genuinely intended to be considerate.
We recently moved and I found myself going through boxes of old letters. I kept quite a few, but I made a point to keep at least one or two from folks who mean a lot to me, some of whom are dead, because I wanted that bit of handwriting. The thought that they physically sat down, hand to page, pen in hand gives me a small part of them even after they are long gone. We don’t get that with electronic messages.
Among the drawbacks of ranked choice voting was that it might “break down party discipline.” I think I’d put that one on the other side of the ledger.
When there is a giant herd of candidates in a primary, it is clear evidence that there is no party discipline or that the party doesn't care which person in the herd wins. In either case, ranked voting would still provide the party with the best possible candidate for the general election, assuming it was a contested seat. I assume that part of the reason the Democratic party wouldn't be interested in ranked voting, is that they generally don't have contested races. And they like the current system, that allows them to promote Bailey and guarantee that there is no viable alternative candidate.
Right. Play out an Alaska-like system here -- a non-partisan primary followed by a ranked-choice contest between the top four vote getters -- and you'd get Irvin, Bailey, Sullivan and Pritzker in a ranked-choice race. Most of Pritzker's voters wouldn't even HAVE a second choice, but it would be safe to assume that the Irvin/Bailey/Sullivan voters would all rank the others 2 and 3, so i Pritzker didn't win a clear majority and assuming Sullivan finished last, all of his second place votes would be split among the others. If that put Irvin in last place, HIS second choice votes (or third) would go to Bailey and Bailey might well win.
A plausible scenario. But I would guess that seasoned rank voters in the Alaska model that put Pritzker first would put Irvin second, if only to block Bailey. Particularly if they buy the Bailey ads claiming Irvin is a closet Democrat. Similarly, I can see Irvin voters putting Pritsker second because the other two are too far right or Trumpy. And who knows what the mix of candidates would be? Maybe Susanna Mendoza or Toni Preckwinkle would test the waters. The ranked voting would also add new wrinkles to the Dem. Gov. Assoc and Pritzker ad spend on other candidates. They might push Baily and Sullivan as two of a kind to push that 1-2 ranking among opposing voters.
Possible. I'm not sure how RCV elections are resolved when there are not enough second-place votes to move to a candidate to give him or her a majority rather than a plurality.
A littler confused here. IRV will always produce a two-candidate race in the final round and thus always produce a "majority" winner among the non-exhausted ballots. The problem is that many ballots could theoretically be thrown out along the way. One way of thinking about it is that if nobody ranks any choices, IRV will simply reproduce the outcome of a plurality election. So IRV doesn't actually guaranty a true majority preference, nor does it guaranty that the winner would have beat all other candidates in a head-to-head matchup (the Condorcet winner criterion).
One potential problem with IRV I see is that you can never "revive" a previously eliminated candidate, so any votes for that candidate during any subsequent round will not count, and those ballots will go to the voter's next choice or, if there aren't any subsequent ranked choices for a candidate that's still alive, thrown out.
This can have real-world consequences. Suppose a candidate (Irvin, maybe, in the scenario you describe?) gets tons of second choices but very few first choices. If you were to look at the first-round voting, you might think that Irvin seems to have widespread relative acceptability, even though the vast majority would prefer some other candidate. You might even think that Irvin would beat any single candidate in a head-to-head matchup, because he seems to be preferred by more voters over any other candidate. And yet, because IRV only looks at first choices when eliminating candidates, he could be eliminated in the first round, and none of those second choices would count for anything.
Very simple example, three candidates, A, B, and C:
400 people rank as follows: A, B, C
300 people rank as follows: C, B, A
200 people rank as follows: B, C, A
Under IRV, nobody has a majority of first choices (450), so B, with the fewest number of first choices, is eliminated. B's votes are given to B voters' second choice, C, so C ends up beating A, 500 to 400.
And yet, under this scenario, lots more voters preferred B over C than preferred C over B (600 vs. 300), suggesting that B would have easily won a head-to-head matchup with C. B also beats A, 500 to 400. B seems to beat everyone and yet is the clear loser under IRV.
I found the following, suggesting that something like this happened in a Burlington, VT mayoral race that used IRV, where a candidate with lots of second choices (and even a decent number of first choices too) ended up being eliminated despite the fact that he was preferred over the winner (as reflected in the rankings) by a substantial margin.
https://bolson.org/~bolson/2009/20090303_burlington_vt_mayor.html
I've long found the anti-spoiler effect of IRV very attractive. The more I've looked into it, though, the more it seems there's no perfect voting system. You have to decide what conditions or potential anomalies you care most about. Maybe IRV is the best. If you google "problems with IRV," you will be presented with a fun rabbit hole to go down if you're so inclined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Condorcet_winner_criterion
https://math.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Applied_Mathematics/Math_in_Society_(Lippman)/02%3A_Voting_Theory/2.07%3A_Whats_Wrong_with_IRV
There is no question that every voting system has drawbacks as soon as any complexity at all is introduced into a race.
So let's not do that Alaska system -- could still do IRV, though, in partisan primaries and general elections.
Regarding old letters, if someone from my past reached out unexpectedly I would think they want something other than just returning my letters. I would not be offended but I would decline their offer because I've learned that its best to leave the past in the past.
In related news (in re: the polls), saw my first ad attacking Irvin on Words With Friends this morning.
“ If an old acquaintance offered to return all the old letters of yours in their possession, would you feel offended? Intrigued? Indifferent?”. I would never return a letter. It seems mildly insulting. If it was someone I was in touch with or would like to reconnect, I might scan and email to them (or mail if necessary) with a note. If i didn’t care about the person, put in recycling bin.
That's the risk, of course. It might feel like an insult.It could easily be read as "I no longer care about you enough to want to have in my life these remembrances of you, even though they don't really take up much room."
Agree. Is is also kind of weird. Who would waste time and stamp to return if you didn’t want to initiate renewed communication?
Love your columns thank you
I agree with Torres, I prefer Hispanic and have never heard any of my acquaintances use the term Latinx. But I think that the people that are promoting the use of Latinx are attempting to address the gender specific nature of Spanish (which does not conform to the current progressive gender agenda) and to also undermine what they view as the patriarchal nature of Hispanic culture. It is not referring to a group by their preferred name, it is correcting their misapprehension about how they ought to refer to themselves. But I assume that the 57% in the poll that had no preference are part of the vast majority that never use any of the terms because when they speak about heritage, they refer to their actual cultural roots in a specific country. Hispanics are only a group because the media and politicians think that they are.
Frederick Taylor's scientific management and his use of time and motion studies evolved into methods management and is a standard part of improving operating efficiencies. One of the drawbacks has been that the periodic presence of someone or something doing measurement tended to alter the method of work and skew the results. People behave differently when they know they are being watched. Amazon continuously tracking all activity solves this problem because it is a part of the normal environment. Used correctly it can support development of safe and efficient work environment and methods. Used poorly, it is an ineffective, intrusive, and insulting substitute for good supervision and management.
It's called the "Hawthorne effect."
Completely agree with Eric on recall elections. They are a terrible idea and incredibly wasteful in practice. Regular elections are sufficient.
I would never return correspondence. If I found an interesting exchange that I thought would be fun to revisit, I would share it in a new letter and reminisce. If there was a photo included, I would copy it and send it along too. Otherwise, it gets saved for future review or pitched. I am also currently going through my archives and thinning them, knowing that some of the memories that are triggered will now fade permanently, since I won't see that document again. And knowing that future historians will bemoan the lack of material in researching me (hey, I might have a notable descendant!) I would want the same from people to whom I have written. I wouldn't want a generic document dump of unreviewed stuff but I would assume the offer was genuinely intended to be considerate.
We recently moved and I found myself going through boxes of old letters. I kept quite a few, but I made a point to keep at least one or two from folks who mean a lot to me, some of whom are dead, because I wanted that bit of handwriting. The thought that they physically sat down, hand to page, pen in hand gives me a small part of them even after they are long gone. We don’t get that with electronic messages.
Ranked-choice voting sounds right for the 1st District.