Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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Jersey Girl
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Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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Today is the deadline for our elections for governor, coroner, commissioners, and so on and so forth. I received a Democratic ballot and a Republican ballot with the instructions that if I am an unaffiliated voter, I have to pick one ballot and not use both or neither will be counted. Of course each ballot has it's own party candidates on it. If I want a certain Democrat for governor and a certain Republican for a county commissioner office, I can't vote that way.

So please tell me, how the game isn't rigged. Because it damn sure looks like it.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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It's rigged so that each political party with sufficient voter support gets to have a candidate in the final election. Your state could adopt a different system. In Washington, by voter initiative, we now have a top two system. But that alternative could be described as "rigged" too. If there is a sufficient imbalance between the voters in the two major parties, the minority party will never have a candidate in the final election.

It's difficult to adopt a set of rules that doesn't look rigged to somebody. I like rank choiced voting because it helps third-party candidates avoid the "throwing your vote away" issue. But even that system has its critics.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

Post by honorentheos »

Agreed. I lean towards ranked choice with a run off myself, much in the same way I support democracy as a system of government. That being of all the bad systems we have available it seems the least bad.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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honorentheos wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:42 am
Agreed. I lean towards ranked choice with a run off myself, much in the same way I support democracy as a system of government. That being of all the bad systems we have available it seems the least bad.
So, ranked choice with a runoff between the top two? To give the voters a chance for a closer look and a more informed decision?
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:48 am
honorentheos wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:42 am
Agreed. I lean towards ranked choice with a run off myself, much in the same way I support democracy as a system of government. That being of all the bad systems we have available it seems the least bad.
So, ranked choice with a runoff between the top two? To give the voters a chance for a closer look and a more informed decision?
Pretty much, or top three. It doesn't smooth out the wrinkles of heavily representation eliminating choice but having a third is more likely to let voters better evaluate the candidates before the final decision.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

Post by Res Ipsa »

honorentheos wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:52 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:48 am


So, ranked choice with a runoff between the top two? To give the voters a chance for a closer look and a more informed decision?
Pretty much, or top three. It doesn't smooth out the wrinkles of heavily representation eliminating choice but having a third is more likely to let voters better evaluate the candidates before the final decision.
Thanks. Makes sense to me.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:35 am
Jersey Girl wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 11:53 pm
Today is the deadline for our elections for governor, coroner, commissioners, and so on and so forth. I received a Democratic ballot and a Republican ballot with the instructions that if I am an unaffiliated voter, I have to pick one ballot and not use both or neither will be counted. Of course each ballot has it's own party candidates on it. If I want a certain Democrat for governor and a certain Republican for a county commissioner office, I can't vote that way.

So please tell me, how the game isn't rigged. Because it damn sure looks like it.
It's rigged so that each political party with sufficient voter support gets to have a candidate in the final election. Your state could adopt a different system. In Washington, by voter initiative, we now have a top two system. But that alternative could be described as "rigged" too. If there is a sufficient imbalance between the voters in the two major parties, the minority party will never have a candidate in the final election.

It's difficult to adopt a set of rules that doesn't look rigged to somebody. I like rank choiced voting because it helps third-party candidates avoid the "throwing your vote away" issue. But even that system has its critics.
I honest to Pete don't recall seeing a ballot like these in the past. Maybe they changed. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention. I just don't know. What I do know is that I wanted to vote for our Dem governor and there was a Republican county commissioner that I had my eye on. I should be able to vote for precisely who I want but the system doesn't look at candidates as new hires like I do. It looks at it as if playing team sports which is exactly what is happening and it's inefficient at best.

They should have let a preschool teacher make these decisions. I would have both parties on every single ballot and make some Republicans and Democrats work together which accounts for probably 99.9% of the problems I see in government.
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

Post by Jersey Girl »

I read the exchanges between honor and RI here. They are speaking a language that is foreign to me. I obviously have so much more to learn. I should know these things but I don't and I'm not going to be embarrassed to say so. I press on...
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Re: Help me understand how the game isn't rigged

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Jersey Girl wrote:
Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:12 am
I read the exchanges between honor and RI here. They are speaking a language that is foreign to me. I obviously have so much more to learn. I should know these things but I don't and I'm not going to be embarrassed to say so. I press on...
In ranked choice voting, you don’t just vote for one candidate; you rank all the candidates in order of your preference. Figuring out who wins works something like this: total the number of first ranked votes each candidate gets. If no candidate got a majority, drop the candidate that received the least number of first ranked votes. Then rank the votes on each ballot based on who is left. So, if you ranked the least popular candidate number 1, your number 2 would move up to your number 1 rank.

You keep doing this process until one of the candidates gets a majority of the first ranked votes. That candidate wins. Or, as Honor suggests, do it until you get down to two candidates or three candidates, and have a run off.

So, if the candidate I like best is the Libertarian, I can rank her first on my ballot without worrying that I’m wasting my vote. If my first pick is eliminated, my second pick becomes my first pick. It potentially helps break the stranglehold that the two major parties have on elections.
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