Time for Ranked Ballots

[FutureBuilder]

You still haven't articulated why you think it's a bad idea or inferior.

If we all just kept repeating our opinions while taking no effort to justify them and convince others, we may as well just shut the forum down.

I don't like the idea because it isn't widely used. If it was such a good system they would be using it all over the democratic world, and they aren't. But in most of the free world they use the "run off" system. Is that justification enough?

The Europeans would be all over the "ranked ballot" system if it was so good. But I've never heard of it being used there.

So based on the fact, stable European liberal democracies use run off systems, and have pretty good economic/political/social system... I trust their judgement on this.

 

[k10ery]

How is it the "same mathematically"? I don't understand.

This is a good question and it seems nobody answered it. It's not exactly the same but it's close.

Suppose you liked Pantalone in 2010, and you hated Ford. In a two-round election you could have voted Pantalone, then switched to Smitherman on the second round, to vote against Ford. But if that's what you're doing you mnight as well just vote once, and put down Pants as your first choice and Smitherman as your second choice. The voting machine then runs the second round by itself, dropping Pants and counting your vote as being for Smitherman. Time and money saved.

The two systems are NOT identical with more candidates though. For example, suppose you thought the right-wing candidate could have been either Ford or Rossi. And either Smitherman or Sarah Thomson might have been the left-wing candidate on the second round. It's now much harder to fill out your IRV ranking than it is to wait for the second round and just vote for whichever left-winger is on the ballot.

TMI? Anyway, that's why they're similar but not the same mathemtically.

The Europeans would be all over the "ranked ballot" system if it was so good. But I've never heard of it being used there.

So based on the fact, stable European liberal democracies use run off systems, and have pretty good economic/political/social system... I trust their judgement on this.

I don't know why you'd assume the Europeans are so much smarter than us exactly. But ranked voting is used in some EU countries (eg Ireland). And two-round runoffs aren't that common either - only France and Austria use it for chief executive I think. Europeans use a lot more mixed member and party list systems, I think. (A lot of the list systems do use ranked ballots.)

 

[FutureBuilder]

This is a good question and it seems nobody answered it. It's not exactly the same but it's close.

Suppose you liked Pantalone in 2010, and you hated Ford. In a two-round election you could have voted Pantalone, then switched to Smitherman on the second round, to vote against Ford. But if that's what you're doing you mnight as well just vote once, and put down Pants as your first choice and Smitherman as your second choice. The voting machine then runs the second round by itself, dropping Pants and counting your vote as being for Smitherman. Time and money saved.

The two systems are NOT identical with more candidates though. For example, suppose you thought the right-wing candidate could have been either Ford or Rossi. And either Smitherman or Sarah Thomson might have been the left-wing candidate on the second round. It's now much harder to fill out your IRV ranking than it is to wait for the second round and just vote for whichever left-winger is on the ballot.

TMI? Anyway, that's why they're similar but not the same mathemtically.



I don't know why you'd assume the Europeans are so much smarter than us exactly. But ranked voting is used in some EU countries (eg Ireland). And two-round runoffs aren't that common either - only France and Austria use it for chief executive I think. Europeans use a lot more mixed member and party list systems, I think. (A lot of the list systems do use ranked ballots.)

I don't think I said Europeans are "so much smarter" than us. I wouldn't say that. But they have very vibrant democracies, excellent social systems, and healthy political systems.

I don't think we should move to a totally new system (ranked ballots) simply because the current mayor isn't up to par. I think we should have proper candidates run, support them, and vote them in. If a good candidate runs next election, Ford should be voted out without any problems.

 

[cassius]

I'd like to see a new voting system in place simply in the hopes that it results in a more representative mayor. Something I don't believe we've seen since amalgamation.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Ontario proposal would let municipalities adopt ranked-ballot voting

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm not too sure if the NDP and Cons will support this. From what I understand of ranked ballots, they make it more difficult for those on the extremes on the political spectrum to be elected. It would be good for centrist (Liberal) candidates, but not for far left (NDP) or far right (conservative).

 

[Greg Banks]

What do think council would look like if Ranked Ballotting was used in 2010
Listed below are some of the Ward races that could have been influenced with a ranked ballot
1 V Crisanti
4 G Lidsay Luby
5 Milczyn
8 Perruzza
9 Augimeri
10 Pasternak
12 Di Giorgio
18 Bailao
25 Robinson
26 Parker
27 Wong-Tam
30 Fletcher
36 Crawford
44 Moeser
Just for good measure throw in
13 Doucette
15 Colle
17 Palacio

 

[W. K. Lis]

From the town hall meeting held at Scarborough Town Centre held earlier this week, from this link:

Tory said he is open to a ranked balloting system and is not adverse to term limits.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I'm not too sure if the NDP and Cons will support this. From what I understand of ranked ballots, they make it more difficult for those on the extremes on the political spectrum to be elected. It would be good for centrist (Liberal) candidates, but not for far left (NDP) or far right (conservative).

It's easy to nail them on this hypocrisy: if it's such a terrible process, why do each of them use it to elect their own leaders?

I think the key is to understand that every system has trade-offs. Our current system generates a stable government without a majority vote. I suppose you could argue that ranked ballots make it harder for "extreme" candidates but the obvious counter to that is that it favours the candidate who appeals to the most voters which kind of strikes me as the basis for a healthy democracy. What your model assumes is that the Liberals are (as they would say it) the Natural Governing Party that inherently appeals to the most people; I don't think that's the case. And since the city isn't operating with parties, that ends up being a bit academic anyway.

One could certainly argue Tory won by appealing to the "centre" while Chow failed to do more than appeal to her left-wing base, but I don't think that's a partisan issue, nor do I think it's bad Tory was rewarded for that. At the same time, I suspect if there were ranked ballots, Tory would have easily secured a majority as it's hard to imagine Doug Ford was really anyone's second choice. He seems like a bit of an all-or-nothing kind of guy, though I could just be projecting. It's hard to look at an election and guess how it would have turned out IF there were ranked ballots, as you're trying to guess how people think. Despite my assumption, it's hard to imagine someone who voted Chow might have had Ford as #2 choice, but it's possible so you can't guess, really.

Ranked ballots aren't perfect but I think the pros far outweigh the cons and I'd like to see a mayor earn a majority vote and if people feel more sure their vote will count, even if they vote their heart, we could see higher turn-out too. (It seems like this recent election had a lot of debate about this aspect; "Don't vote for Olivia, even if you want to, because your vote will make it easier for Ford to win!" Well, in a ranked ballot, all you have to do is vote Olivia as #1, Tory as #2 and problem solved.)

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'd like to see a new voting system in place simply in the hopes that it results in a more representative mayor. Something I don't believe we've seen since amalgamation.

If ranked ballots were in place in 2010 Ford would have still won. He was the first choice of nearly half the voters. We may not like it, but 2010 was probably the most representative mayoral election. The people got what they wanted.

 

[spider]

The only times I have been involved in a ranked ballot situation was at political party candidate selection events where the choices were not as starkly different as they were in the last mayoralty election.
Most of the members here were more than a little inclined towards one candidate than the others, myself included. I voted for Tory because I thought he was a better candidate than the other two contenders.

Had a ranked ballot system been in place I would have voted #1 Tory, #2 Tory and #3 Tory because I couldn't imagine giving my support to either of the other two candidates under any circumstance. I bet many electors would vote the same way, although for different candidates, but for the same reason. A run off system would eliminate this strategy.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Actually, if you don't have a real #2 or #3 choice, they would be left blank, and you select your #1 only. See this link for a ranked ballot explanation.

[video=youtube_share;oHRPMJmzBBw]http://youtu.be/oHRPMJmzBBw[/video]

 

[Johnny Au]

If ranked ballots were in place in 2010 Ford would have still won. He was the first choice of nearly half the voters. We may not like it, but 2010 was probably the most representative mayoral election. The people got what they wanted.

Not just that, but there were quite a number of Pantalone voters whose second choice would have been Ford (including Joe Pantalone himself).

 

[spider]

Actually, if you don't have a real #2 or #3 choice, they would be left blank, and you select your #1 only

Only an idiot would leave their 2nd and 3rd choices blank. I, and most electors, after due diligence would only have one choice but would be willing to accept that their choice was not that of a majority of other voters if they had to.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

If ranked ballots were in place in 2010 Ford would have still won. He was the first choice of nearly half the voters. We may not like it, but 2010 was probably the most representative mayoral election. The people got what they wanted.

It's true he got 47% so it's easy to say, "he'd have picked up another 3% easy" if there were ranked ballots but it's not that simple because the system itself alters how people act at the ballot box.

If I really liked Olivia Chow last year but HATED Ford and concluded I had to vote for Tory to make sure Ford didn't get in, Olivia loses my vote. There all sorts of variations on this "strategic" notion and therefore no way to know how the vote would have been different in a ranked election. I suspect Chow would have picked up more votes and she may well have had enough #2 votes to put her ahead of Doug Ford. but that's pure speculation on my part but that's also the point.

It seems logical to assume Ford had nearly half the votes anyway but maybe he gets fewer "first place" votes if people are voting in a ranked system.i suspect Pantalone would have picked up more first place votes (pure speculation, I grant) but at whose expense? It doesn't necessarily alter the outcome but either way, 47% still isn't an actual majority and a ranked system would have given him that. Ford aside, specifically, you're still giving the mayor a proper mandate and saying we want the mayor, whover s/he is. to cross that 50% threshold.

Oh, and IMHO, it's totally legit to only fill in 1 or 2 slots. The whole point is that you have a choice. If you live in a 905 municipality, you can vote for regional councillors and the top vote getters get the gig (how many varies by municipality). So, if I live in municipality where I can vote for up to 4 councillors and I only like 1 or 2 or 3, so what? You want to give people the chance to have their voice heard, not force them to fill in a list. If the ballot is 6 slots and I've only heard of the top 3, who am I helping by picking random names to fill in the bottom 3? That would be idiotic.

Most voters would have been informed enough to vote for someone like Morgan Baskin this time out but if I like Tory a lot and Chow a bit and no one else at all, that's my vote. Again, so what? It doesn't undermine the intent or function of the system at all.