Mastodawn

Space Hobo Jun 25, 2025

@tinker Part of this is that NYC needed to learn the hard way how to use their votes in this system. Eric Adams got the mayoralty partly because New Yorkers thought that you put the worst person at your lowest rank. That bizarrely got him an absurd number of fifth-round votes and launched him into the seat.

This time around, everyone was clear on the message of "Vote for me and this other person who aligns with me, and DO NOT RANK CUOMO!"

Tinker ☀️Jun 25, 2025

@spacehobo - Yeah there's always a "learning period" when using a new system. Especially when you're one of the first big cities to do so.

I imagine other cities can learn a lot when it comes to messaging and instructions around Ranked Choice.

Very good points!

@tinker @spacehobo the problems with Ranked Choice don't end at getting confused by the ballot, the strategic traps of "first past the post" [what post?] / choose-only-one / largest-plurality-wins voting methods is that your vote only counts for the candidate you line up behind. Unlike STAR or Approval voting, RCV (IRV/STV) assigns your vote to only one candidate at a time, you cannot support 2 or 3 candidates equally / simultaneously, your 2nd-favorite gets cut first & your ballot "exhausted"

@enobacon @tinker FPTP is a racing metaphor, possibly from horse racing. It means that you didn't measure times for the participants, but gave an award to the first horse to cross the finish line. It's a goofy posh way to say "plurality winner-take-all", and I had to explain to loads of people that the US is almost entirely FPTP even if they don't use that phrase for it.

@spacehobo @tinker if there was a post at like 50% that they had to get past, it would actually make more sense than choose-only-one or RCV (IRV/single winner non proportional single transferrable vote)

@enobacon @tinker Consider that the votes correspond to a maximum time to qualify here, rather than distance.

@enobacon @tinker Like, a literal FPTP race on foot means "we determine the winner by comparing the participants to one another, rather than to a fixed result threshold"

@spacehobo @tinker but the contest is who got the most marbles in a jar, or the most voters to give them their vote. A race covering some distance makes it sound fair to the voters but the voters are not getting measured equally if they like more candidates. FPTP as a name for some thing with no post to get past is just part of the whole consent-fabrication game that is most of the history of voting methods.

@spacehobo @tinker if the horses ran a mile, who cares about the times if one was fastest? The choose-only-one problem is if there's three horses, the race ends when their distances add to one mile / 100% of voters. But some voters didn't get counted if there's more than two horses, if no horse ran even 50%, what was the "post" of FPTP?

@enobacon @tinker I don't think this point you're making is particularly obscure, which is why I'm ignoring it to provide new context and information instead.

@spacehobo @tinker if enough people understood the metaphor, they would get on the same horse together or not change horses mid stream or move the goal post maybe.

Space Hobo

@enobacon @tinker That's why I'm explaining the plurality-winner-take-all nature, instead of shouting "POST POST POST NO POST WHERE IS THE POST IT HAS NO POST" and confusing everyone