ME-02: Poliquin in denial

[7,052,770]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

Good to hear you think a FPTP popular vote system is the way to go. We'll trade you Rep. Poliquin for President Clinton.

And Senator Mary Landrieu.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://mobile.twitter.com/RepPoliquin/status/1061344164397355009

Yeah, and make sure to thank Rep-elect Jared Golden on your way out too. Cause Maine said bye bye to beta Bruce, and said it’s time to send in the marine.

[MAINEiac4434]

https://mobile.twitter.com/RepPoliquin/status/1061344164397355009

Yeah, and make sure to thank Rep-elect Jared Golden on your way out too. Cause Maine said bye bye to beta Bruce, and said it’s time to send in the marine.

This is my favorite post of all time.

[Figueira]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

What's wrong with it? It gives power to third parties and allows people to state their preferences better.

I'm happy that Golden won, but RCV does not actually give power to third parties. It just appeases people who insist on voting for unelectable third parties. If, say, a left-wing third party actually managed to get more votes than the Democrat, it could result in Republicans winning.

[J. J.]

Roberts' dissent was only based on redistricting.

The "one person one vote" argument is not just hilariously flawed, there's a ton of state legislatures, city councils and school boards that use multi member districts and allow for more than one vote. I cast two votes for Minneapolis school board last week. Poliquin's argument there is fundamentally absurd.

Multi-member districts are bit different.  In most places you can only cast one vote for one individual.  In IRV, there is a ranking,so you are actually voting for more than one individual.

That said, I'd need to hear a strong argument for IRV to be unconstitutional before I'd go that way.  It its face, it seems constitutional.

Really now, I know Maryland and Arizona have been using MMD state house districts for a while now where you get x votes, where x is equal to the number of candidates who rep the seat. I believe there are other states that do it this way as well.

Can you cast "x votes" for the same candidate? 

[Strudelcutie4427]

RCV violates the one man one vote rule. It gives some people 2 or 3 votes. And before any one brings up the electoral college, all states are a fptp system. The US is basically a federation of 50 semi-independent nations. Not a unitary centralized country, National pv violates the notion that individual states matter

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

RCV violates the one man one vote rule. It gives some people 2 or 3 votes. And before any one brings up the electoral college, all states are a fptp system. The US is basically a federation of 50 semi-independent nations. Not a unitary centralized country, National pv violates the notion that individual states matter

No it doesn't. Your vote is counted for only one person in the final count. It's no different than the runoff in Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

And as noted there are already elections where you can vote for more than one person. I voted for two people for Minneapolis School Board this year. There were two seats and everyone got two votes. Many,state legislatures elect more than one person per district and allow each voter the number of votes as there are people being elected.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

RCV violates the one man one vote rule. It gives some people 2 or 3 votes. And before any one brings up the electoral college, all states are a fptp system. The US is basically a federation of 50 semi-independent nations. Not a unitary centralized country, National pv violates the notion that individual states matter

In the end, everyone is only getting 1 vote. It's just allowing people to make preferences and gives more voice to third parties when the two party system has failed us.

Stop being a cuck and regurgitating everything you hear from your overlords (the GOP). Think for yourself. You're saying things that you think matter... but they actually don't matter at all.

[brucejoel99]

RCV violates the one man one vote rule. It gives some people 2 or 3 votes. And before any one brings up the electoral college, all states are a fptp system. The US is basically a federation of 50 semi-independent nations. Not a unitary centralized country, National pv violates the notion that individual states matter

If anything, RCV honors the principle of one person, one vote: every voter receives the same ballot, & each voter has the same chance to rank candidates. Each voter gets only 1 vote in each tabulation round, & every voter gets a chance to participate in all rounds. A voter may rank all the candidates, some of the candidates, or only 1 candidate. This system increases voters' choice & expands their power, all the while abiding by the one person, one vote principle.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

What's wrong with it? It gives power to third parties and allows people to state their preferences better.

I'm happy that Golden won, but RCV does not actually give power to third parties. It just appeases people who insist on voting for unelectable third parties. If, say, a left-wing third party actually managed to get more votes than the Democrat, it could result in Republicans winning.

The the scenario you describe, the most likely result would be the left-wing third party winning (unless the party was so extreme that most Democrats preferred the Republican, in which case it seems unlikely the third-party would beat the Democrat in the first place).  Which just proves that RCV does empower third parties.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

Read: Only like systems that benefit the GOP.


Alright, good to know.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

What's wrong with it? It gives power to third parties and allows people to state their preferences better.

I'm happy that Golden won, but RCV does not actually give power to third parties. It just appeases people who insist on voting for unelectable third parties. If, say, a left-wing third party actually managed to get more votes than the Democrat, it could result in Republicans winning.

The the scenario you describe, the most likely result would be the left-wing third party winning (unless the party was so extreme that most Democrats preferred the Republican, in which case it seems unlikely the third-party would beat the Democrat in the first place).  Which just proves that RCV does empower third parties.

I think his point is this. Lets say there was an election with these first round results:

Democrat 400
Republican 300
Left Wing Third Party 420
Scattered 20

Under FPTP the left wing third party would win. But after the scattered votes and the Republican are eliminated, you could end up with a result like this:

Democrat 650
Left Wing Third Party 450

With the rest being exhausted.

Something like that kind of happened in a Minneapolis city council election last year. A Socialist Alternative candidate led on first prefs against two Democrats (Republicans aren't a serious party in Minneapolis politics), a progressive one and a more moderate "establishment" one. The moderate came in third and was eliminated, but most of his votes flowed to the other Democrat, thus allowing them to win.

Granted this assumes that most of the Republicans back the Democrat on lower prefs instead of backing the third party out of spite or just letting their votes exhaust. Its a different situation than that City Council election where the other candidates were both Democrats.

[Nyvin]

I hope everyone complaining about RCV also complains equally as much about Georgia and Louisiana's runoff systems because the two are pretty much identical in concept, it's just with Georgia and Louisiana you have to have the voters go to the polls a second time instead of doing it all on one sheet of paper.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

What's wrong with it? It gives power to third parties and allows people to state their preferences better.

I'm happy that Golden won, but RCV does not actually give power to third parties. It just appeases people who insist on voting for unelectable third parties. If, say, a left-wing third party actually managed to get more votes than the Democrat, it could result in Republicans winning.

The the scenario you describe, the most likely result would be the left-wing third party winning (unless the party was so extreme that most Democrats preferred the Republican, in which case it seems unlikely the third-party would beat the Democrat in the first place).  Which just proves that RCV does empower third parties.

I think his point is this. Lets say there was an election with these first round results:

Democrat 400
Republican 300
Left Wing Third Party 420
Scattered 20

Under FPTP the left wing third party would win. But after the scattered votes and the Republican are eliminated, you could end up with a result like this:

Democrat 650
Left Wing Third Party 450

With the rest being exhausted.

Something like that kind of happened in a Minneapolis city council election last year. A Socialist Alternative candidate led on first prefs against two Democrats (Republicans aren't a serious party in Minneapolis politics), a progressive one and a more moderate "establishment" one. The moderate came in third and was eliminated, but most of his votes flowed to the other Democrat, thus allowing them to win.

Granted this assumes that most of the Republicans back the Democrat on lower prefs instead of backing the third party out of spite or just letting their votes exhaust. Its a different situation than that City Council election where the other candidates were both Democrats.

But in this scenario, the "left-wing third party" isn't really a third party because they are getting the most votes in the first place.  Maybe in an RCV system this is not unusual.  But under our current FPTP system, this almost never happens; much more likely the third-party, even if popular, gets 2% of the vote because people don't want to feel like they are wasting their vote.

[Strudelcutie4427]

I hope everyone complaining about RCV also complains equally as much about Georgia and Louisiana's runoff systems because the two are pretty much identical in concept, it's just with Georgia and Louisiana you have to have the voters go to the polls a second time instead of doing it all on one sheet of paper.

I don’t like the LA/GA system either. Just run a normal primary then hold the general. There’s no need to make the general essentially a clown car primary

[MAINEiac4434]

Poliquin is just hurting his chances at a comeback with all his b!tching. Much like Abrams

Poliquin never had much of a chance at a comeback. If he tries, he’ll lose in a primary.

Garrett Mason is a name to watch for 2020.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The real undemocratic system is FPP, of course.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

If not for gerrymandering, Bruce Poliquin would have certainly lost the 1st preference vote, and the final preference vote would not have been close.

Under a fair map, the 2-Party vote in the 2016 presidential election in the 2nd District drops from about Trump + 11 to about Trump + 6.

[MAINEiac4434]

If not for gerrymandering, Bruce Poliquin would have certainly lost the 1st preference vote, and the final preference vote would not have been close.

Under a fair map, the 2-Party vote in the 2016 presidential election in the 2nd District drops from about Trump + 11 to about Trump + 6.

Yeah, LePage basically ordered his hometown of Waterville into the first district (went something like 90-10 to Obama in 2008).

[Virginiá]

Doesn't Maine require a super-majority to pass new maps? How would Republicans have done this, even with unified control?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

If not for gerrymandering, Bruce Poliquin would have certainly lost the 1st preference vote, and the final preference vote would not have been close.

Under a fair map, the 2-Party vote in the 2016 presidential election in the 2nd District drops from about Trump + 11 to about Trump + 6.

Yeah, LePage basically ordered his hometown of Waterville into the first district (went something like 90-10 to Obama in 2008).

The crazy part is that my calculations of a fair map result in ME-02 indicate:

Very slightly worse performance for Kerry 2004 in the fair ME-02 than in the real ME-02.
Almost identical performance for Obama 2008 in the fair ME-02 as in the real ME-02.
Very slightly better performance for Obama 2012 in the fair ME-02 than in the real ME-02.
Much better performance for Clinton 2016 in the fair ME-02 than in the real ME-02.

Basically Maine Republicans drew a gerrymander that was successful at predicting future trends where there was no present evidence that those trends would happen when they drew the map.

Compare this to Tennessee Republicans and Arkansas Democrats who saw recent trends and assumed those trends would reverse themselves, and cost themselves a seat in the process compared to what they could have obtained.

[MAINEiac4434]

Poliquin now considering asking for a recount, even after the state has already scanned the ballots twice.

[MAINEiac4434]

This article is basically porn for me

[ProudModerate2]

Ranked Choice is a fouking abomination. It needs to go

[Antonio the Sixth]

Poliquin now considering asking for a recount, even after the state has already scanned the ballots twice.

Can he legally do that?