I don't really care about voting in Portland, but as a teacher, I am fascinated by how well-conceived this video is at explaining an inherently tricky concept 👏👏👏
This explainer is brilliant. We've had ranked-choice voting in Cambridge, Mass., for a while, but I've never seen such a terrific (and fun) breakdown of exactly how it works.
Of note, Cambridge has a slightly different rule for redistributing surplus votes from winning candidates. Instead of redistributing fractional votes, the threshold is rounded up to the next whole vote, so that the surplus is a whole number. The ballots for that candidate are shuffled, and a number n is calculated by dividing the number of ballots for that candidate by the number of surplus ballots and rounding down. Every nth ballot is then redistributed, but ballots that do not have another valid selection are skipped and will not be redistributed unless there are no remaining ballots for the winning candidate with a valid next preference.
This is how we do our Federal Senate voting in Australia. It usually takes days if not weeks to calculate the 6 winners for each state, and the ballot papers sometimes are more than a metre wide. It means that some candidates with very, very few first votes can get elected. Sometimes a good system, but sometimes the results are very strange.
I am so excited to see this in action. Hopefully the rest of the state and then maybe the nation will get on board. This is the only way we get out of a two party system.
Look at how Alaska chooses their governor. I think that would be a great system for president or other single winner like senators. They don't have party primaries. They just have 1 big primary vote for everyone. Then the top 4 go through to the second round when they have a ranked choice vote with those 4. You could get 2 D and 2 R, or you could get 3rd party or independents in the mix.
Not necessarily, only a few countries use this system, most use simpler forms of proportional representation like party list. But RCV is fine, certainly an improvement over FPTP.
What about a Scoring system instead? Slightly more fair than a Ranking system, and a lot simpler :D Candidate A: Average 3.2/4 Candidate B: Average 2.8/4 Candidate C: Average 1.5/4
It’s a bit misleading to call this one of a kind. Ranked choice has proven to be more democratic of a system and has been implemented in many other places. Good explanation otherwise though!
Great explanation of a rational voting system! I hope to see something similar appear on the National scale sometime within my lifetime. First Past the Post clearly isn’t representing all citizens well.
The counting is complicated but the voting is simple. You just rank the candidates in order of preference. You don't have to think about tactical voting by guessing who other people will vote for because if your first or second preference gets eliminated your vote gets reallocated to your next choice!
CGPGrey has a fantastic video on the first past the post voting system, and it boggles my mind that we dont use these alternatives to what we have now. Great job on your explanation!
This is a pretty good video, This isnt overly odd, we have a Similar system in the Australian state of Tasmania & ACT. The diffence is Tasmania Elects 7 members per discteict & ACT elects 5 members. In Australia we also number our candidates which means theirs only one row and not a big ballot of bubbles.
This was helpful, but I wish a tad bit more time had been spent on helping people understand the "fancy math" part of this process. Is there any way to do another video with more info on that? Great work, at any rate. Let's hope Portland proves that Ranked Choice Voting is good for democracy. (Please god, keep the fringe quack candidates away.)
Great explainer but leaves a question unanswered: suppose chocolate did NOT accrue enough viable votes to surpass the winning threshold at the end (no votes for it from old-fashioned)?
Sydney, Australia is having it's local council elections this weekend with the same system! Congrats Portland, you're gonna get the candidates that make the most people happy! Make sure you all vote with your hearts, since there are no wasted votes in ranked choice
Important question: Where did those doughnuts source from in the opening scene? Cause... YUM. Aside (lol) thanks for the informative and helpful lesson.
This system sounds good to me! I guess the draw back is that everyone needs to do their research on all candidates in order to rank their ballots properly, and that might be really difficult to do for most people.
What ultimately matters to an average voter is just to rank your vote. Simple. One does not need to actually know the vote counting process of RCV. But, it's this objectively-complicated part (that voters do not actually need to think about?) that anti-RCV people are using to argue against RCV.
This is an interesting system, and it'll be cool to see how it plays out. The redistribution of the surplus is interesting, but it makes sense why you need that to ensure that one popular candidate doesn't just lock up all the votes with a huge excess. One thing that's bugged me about RCV implementations that I've seen to date is the absence of a "no confidence" option. I used to be part of a volunteer organization that elected its officers using single transferable ranked choice voting, with the option to vote no confidence after a point and keep your ballot from going to any other candidate while still having it count for the threshold. A lot of the systems I see now seem to eliminate your vote and lower the threshold if all your votes become nonviable. I'm curious how that plays out in this system.
I am fine with the Transferable Vote.... but I am not a fan of the "elimination" rules. It seems to me, to create a system, where the candidate who is "no one's first choice" can end up as a very popular "third" choice. Instead, what should happen is almost the same, except when the second seat moves to consideration, the first candidate is "removed" from the other ballots, and the process repeats. The only way a candidate should be "nonviable" for a seat, is if they already hold one.
STV has finally made it out of Ireland & Australia! But in Australia (where I live), we just number boxes next to the candidate or party. We don’t do this ugly table.
I think i have a better, more fair method - all combinations are considered permutations. all candidates conversely are ranked by first position place. anyone with no first position votes is at the end of the list, sorted by second position, if no second, at bottom by third and so forth. Now, all votes are expanded to the most common permutation. If you voted for only four candidates; whatever order others ranked other candidates- whatever the most popular combination is- yours gets propagated to a full ticket. If there are no permutations to propagate to, you inherit the most popular order of remaining candidates demoted to the bottom of your tree. Now, every iteration we remove one candidate and collapse their permutations by simply removing that element in its position and moving your vote to the identical category. We continue this until we have a simple majority winner in first place- so the election can, in fact, end after simply counting first position votes- or there are only two candidates left, in which case we pick the winner. If there are more candidates than sane permutation length based on compute efficiency(let’s say 12) we create the ranking for the first 12 and then for the second 12, overlapping by one candidate, and then run the cycle above for the lowest ranked candidates promoting the winner into the lowest ranked position formerly occupied by the last candidate in the higher ranks. In the event of write in candidates, they too are fairly ranked in this manner. Any and all voters can specify as few or as many candidates as they like.
This doesn't seem like a very good voting system. For example, if everyone's second choice is powdered sugar, but no one's first choice is, it gets eliminated, even if every other donut is highly controversial.
I would give this two thumbs up if I could. Probably because ranked choice voting (a thing every person in the world needs) is being represented by dessert (a thing every sane person in the world wants).
That isn't how that should work though. If no one wants powdered sugar as a first choice, but they all agree it's a solid second choice, then it shouldn't be eliminated.
the reporter: how can I convince my boss to buy me donuts 🍩🤣
I don't really care about voting in Portland, but as a teacher, I am fascinated by how well-conceived this video is at explaining an inherently tricky concept 👏👏👏
Bravo to whomever had to 'eliminate' all of the donuts for this video! Great explanation.
America discovers ranked choice voting in the most American way possible
This explainer is brilliant. We've had ranked-choice voting in Cambridge, Mass., for a while, but I've never seen such a terrific (and fun) breakdown of exactly how it works.
Do you have single member or multi member?
Because single member is not proportional, while multi member is.
Yeah, I laughed at 'one-of-a-kind' as it's how Australia elects its upper house in both federal and state elections.
Of note, Cambridge has a slightly different rule for redistributing surplus votes from winning candidates. Instead of redistributing fractional votes, the threshold is rounded up to the next whole vote, so that the surplus is a whole number. The ballots for that candidate are shuffled, and a number n is calculated by dividing the number of ballots for that candidate by the number of surplus ballots and rounding down. Every nth ballot is then redistributed, but ballots that do not have another valid selection are skipped and will not be redistributed unless there are no remaining ballots for the winning candidate with a valid next preference.
This is how we do our Federal Senate voting in Australia. It usually takes days if not weeks to calculate the 6 winners for each state, and the ballot papers sometimes are more than a metre wide. It means that some candidates with very, very few first votes can get elected. Sometimes a good system, but sometimes the results are very strange.
I am so excited to see this in action. Hopefully the rest of the state and then maybe the nation will get on board. This is the only way we get out of a two party system.
Look at how Alaska chooses their governor. I think that would be a great system for president or other single winner like senators. They don't have party primaries. They just have 1 big primary vote for everyone. Then the top 4 go through to the second round when they have a ranked choice vote with those 4. You could get 2 D and 2 R, or you could get 3rd party or independents in the mix.
Not necessarily, only a few countries use this system, most use simpler forms of proportional representation like party list. But RCV is fine, certainly an improvement over FPTP.
How is this gonna help 3rd parties? This won't stop both sides from continuing to say "vote for me #1 unless you want the other guy to win"
What about a Scoring system instead? Slightly more fair than a Ranking system, and a lot simpler :D
Candidate A: Average 3.2/4
Candidate B: Average 2.8/4
Candidate C: Average 1.5/4
This is similar to how Ireland votes. But we cal Single Transferable Vote rather than rank choice
This is what the rest of the world just calls STV (Single Transferable Vote, because everyone gets one vote, which is transferable).
Missed opportunity for a pun. "The maple bar was eclair'ed a winner"
a wider adoption of ranked choice voting is in the best interests of everyone, except maybe for the people already in office.
Relevant to my interests. On a number of fronts. Well done 👏👏👏🍩
It’s a bit misleading to call this one of a kind. Ranked choice has proven to be more democratic of a system and has been implemented in many other places. Good explanation otherwise though!
Ranked choice voting is actually on the ballot for all of Oregon this November!! Hopefully Oregon will vote yes.
So well done! 🎉🎉🎉
Incredibly informative and fun to watch! Thank you for this invaluable resource.
Great explanation of a rational voting system! I hope to see something similar appear on the National scale sometime within my lifetime.
First Past the Post clearly isn’t representing all citizens well.
The counting is complicated but the voting is simple. You just rank the candidates in order of preference. You don't have to think about tactical voting by guessing who other people will vote for because if your first or second preference gets eliminated your vote gets reallocated to your next choice!
The Maple bar has truly earned the seat.
This is how we vote in Australia. Local elections can be different but we often have group voting as well to make it easier.
CGPGrey has a fantastic video on the first past the post voting system, and it boggles my mind that we dont use these alternatives to what we have now.
Great job on your explanation!
This is a pretty good video, This isnt overly odd, we have a Similar system in the Australian state of Tasmania & ACT. The diffence is Tasmania Elects 7 members per discteict & ACT elects 5 members. In Australia we also number our candidates which means theirs only one row and not a big ballot of bubbles.
This was helpful, but I wish a tad bit more time had been spent on helping people understand the "fancy math" part of this process. Is there any way to do another video with more info on that? Great work, at any rate. Let's hope Portland proves that Ranked Choice Voting is good for democracy. (Please god, keep the fringe quack candidates away.)
Great explainer but leaves a question unanswered: suppose chocolate did NOT accrue enough viable votes to surpass the winning threshold at the end (no votes for it from old-fashioned)?
I'm voting Boston Cream party.
Awesome video! Much luck to the election candidates from Hamburg, Germany 🍩🥨
While I am slightly less confused than before, for some reason I sure would love a maple bar right now!
This is some excellent journalism 😂
brilliant, perfect explanation ... and now I want a doughnut!!
This is a great video
Very well done!
Such a well made video, kudos.
"MMmm...Donuts." - Homer J Simpson
I've been fighting for election reform for 20+ years and you explain the STV system brilliantly.
Great video on RCV
This was helpful and clever, thank you.
Really like this system, but isn't 25% a little low to declare an initial victor?
Heart PDX. Wonderful video Teresa Mahoney!!!
Wow. What a fair system.
Sydney, Australia is having it's local council elections this weekend with the same system! Congrats Portland, you're gonna get the candidates that make the most people happy! Make sure you all vote with your hearts, since there are no wasted votes in ranked choice
Expensing those donuts in the office. 🧠🧠🧠
Important question: Where did those doughnuts source from in the opening scene? Cause... YUM. Aside (lol) thanks for the informative and helpful lesson.
This system sounds good to me! I guess the draw back is that everyone needs to do their research on all candidates in order to rank their ballots properly, and that might be really difficult to do for most people.
This was an awesome explainer, nice work. And now I am craving a donut… 😂
Ireland uses this system. Nothing too radical.
So glad this is happening, and in my hometown to boot!
No Chocolate-Iced Donut with Holland Cream filling? Blasphemy! ... Excellent explanation! I just hope that the voters will figure it out.
this is such a good idea
Cool 😎
This looks like such a fun video to make
Love this system!
Finally!
I still don't understand, but I like donuts.
Elections and donuts!
A delicious combination!
Lol nobody talking about eating the confetti at the end
What ultimately matters to an average voter is just to rank your vote. Simple.
One does not need to actually know the vote counting process of RCV. But, it's this objectively-complicated part (that voters do not actually need to think about?) that anti-RCV people are using to argue against RCV.
Fabulous explanation.. now if we could only get 100% of the voting population to get out and vote 🎉
They eliminated powdered sugar!!! Wtf???
Old fashioned, maple bar, and chocolate! Heck yeah what a trio
Donuts are always a great way to teach the population complex voting systems. This is great!
I wish we could expense these delicious donuts!
Hold on, I've got an idea!
Neat
Now we do the state!!
I shouldnt be trusted with voting if my choices were cake, filled and powder sugar 😭😭
Those are some solid donut choices.
This video has just made me hungry for donuts
Makes a lot of sense. Can we get state and federal representation to also follow this type of system, please?
This is an interesting system, and it'll be cool to see how it plays out. The redistribution of the surplus is interesting, but it makes sense why you need that to ensure that one popular candidate doesn't just lock up all the votes with a huge excess.
One thing that's bugged me about RCV implementations that I've seen to date is the absence of a "no confidence" option. I used to be part of a volunteer organization that elected its officers using single transferable ranked choice voting, with the option to vote no confidence after a point and keep your ballot from going to any other candidate while still having it count for the threshold. A lot of the systems I see now seem to eliminate your vote and lower the threshold if all your votes become nonviable. I'm curious how that plays out in this system.
This means that I'm gonna have to stop at Dunkin' Donuts today for some *_Chocolate Cream Filled Donuts_*
Ranked choice voting looks like a blessing compared to first past the post. Imagine a candidate with 20% of the vote winning.
I mean this makes total sense but I mean this is how my entire country has done elections for a long time now so it's not complicated for me.
Interesting that you managed to elect my acceptable compromise doughnuts.
I am fine with the Transferable Vote.... but I am not a fan of the "elimination" rules.
It seems to me, to create a system, where the candidate who is "no one's first choice" can end up as a very popular "third" choice. Instead, what should happen is almost the same, except when the second seat moves to consideration, the first candidate is "removed" from the other ballots, and the process repeats.
The only way a candidate should be "nonviable" for a seat, is if they already hold one.
I'm confused how 25% was reached as the value of a surplus vote
STV has finally made it out of Ireland & Australia! But in Australia (where I live), we just number boxes next to the candidate or party. We don’t do this ugly table.
I want those donuts
2:28 "Boo that was my first choice" hahaha
None of the three winners were even among my top 10 choices (I wrote in for crūller). 😔
You bit into it at the end while it had confetti on it 🤢
Nothing CGP didn't explain to my generation 10 years ago. Now that all of us are old enough to vote, we voted for a better system.
One day Donuts will turn into a staple for elections
Quite an appropriate analogy, using donuts in place of our elected officials!
So it's just Single Transferable Vote? Why do we keep making new names for existing systems?
HOLY COW. City Council election night news is going to be so confusing
Quite similar to the Falklands and Northern Ireland's systems
We have the same in lreland
I think i have a better, more fair method - all combinations are considered permutations. all candidates conversely are ranked by first position place. anyone with no first position votes is at the end of the list, sorted by second position, if no second, at bottom by third and so forth.
Now, all votes are expanded to the most common permutation. If you voted for only four candidates; whatever order others ranked other candidates- whatever the most popular combination is- yours gets propagated to a full ticket. If there are no permutations to propagate to, you inherit the most popular order of remaining candidates demoted to the bottom of your tree.
Now, every iteration we remove one candidate and collapse their permutations by simply removing that element in its position and moving your vote to the identical category. We continue this until we have a simple majority winner in first place- so the election can, in fact, end after simply counting first position votes- or there are only two candidates left, in which case we pick the winner.
If there are more candidates than sane permutation length based on compute efficiency(let’s say 12) we create the ranking for the first 12 and then for the second 12, overlapping by one candidate, and then run the cycle above for the lowest ranked candidates promoting the winner into the lowest ranked position formerly occupied by the last candidate in the higher ranks.
In the event of write in candidates, they too are fairly ranked in this manner. Any and all voters can specify as few or as many candidates as they like.
this is how voting in Australia works
What happens if multiple candidates win at the same time?
This doesn't seem like a very good voting system. For example, if everyone's second choice is powdered sugar, but no one's first choice is, it gets eliminated, even if every other donut is highly controversial.
Americans describing democracy: "ok so imagine a donut"
This is literally just Single Transferable Vote…?
but are they from voodoo doughnuts?
Single transferable vote, Ireland's best export after Guinness
I would give this two thumbs up if I could. Probably because ranked choice voting (a thing every person in the world needs) is being represented by dessert (a thing every sane person in the world wants).
multi-winner ranked choice voting is just STV with a different name
Are those annies donuts!?
This is just preferential voting; Australia has used this in elections since 1901
Yooo voodoo donuts?
That isn't how that should work though. If no one wants powdered sugar as a first choice, but they all agree it's a solid second choice, then it shouldn't be eliminated.