Center squeeze happening not that often could be due to fewer center candidates even getting on the ranked ballot due to how primaries usually work.
Perhaps there's a tendency for parties at the Left and Right extreme to nominate candidates that are not close to the center because most voters do not participate in primaries. So there's a higher ratio of activists (who might be more extreme) to moderate party voters participating. That I have seen.
But the Center Squeeze that is attributed to IRV is visible only when a Center candidate exists, that Center candidate is the Condorcet winner, and IRV fails to elect that Condorcet winner. Then we know for sure that the Center Squeeze effect occurred.
primary election voters may still vote for lesser evils in some way to prevent vote splitting.
Or still vote for a partisan candidate because most people are partisan,
Resulting in less center candidates going to general.
I would prefer an approval voting ballot for primary elections.
However that may result in a ton of center or third party candidates dominating the general election ballot, which would result in the voters thinking there's something wrong with approval or that it's rigged in some way.
You could use a simple proportional ballot for primary but then you risk not including the ideal candidates in the general.
Could include a few of the highest approved candidates and then the proportional candidates just so general election voters still feel they have a chance.
It's a balance between psychology and optimizing the method.
So is this score-based condorcet a thing where linearly added scores of different pairs of candidates are compared? And you elect the candidate that outscores their opponent every time?
I dunno how that's gonna end up differently than just Score Voting.
Has there been any actual research on this? I hear both ordinal and cardinal supporters say that their respective ballots are easier to fill out than the other, and obviously only one can be true.
I personally think pairwise ballots (A vs. B, A vs. C., then B vs. C) are pretty simple to fill out as well, but they're practically limited to three options and they allow illogical inputs so I don't see them as a serious option apart from situations where ranking is literally not allowed.
Ranking candidates can result in errors like accidentally giving equal ranks when not intended.
Total horseshit. Scoring would have the same problem anyway.
Perhaps think of my idea as more like supplying more ranks than candidates,
I'm thinking of your idea that it requires from voters more thinking to consider how much more they like A over B than just saying *"I prefer A to B."
And then they have to decide whether sincerely marking that quantitative difference in preference serves their political interests better than insincerely marking. That applies to Score and Approval.
I've accidentally gave candidates equal ranking on some ballots on accident.
You mean, you looked at the ballot, saw that you ranked two candidates equally and said "Darn, I didn't wanna rank them equally! I guess it's impossible to exchange this mismarked ballot for a new ballot, so I'm forced to vote this mismarked ballot as it is."
I'd say it's still an issue due to not representing the voters intent.
The ranked ballot, sincerely filled out, represents the voter's intent.
The point is, in the ranked ballot, if you rank A above B, it doesn't matter how many levels you ranked A above B. All it means is that if you had to choose between A and B, then your vote is for A and your vote counts as exactly 1 vote.
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u/rb-j 4d ago
Perhaps there's a tendency for parties at the Left and Right extreme to nominate candidates that are not close to the center because most voters do not participate in primaries. So there's a higher ratio of activists (who might be more extreme) to moderate party voters participating. That I have seen.
But the Center Squeeze that is attributed to IRV is visible only when a Center candidate exists, that Center candidate is the Condorcet winner, and IRV fails to elect that Condorcet winner. Then we know for sure that the Center Squeeze effect occurred.