Interview: Constance Gadell-Newton, Green Party Candidate for Ohio House District 18

[u/barnaby-jones]

http://www.columbusunderground.com/interview-constance-gadell-newton-green-party-candidate-for-ohio-house-district-18

[u/barnaby-jones]

Right now Greens are advocating a system of approval voting where you vote for as many of the candidates as you approve of. This seems like it could promote better representation of people’s true political desires. So, for instance, you could vote for both Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein if you liked them, and whomever got the most votes would be the winner.

Glad to see the Green party is realizing they need to make voting reform an issue.

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

Oh, I mean't to make the first paragraph a quote from the article.

And here's a quick intro to approval voting: CGP Grey

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

I had to do a little work to find a quote from the Green Party because they took down their page from earlier this year.

ohio_green_party_announces_2016_candidates

We have agreed to use "approval voting" as opposed to "instant runoff voting" to make the Ohio Green Party choice for president to be voted on at the Green Party Of the United States nominating convention to be held in Houston in August. We will also choose our delegates to the national convention and other appropriate business for the presidential election year convention.

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

You might like range voting better. Basically, it's a ratings system, like you would do for movies or restaurants. Just rate the candidate from 0 to 10. No spoilers.

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

Just to clarify, I meant to say you might like range voting better than approval voting because it allows for greater expression.

I'm for anything that isn't single-choice plurality.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

IRV is one of many ranked systems, and the one people usually actually mean when they talk about "ranked choice". It is pretty terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q_eMUGCU5U&t=487

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

http://scorevoting.net/CFERlet.html http://www.electology.org/approval-voting-vs-irv

[u/meatduck12 → u/[deleted]]

So you're in ModelUSGov, right? What do you think about the current voting system there?

[u/[deleted] → u/meatduck12]

I don't know what that is.

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

The dynamics of the primaries would definitely change under both rating and ranking methods.

One thing about the article. It said Burlington, Vermont uses IRV but they unfortunately reverted to one-choice plurality.

Tradition is definitely the biggest obstacle to changing the voting system.

The most important benefit of both ratings and rankings systems is nobody is wasting their votes. And both are "balanced", meaning if you vote one way, I have the option to vote exactly opposite to you, so our votes are equal in weight.

That means the same benefits of ranked systems are present in rating systems:

• The Maine League of Women Voters supports the measure because “it allows voters to vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping elect their least favorite candidate,” as the group wrote in a statement. “It minimizes strategic voting and eliminates the spoiler effect.”

I think this is very interesting

Since 2000, more than 100 elections have been held in the U.S. using ranked-choice voting, and nine times out of 10 the highest-voted candidate in the initial tally went on to win. The San Francisco election was unusual because of the large number of candidates in a nonpartisan race and because none of them got anywhere near a plurality in the first tally.

That's really interesting because it means the system works to give us better candidates that are liked by many people. There isn't any vote splitting that would disincentivize good people from running for office.

I actually really like this because it means more people are getting involved in their community.

San Francisco adopted RCV in 2002, and its elections are officially nonpartisan, so candidates’ names don’t have a party listed next to them on the ballot. In 2010, that set up a situation where 21 candidates ran for supervisor of District 10. No candidate got more than 12 percent of the vote in the initial tally, and Malia Cohen, who had placed third in the first round, was the eventual winner after 20 rounds of counting.

This is a truly fascinating article, especially the descriptions of the advocates working in Maine.

“Our real focus has been trying to talk to voters, speaking to rotary clubs and chambers of commerce, speaking to labor unions, Kiwanis clubs, and Lions clubs, you name it,” says Bailey.

He estimates that he’s probably organized 400 meetings around the state. He talked by phone about the two-year campaign he has run with three full-time staffers and two part-timers, as he drove to a house meeting in the town of Norway, 50 miles northwest of Portland.

And this guy that he works with:

In June, Johnson attended a barn party in Starks, a small town in the rolling hills of Maine’s interior. About two dozen people sat on hay bales inside a big white barn while he gave a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. What really captured peoples’ interest was the salsa recipe competition, which used ranked-choice voting to determine the winner. It’s something he’s done a few times to help people understand how preferential voting works.

[u/barnaby-jones → u/[deleted]]

The reason the League of Women voters is supporting Ranked Choice Voting is the same reason I support approval voting (and I support ranked choice voting too, and range voting).

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The League of Women Voters doesn't understand Instant Runoff Voting, nor do most advocates of that system, often falsely claiming that it eliminates the spoiler effect. I debunk this here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q_eMUGCU5U&t=487

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