Even from the opposite coast, I'm intrigued by the NYC mayoral race. Not because I hate Cuomo—I obviously hate Cuomo—but because it's a stress test for Ranked Choice Voting which we desperately need all over the country. 🤞 - ThreadSky

scottmccloud.bsky.social • 8 days ago

Even from the opposite coast, I'm intrigued by the NYC mayoral race.

Not because I hate Cuomo—I obviously hate Cuomo—but because it's a stress test for Ranked Choice Voting which we desperately need all over the country. 🤞

Comments

bonami25.bsky.social•8 days ago

For those who are in New York, please - DO NOT RANK Cuomo.

joshuatanzer.bsky.social•8 days ago

I’m really skeptical of ranked choice voting. I think it still gives you the one guy who gets 40% against the divided field splitting the other 60%, even though it’s supposed to deal with exactly that. Eric Adams became mayor with 40-something percent.

stismail.bsky.social•8 days ago

Based on total ballots cast, it ended up 43% Adams, 42% Garcia, 15% exhausted ballots.

joshuatanzer.bsky.social•8 days ago

Thank you! What I think is, the progressives really need to get in one room and agree on ONE candidate. Otherwise, this is what happens. I think it's probably going to get Cuomo elected too.

stismail.bsky.social•8 days ago

That sort of defeats the purpose of RCV/IRV, but I do get your point; California, which uses "jungle" top-two (but not IRV) primaries have had Dems shut out in blue districts b/c too many candidates split the vote.

joshuatanzer.bsky.social•8 days ago

Yes. This is exactly the reason to have RCV. And yet, we have everybody and their uncle and their aunt thinking, "Hey, I should run!" and the result is still, basically, one leading guy vs. a whole scattering of opponents that the people don't coalesce behind. We'll see if that happens again.

hairyoldgoat.bsky.social•7 days ago

Ranked voting systems like RCV (or better, Optional Preference Voting) can sometimes reduces the likelihood of the most favoured candidate winning, but they vastly increase the likelihood of an acceptable candidate winning. (FPP very easily allows the most loathed candidate to win.)

joshuatanzer.bsky.social•7 days ago

I just think it doesn’t do what everybody, including me, imagined. That’s what NYC has shown. And if progressives want to win, they need to stop running eight candidates.

hairyoldgoat.bsky.social•7 days ago

If people still vote as if they were using FPP, nothing can save them. Having any number of candidates doesn’t split the vote: They automatically join forces like Voltron until ballots are exhausted. (I get the impression NYC uses the inferior FPV system to maximise the number of spoiled ballots.)

joshuatanzer.bsky.social•7 days ago

NYC gives you five choices. In the 2021 election, many voters still treated it as a regular election and cast one vote and stopped, so the eventual winner was on 43% of ballots. I don't think you can fix human nature — I think you can only strategize around it, i.e., run one progressive and stop.

hairyoldgoat.bsky.social•7 days ago

The US needs to genetically engineer a race of Supermerkins™ who can understand ranked voting systems the way during a road trip, a child can indicate to a parent about to fetch an ice cream from a dairy, which flavour of ice cream they would like and if that is not available, an alternative or two.

punksnotdead.bsky.social•8 days ago

Maine's had a good time with ranked choice for the past few years.

areaman65.bsky.social•8 days ago

It already failed the first time in NYC.

maryes.bsky.social•8 days ago

Yes. We need to get rid of the two-party system and let the candidates run on their own merits. Final two chosen by rank choice.

toroid-taurus.bsky.social•7 days ago

Think how sad it is the best the rich of New York City could do is Cuomo. Tear down their castles. Make them move to hot sad Texas to avoid progressives.

leesylou.bsky.social•8 days ago

Alaska.

noahbrand.bsky.social•8 days ago

We rolled it out in Portland, OR, last year. It led to fewer ballots returned, probably due to unfamiliarity with the more complex system. It also gave us our first city council that people aren't constantly pissed off at.

cleareye2795.bsky.social•8 days ago

#1) register to vote
#2) never declare party affiliation
#3) if you’re currently registered, change your affiliation to “independent”

They fundraise and gerrymander according to this data.

Registering to vote should be only that. There’s no reason for voter registration to be partisan.

bonami25.bsky.social•8 days ago

We did exactly that, and now we can’t participate in this rank voting in NYC. You have to be a democrat to chose in this primary, which is a bummer because we didn’t want to rank cuomo.

c2art.bsky.social•8 days ago

Yeah, if NY is going to have ranked choice then they also have to have open primaries.

scottmccloud.bsky.social•8 days ago

California's "jungle" primaries did just that with interesting results. Competing experiments are what we need I guess, despite frustrations along the way.

cleareye2795.bsky.social•8 days ago

Fair point.
As a Canadian, I’d entirely disregarded the primaries. Thank you for the correction/ clarification.

Honestly, from afar, elections are a subversive, insidious form of taxation in the 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸. What it costs the average person is unfathomable. Billions & billions & billions of dollars spent.

bonami25.bsky.social•8 days ago

Absolutely. I lived in Italy for nearly five years, where campaign ads on TV and online are banned—so politicians actually have to engage with people. Here, elections can be bought by corporations, and it’s a huge problem.

fran.spiritbeardreaming.com•8 days ago

I think the bigger problem is reapportionment has been fixed at 1929 levels. We need (1K+) smaller districts for better representation and to fight gerrymandering. Second, SCOTUS should have 27+ seats to fight stacking and handle more cases (see how the UK does it).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929

ghostofjmadison.bsky.social•7 days ago

@uncapthehouse.bsky.social

#hr2797

✌🏻🐻🇺🇸

greg-devaney.bsky.social•8 days ago

Sor far it gave us Eric Adams, so I’d say it’s 0 for 1. Let’s see what happens.

bluelion70.bsky.social•8 days ago

Adams still would have won, if the Primary had been a straight race without RCV. His lead in the first round was way bigger than his lead in the final round.

That was the fault of the voters picking a fucking cop, not the fault of RCV.

eugenehetzel.bsky.social•8 days ago

Understanding Democracy over here.

sees.bsky.social•8 days ago

Heck yeah. I was so disappointed when Massachusetts didn't approve RCV.

scottmccloud.bsky.social•8 days ago

Hope springs eternal for my old home state!

joeyheroin.bsky.social•8 days ago

proportional representation?

hairyoldgoat.bsky.social•7 days ago

By the way, CGP Grey has some really fun education animations covering FPP, STV and MMP. (I wish they were grouped on a playlist owned by CGP Grey, though) Here's MMP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU

hairyoldgoat.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yup. Optional Preference Voting = OPV (which I guess is STV with Meek’s method) is cool. So is MMP as used in New Zealand, with its Party Vote and its Electoral Vote, though I’d replace the Electoral Vote’s FPP with OPV. (There is still the issue of maintaining an _informed_ democracy, though.)

spectrumdude.bsky.social•8 days ago

and term limits. We need that too. Especially with SOCTUS.

lucyksy.bsky.social•8 days ago

No surprise, 17 GQP states have banned ranked voting.
https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/06/11/republican-states-ban-ranked-choice-voting/

miguelanomalo.bsky.social•8 days ago

Same from the opposite coast-- across the ocean.

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