Wow, I didn't realize that CA had gone that far off the track. I get mad when they don't allow 3rd parties on, so I guess this is just vote from the approved choices crap.
The actual system is a bit more nuanced, (or less nuanced, depending on your perspective) which is everyone runs in the same primary, there are no party divisions and the top two candidates proceed to the general election.
FWIW, it was proposed and supported by Abel Maldonado, who is a GOP politician, and it was opposed by the state Democratic party.
A lot of people just assume the democrats are responsible for everything that happens in California. It is somewhat notable when this isn't the case, so I thought I'd mention it. I don't really buy the logic either way, but if someone else wants to, I figure they should buy something that's accurate.
It moves the more important, and potentially decisive, election for all affected offices to the lower-turnout, more-conservative-electorate, and now badly-misnamed "primary" and only has a "general" election at all for an office if there is no majority vote winner in the primary.
Basically, most offices (but not Presidential elections) in California now have what is really the general election as the "primary", with a potential runoff as the "general election" if needed.
Do you know how often a majority in the primary occurs?
In anything actually contested, I wouldn't think it common. Feinstein had almost four times the votes of any challenger in the primary, and still did not have a majority.
I expect it would be more common for more local and/or more obscure offices, but I don't know at all just how common.
> Do you know how often a majority in the primary occurs?
Its early enough that the political strategies and funding streams haven't really adapted to it yet, so I'd be cautious in generalizing either way from the experience so far with the new system.
That being said, AFAIK, there have been very few, if any, first round majorities so far in the offices that used to have party primaries.
"Its early enough that the political strategies and funding streams haven't really adapted to it yet, so I'd be cautious in generalizing either way from the experience so far with the new system."
> I get mad when they don't allow 3rd parties on, so I guess this is just vote from the approved choices crap.
Actually, its, at least superficially, the reverse -- California replaced traditional partisan primaries with non-partisan "open primaries". Under the old partisan primary system, the general election featured the winners of the partisan primaries plus qualified non-party candidates, under the new non-partisan primary system the "primary" is a poorly-named open general election run using majority/runoff, if no candidate wins a majority in the "primary", a so-called "general election" is held which is actually a runoff election between the top two vote winners from the "primary".
Approval voting is a poor choice for most political elections (its good for non-secret-ballot group decision-making where the voters are people who can opt-out of participation after the election and an approving vote is a binding commitment by the voter not to do so if any of their "approved" alternatives win.)
Now, if you said the general elections held in the spring (they aren't "primaries" in the usual sense and shouldn't be called that) should use ranked ballots voting and select the Condorcet winner with tie-breaker elections held in the fall, where necessary, as FPTP elections between the members of the Smith set of the spring elections, I'd agree that might be a worthwhile improvement.
I don't agree that approval voting is a poor choice for political elections. I particularly reject any implication (if present) that plurality should be preferred to it.
I recognize that ranked methods have some substantial benefits over approval voting, but there are drawbacks. Considering just the theoretical benefits and drawbacks in this context, I would agree with a preference for ranked methods. However, when we consider the complexity (and resulting decrease in transparency) I've come to prefer approval. Even so, I wouldn't strongly object to a ranked method.
> I don't agree that approval voting is a poor choice for political elections.
It is because "approval", unlike relative preference, doesn't have a consistent meaning across different ballots (which is why it isn't a poor choice in open-ballots where it has a defined meaning, like a commitment to opt-in to the result where otherwise there is an option to opt-out.)
> I particularly reject any implication (if present) that plurality should be preferred to it.
Plurality is also a bad choice for most political elections. Or, for that matter, most elections of any kind. But if you are changing from plurality, approval is about the worst change you could make other than ones that could only be deliberately malicious (e.g., modifying plurality to elect the candidate with the lowest number of first place preference votes.)
> Considering just the theoretical benefits and drawbacks in this context, I would agree with a preference for ranked methods. However, when we consider the complexity (and resulting decrease in transparency) I've come to prefer approval.
I personally have no problem with democracy requiring expecting citizens to deal with concepts more complex than approval voting, since, actually, most of the things they are voting on are things more complex than approval voting.
'It is because "approval", unlike relative preference, doesn't have a consistent meaning across different ballots (which is why it isn't a poor choice in open-ballots where it has a defined meaning, like a commitment to opt-in to the result where otherwise there is an option to opt-out.)'
There is a technical sense in which that's correct, but you're reading more into it than is there. Both approval and ranked choice methods have consistent meaning across ballots when the meaning is taken to be the impact on the election. Neither method expresses how much one candidate is preferred to another.
"Plurality is also a bad choice for most political elections. Or, for that matter, most elections of any kind. But if you are changing from plurality, approval is about the worst change you could make[.]"
I'm not sure I strongly disagree with this, when considering only the act of voting and the theoretical results. I do see the gap between plurality and approval, here, as far larger than the gap between approval and ranked choice (plurality is both a scoring method and a ranked method and so has all the theoretical problems of both). And I do think that other practical concerns are tremendously significant and favor approval (as I mentioned in the previous comment and elaborate on below) over ranked methods.
"I personally have no problem with democracy requiring expecting citizens to deal with concepts more complex than approval voting, since, actually, most of the things they are voting on are things more complex than approval voting."
First and most trivially: otherwise accepting your argument here, your comparison shouldn't be to the complexity of approval voting, but to the complexity of the proposed alternative.
Second (most significantly), I don't mean, mostly, "O NOES VOTERS WILL GET CONFUSED". I mean that counting ranked choice ballots is tremendously ugly compared to counting approval ballots. You have 10 candidates? You're tallying instances of 3.6 million possible ballots! The number that will actually be represented will surely be a fraction of that, but even so this is going to involve more (and uglier) mistakes and more opportunities for fraud (and appearance of fraud) because the system is so much more complicated. Further, running statistical analysis of IRV elections is, in practice, significantly harder than doing the same of other methods (say my connections in opinion research) though this could arguably be a feature.
Third, just because we're hoping they're able to deal with more complex issues doesn't mean adding complexity is a good thing. Complexity typically stacks. If there is a maximum complexity people can deal with, adding more in one place is going to reduce the amount they deal effectively with elsewhere.
I'm not convinced it's "off the track". Third parties are allowed in to the primary, they just need to place in the top two to be allowed into the general (just like anyone else).
Its a good way to make sure 3rd parties never get the first 5% in an actual election or become any kind of factor (spoiler candidate). Its an establishment trick.
They can still play spoiler in the primary. In fact, might be more of a factor there: I'm more comfortable voting for a third party candidate when I know that I'll be able to still have effect in keeping out the greatest evil down the line.
Obviously, if ballot access or funds are still apportioned based on general election results, that's inappropriate.
"No, since there is a big difference between reducing a person enough in a general to lose versus keeping them from being one of the top two."
In 2012, keeping Emken from being in the top two in the primary would have required removing 278,800 votes. Giving Emken the victory in the primary would have required removing 3,098,000 votes.
To the degree that this is typical, I would say that there is a big difference but it favors spoilers.
"Which they would be."
What do you mean "would be"? This isn't hypothetical - is that the case in CA or isn't it? If it is, then it's a strong objection. If it isn't then it's an objection to a system that doesn't exist.
"Plus, party collusion that happens (see federal election commission) pretty much locks a third party out of the general."
Agreed, I just don't think this is a strong example of that.
If this system had been implemented at a national level Perot wouldn't have got his 5% and thus no matching funds for the next election[1]. Also, if I remember the vote totals correctly, Bush 41 would have had a second term with no Perot in the general.
I believe the math favors the two parties on primaries because they can pay to mobilize.
I'm not a lawyer, but I do believe CA has election considerations (and laws) based on how folks do in the general.
It sounds very much like the Democrats feared a Nader and the Republicans feared a Perot or Tea Party challenger. It solidifies the people who own the machines.
1) how that 5% was wasted in the next general is not really much of a debate
Yes, as I said, if there are things based on a showing in specifically the general election, then this change (coupled with a failure to fix those things) is disadvantageous to smaller parties, and is probably inappropriate. Absent that, I don't think it is (clearly) a problem. What remains is a simple question of fact, which a quick search is failing to resolve... I don't think the appropriate response is to make assumptions and rail against assumed injustice where there are plenty of demonstrable injustices. Do the research or stop whining.
