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If I were forced to choose between two choices and I didn't like either, I would not consider myself living in a democracy. Democracy is pointless if you aren't able to vote for a candidate that you actually like.
The solution is reform. If your democracy is not proportional, then it is not a democracy.
Without RCV, there is no path to better candidates. There is a reason so many conservative states have been proactively banning it.
Ranked Choice Voting is an improvement over plurality voting, but as I've written elsewhere (too lazy to look it up), I think any election with a single winner is still going to end up with weird/disappointing outcomes at least 90% of the time. I think this post is referring to the governor of New York, no? I would rather see a system where the state legislature is elected proportionally, and then the governor would be selected from a coalition agreement between the governing parties - similar to what you see in many national, state and provincial systems across Europe. This system isn't without its downsides, but at least it's harder for incumbent parties to force voters to support them even if those voters don't want to.
Of course, this is a much more fundamental reform, so it's harder to adopt. RCV is definitely an improvement. It's great to see some progress happening out there in the USA.
No voting system by itself will do much. We need to switch to a proportional system or else minority parties won't have a fair shot at representation. If a party gets 2% of the vote, they should get 2% of the seats. Not possible with single-winner methods.
Tbf, you can write in anyone you like. Will they win? No. But you can do that.
It brings up an interesting question of wasted votes. By definition, in plurality voting, at least 50% of all votes must be wasted. Anyone who votes for a losing candidate (and thereby doesn't receive an elected representative) wasted his/her vote. And anyone who voted above the threshold for the winner also cast a wasted vote (because the candidate wouldn't win anyway). It's easy to see why turnout would be low in such a system.
(You could of course argue that a candidate winning a race with 60% of the votes is much stronger in the office than a candidate that wins 51:49, so this is a bit of an oversimplification, but hopefully you get the idea of how wasted votes work solely within the context of decided who wins the race.)
You are able to do that, it's the entire point of a primary.
It's not the best system, certainly, but it does mean you actually get more than 2 choices.
Sort of?
A comprehensive look at voter turnout from 2000 onwards reveals that the average turnout rate for primary elections is 27% of registered voters, compared to 60.5% for general elections. It should be noted that less than half of the voters who cast a ballot in the general election participate in primaries.
https://goodparty.org/blog/article/primary-vs-general-election
All sorts of problems have solutions. I see this a lot in the tech space, like the need to save a video, Adblock, whatever.
…But generally, people don’t use them. Or know about them.
US primaries feel similar, where voters technically have the ability to choose candidates but, statistically, they don’t.
Attention is finite. Many dont know about primaries. To me, giving people the choice doesn’t matter if it’s obscure and inaccessibly designed.
Voters: refuse to vote in primary
Also Voters: "Why are the nominees so terrible?"
Isn’t this how change happens?
But voting for who you believe in in the primaries and your preferred party in the general?
Cuomo is running as independent to split the vote and promote a republican candidate.
yhea Democracy my ass
in theory, yes.
in practice the DNC will protect corporate donations at all cost.
It's never worked so far, I don't see why the DNC is about to start.
Apparently some need education on what a primary is.
They were all running to “be the blue.” This is how WE pick the candidates that run for the Democratic Party. Yes. That’s right. They’re not selected by the DNC as many believe.
Congressional primaries see less than 15% turnout, yet people love to complain about the career centrists. Well, this is EXACTLY how it’s done.
Mamdani won because WE SHOWED UP. Stop letting retirees with nothing but time on their hands pick our candidates and VOTE FOR PROGRESSIVES IN THE PRIMARIES.
The joke is that the NYC Dems are making the DNC eat their words with a candidate that they didn't want