[Andrew Szilvasy]

Max,

It also grows the third and fourth parties, though, right? So many people don't vote for a third party candidate because they know they can't win. People still do, but not enough to say, get on the debate stage or to get federal money (the bar for which is 5%, right?).

While in 2016 it probably would have elected Hillary, and in 2008 and 2012 Obama, it would have also allowed those on the farther left to run rigorous campaigns against them without worrying that, in the end, they'd lose to someone no one wanted.

Nothing's perfect, but our current system is pretty awful.

I agree with you on a parliamentary system, and if I were trying to reimagine this country, I'd probably replace the Senate with one that matched a national vote. It might balkanize the two big parties, I think, in really important ways, and allow for a more representational form of government than we have now.

[Roger Slater]

We're not going to revamp our entire system and make it parliamentary, so there's no point debating whether it's better.

I don't understand that knock against ranked choice voting, though. Don't we always elect the least unpopular candidate?

[James Brancheau]

One thing, though, that can't be ignored concerning "electability" are supreme court picks. If you didn't notice, liberals just got whacked (unconstitutionally, or at the very least, unjustly). And it's such a big deal, impossible to be overstated. Whatever you think it means, or whether you think it means anything at all, "electability" will probably cross your mind.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Andrew Szilvasy

It also grows the third and fourth parties, though, right?

Absolutely. A big improvement.

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

We're not going to revamp our entire system and make it parliamentary, so there's no point debating whether it's better.

Are we congresspeople choosing how to run the next election? I thought we were folks talking about the merits of different systems. Knowing what we want is worthwile, regardless of whether or not we can immediately get it.

Who says we're never going to revamp our entire system? There was similarly no point in debating whether or not to eliminate the electoral college until enough people started debating it anyway. (No, I'm not saying that's gonna happen in 2020; it may never happen at all.)

"Don't talk about what ain't gonna happen" is another self-fulfilling prophesy. If we don't talk about it, of course it ain't gonna happen.

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Don't we always elect the least unpopular candidate?

Yes, in a two-party general election. In primaries, and with systems that allow for a broader range of choices, it's not always the case.

[Roger Slater]

I'm not sure electing the least unpopular candidate is a bad thing. If 30% of voters want X to win, and 25% want Y to win, but all of the X and Y fans have Z as their close second, why shouldn't Z end up the winner?

At any rate, ranked choice voting solves what amounts to a huge problem in our (for now) non-parliamentary system, since it allows everyone to vote for their first choice without fear that they are throwing away their vote or causing their least favorite candidate to be elected instead of their second choice. Strategic voting is a bad thing, though under our current system it is a necessary thing as well.

[Jim Moonan]

x
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A two-party either/or system is going away (positive thinking : ). We've had it since we were a country of one million people. The main thing (I think) that is keeping it from expanding to 3,4,5 parties are the last gasps and wheezes of a broken political system in dire need of updating/cleaning. To be blunt: old, gray, dry heads that cannot reimagine things.
How it will happen, what it will look like and when it will take hold are not the questions. It is going to happen, one way or another, sooner rather than later, if we just keep our heads down and keep pushing towards it -- The new generations just now coming into influence are providing us with the tipping point.

It occurs to me that I may have started the kerfuffle by invoking the idea that "electability" is the final consideration before pulling the lever/blackening the box. It is, as it stands now, a part of our reality. I appreciate the ideas of others here who are more engaged than I and more aggressively, intelligently pushing back. It's why I am holding-my-breath hopeful.

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[Roger Slater]

The problem with having, say, five different parties that are equally competitive is that we could end up electing someone who only 21% of the population finds acceptable. One of the best things about ranked choice voting is that this will not happen, since the instant run-offs will allow us to bore down and find the candidate who, while maybe not the first choice of 51%, at least won't be the last choice.

[Jim Moonan]

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Yes, that's the direction to move in (ranked choice). I'll follow.

And while we're at it overhaul the campaign finance system.
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[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

If 30% of voters want X to win, and 25% want Y to win, but all of the X and Y fans have Z as their close second, why shouldn't Z end up the winner?

No reason. It's all a matter of philosophy. Different philosophies work better in different circumstances.

In the current climate, dominated by a man completely unacceptable to most of the voters for whom he isn't their first choice, getting the least unpopular candidate sounds, to most of us, pretty good.

In my experience, while such candidates are common enough, until recently they rarely had enough support to have any chance of winning. The vast majority of support was divided among candidates about whom most people were either excited or luke-warm. In that circumstance, there's an argument for the candidate that the largest group feels enthusiastic about.

Right now we're focused on how much damage one really bad leader can do. I think, though, that history shows really good leaders also having long-lasting effects, and it may be that making sure we get the least objectionable leader lowers the chance of getting a really good one. Bold proposals are often objectionable to a lot of people (often including a lot of people who will come to like the same policies once implemented. Change is scary. That doesn't mean we'd benefit from a system that makes significant policy change less likely).

[Erik Olson]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

I hope that will be true of most voters this time around. "Electability" is often an argument to abandon a candidate whose positions we identify with in favor of one who "can win," which is why I rise to the bait when electability gets mentioned.

Agreed.

Out of presumed electability,
votes cast the self-fulfilled reality.
In the past, the so-called electable candidates were made really so when the average voter did not dare to cast his vote for anyone who fell outside the inherited and unquestioned notion of electability, whatever that be, correct or mistaken. As long as the belief persisted that candidates poised to upset the applecart were strictly unelectable, and that only those deemed so were to be taken seriously, the voters ensured this fiction became true, by denying the one for the other. Not that the candidates who might try were really unelectable for any inherent reason, but that the near-universal assumption that they virtually were, guaranteed it.

This default assumption about electability, however, has been blasted of late as anyone can tell. Bernie Sanders, who was not supposed to have commanded such a pitch of support as he did nationwide, disproved it by his example; to the disbelief of The Democratic National Committee. They operated as if a foregone conclusion that no unorthodox wavemaker could approach the finish line, and that one such as him was no match for a conventional choice whom they supported in full. Thus his star rose to eminence rather despite than because of them, which sufficiently embarrassed their hitherto operative assumption of the electable into obsolescence. Lesson learned; the hard way. But this you already knew. The average voter has hopefully gotten it into his head by now, with all that is apparent, that the actual field is not narrow as formerly supposed, but wide enough for anyone, come who may. Something like that.