Andrew Yang Policy on RANKED CHOICE VOTING

[Sherman A1]

Our current plurality voting system, where everyone selects a single preference and then the person with the most votes wins, is viewed negatively by election scientists, for several reasons:

It’s vulnerable to a spoiler effect, where a third-party candidate can take just enough votes away from a candidate to cause them to lose, even if that candidate would be preferred to the eventual winner.
It can cause strategic voting, where voters don’t vote for their favorite but rather the person they like who is most likely to win.
Especially with a party-based primary system, it leads to partisanship, as centrist candidates, despite having wider support, lose out to candidates who appeal to the fringes of each party.
There are many alternative voting systems that are superior to plurality voting. We should move to a ranked-choice/instant runoff voting system, a system that has recently been implemented in Maine and is being explored by many other localities.

In ranked choice voting, each voter ranks their top three candidates, from 1 to 3. After this is complete, every voter’s first choice is tallied. If one candidate received over 50% of the vote, they win the election. If no candidate hit the majority threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Then, everyone who listed that eliminated candidate as their first choice has their second choice considered. These second-choice votes are added to the totals for the remaining candidates. If a candidate at this point has received over 50% of the votes, then they win; otherwise, the process repeats itself until someone does receive a majority of votes.

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/rankedchoice/

[uawchild]

1. Andrew Yang is obviously a time traveller from a better future.

His polices are incredibly forward looking.

[WeekiWater]

2. Did he witness 2018?

“as centrist candidates, despite having wider support, lose out to candidates who appeal to the fringes of each party. “

[rpannier]

5. I think he did witness 2018

Like in Maine

[WeekiWater]

6. When "centrist" candidates overwhelmingly won the day..

In primaries and the general. Overwhelmingly is even a bit of an understatement.

[rpannier]

7. Yes, they did well in 2018

With the millstone that is il douche dangling around republikkans necks, similar to 2006 and 2008 and dumbya
As to the last two-and-a-half decade where moderates have reigned supreme in the Party, for the most part we've been eviscerated at the the local, state and national level

[WeekiWater]

8. Which says little about the point I made...

From one of the reasons for his policy positions.

Every year Democrat’s have done really well it has been overwhelmingly “centrist” wins. Every single time, as a whole. Writing it off as a Trump thing is to ignore history.

The devastation we’ve faced at the local level across the country is real and painful. Rank choice voting would have done nothing for that. Thankfully, I’m seeing a stronger coalition of Democrats building in my local area than I’ve seen in a long time. I hope that is the case across the country. I started seeing it build during the Bush administration. Local is where it’s at. It’s just about everything. Right down the road from me we unseated an incumbent Republican in the house. We also elected a Republican Governor and our only Democratic Senator was unseated. Flat out painful.

[Kurt V.]

3. K&R reminds me of all the kings men, when willie is told he's been used.

[FM123]

4. This is an interesting idea....

There was a great article about ranking votes in last month's Vox, the gist of it was: "It would maximize participation and broad-based appeal, and improve our democracy."
https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/3/21/18275785/electoral-college-ranked-choice-voting-president-democracy