Final five will bring more people out to vote in primary elections. That hurts conservative candidates who rely on a low vote percentage. Look what happened in Kansas? The Republicans counted on a low voter turnout. The general idea is very useful. It's good for democracy even if it's not good for MAGA candidates.
Great idea. Looking forward to hiring some undergrads to help out with Perilous Times. I was not aware of this referendum. Will look into it. Not sure why this needs to be a blue state phenomenon - we will see what happens in purple Nevada.
yes, failed decisively in a blue state, with huge, memorable advertising support. There was next to zero negative ads. We were disappointed, and shocked. Donors that contributed to this probably feel somewhat burned. Need to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I couldn't agree more with the approach you've put forward. However, it should go even farther and have rank-choice voting in the primary as well. Consider your example, in which you suggest that a Democrat would land in the top five. But that assumes there's only one Democratic candidate. What if there were 10 Democrats running? None of them might get enough votes to make it to the general. A ranked-choice voting scheme (perhaps rank your top five choices) would solve that. I believe, in fact, this has been a problem in the open primaries held in California, in which there have been so many more candidates from one party than another that the candidates from the minority party have a much greater chance of getting to the Final Two.
Good point. I'll ask the folks at Final Five why they don't do ranked choice in the primary. Read the article that I have posted about the New York mayoral experience - many think it didn't work that well. But remember, big difference with Final Five compared to Final Two like in California. With 20% Democrats, unless they split something like evenly five ways, the top Democrat still probably makes it in over the third minor party candidate.
Ranked choice definitely belongs in primary elections. I recently went to a Republican debate in a solid red area. The candidates were stumbling over each other to see who could get the most MAGA support. A ranked choice primary vote would have put the Democratic candidate in play for the November RCV vote and the candidates would not have told so many lies at the debate.
Nice to read your writings. I enjoyed your course readings when I was a Duke Library staffer (reserves/copyright)
Thanks! And thanks for the help with my classes!
👍
Final five will bring more people out to vote in primary elections. That hurts conservative candidates who rely on a low vote percentage. Look what happened in Kansas? The Republicans counted on a low voter turnout. The general idea is very useful. It's good for democracy even if it's not good for MAGA candidates.
A key research project would be to find out exactly why the RCV ballot initiative we had here in Massachusetts failed in 2020. Maybe a student could do more in depth data analysis, and better understand what went wrong. https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2020/11/04/why-did-massachusetts-reject-ranked-choice-voting
Great idea. Looking forward to hiring some undergrads to help out with Perilous Times. I was not aware of this referendum. Will look into it. Not sure why this needs to be a blue state phenomenon - we will see what happens in purple Nevada.
yes, failed decisively in a blue state, with huge, memorable advertising support. There was next to zero negative ads. We were disappointed, and shocked. Donors that contributed to this probably feel somewhat burned. Need to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I couldn't agree more with the approach you've put forward. However, it should go even farther and have rank-choice voting in the primary as well. Consider your example, in which you suggest that a Democrat would land in the top five. But that assumes there's only one Democratic candidate. What if there were 10 Democrats running? None of them might get enough votes to make it to the general. A ranked-choice voting scheme (perhaps rank your top five choices) would solve that. I believe, in fact, this has been a problem in the open primaries held in California, in which there have been so many more candidates from one party than another that the candidates from the minority party have a much greater chance of getting to the Final Two.
Good point. I'll ask the folks at Final Five why they don't do ranked choice in the primary. Read the article that I have posted about the New York mayoral experience - many think it didn't work that well. But remember, big difference with Final Five compared to Final Two like in California. With 20% Democrats, unless they split something like evenly five ways, the top Democrat still probably makes it in over the third minor party candidate.
Ranked choice definitely belongs in primary elections. I recently went to a Republican debate in a solid red area. The candidates were stumbling over each other to see who could get the most MAGA support. A ranked choice primary vote would have put the Democratic candidate in play for the November RCV vote and the candidates would not have told so many lies at the debate.
Don’t Mew York City have a recent election using ranked choice voting?
Thanks for the reminder - updated the post!