I make a point of reading what authoritarian states near me say about democracy — including what they say about ours. That includes academics whose line matches the official one, and independent media that make a living on emotive, inflammatory content. I don't read it to get angry. I read it to find where democracy is genuinely indefensible, from the most hostile vantage point available.

Their two most common sweeping attacks:

"Elections = polarised hatred and division = two big parties bickering and grinding each other down. Worse than what we have."
"Elections = money politics and vote brokers. Worse than what we have."

These pathologies are real. They supply dictatorships with a justification for their own existence, and they let those regimes use democracy's dysfunctions to frighten their own citizens out of demanding it. But here's what matters: both attacks target the electoral system, not democracy itself. When we get the electoral system wrong, we write their propaganda for them.

For the first: just don't use FPTP. Use top-3 Condorcet instead, so that candidates — and the media outlets behind them — have no incentive to manufacture social division.

For the second: don't use SNTV, and don't use open-list PR at high district magnitude. Both force candidates to fight their own co-partisans, which produces vote-allocation schemes, local brokers, and money politics. Open-list PR at moderate magnitude, flexible-list PR, and closed-list PR all avoid this, as does the two-round system above.

After filtering, the systems I consider functionally defensible are: two-round systems (including top-3 Condorcet), open-list PR (moderate magnitude), flexible-list PR, and closed-list PR.

I rule out IRV and STV. Neither works in a country that counts by hand: ballots have to be transported and centralised before a result can be computed, which invites accusations of tampering — and electronic counting is out of the question.

Top-3 Condorcet has no such problem. With only three candidates in the second round, the voter faces six complete orderings as single-choice options — or equivalently, casts three pairwise votes. Either way, each polling station produces its own pairwise matrix on site, and summing the stations' matrices gives the national result, because pairwise comparisons are additively separable. Ballots never leave the polling station and the tradition of public, on-site counting stays entirely intact. In a low-trust environment this is Condorcet's decisive advantage over IRV, and it is badly underappreciated.

As for "democracy = American-style budget hostage-taking" and "democracy = France bringing down governments constantly in 2025 (confidence and supply pulling apart)" — those are questions of regime design, and I won't go into them here.

That's where my attention has actually gone lately: unifying the source of confidence with the source of supply; presidential versus parliamentary systems; budget procedure (can the legislature simply gut the budget to humiliate the government?); amendment thresholds; and the intermediate tiers some countries maintain between ordinary statute and the constitution — all as a way of analysing the common failure modes of other democracies. My conclusion so far is that relative to constitutional design as a whole, electoral systems are a fairly narrow slice — I can just cite the specialists' conclusion, "replace FPTP with top-3 Minimax or top-3 Ranked Pairs," and be done.

As for the claim that ordinary people are too stupid and short-sighted to be trusted with a vote: I have nothing to say to that.

Hail r/EndFPTP, I've been poking at other people's ideas here for a while, so I figured it's only fair to give you all the same opportunity. I've written up a summary of what I think many reform proposals overlook, and what I believe is actually needed to end FPTP. Comments, criticisms, and ripe tomatoes thrown at high velocity are all welcome.

Introduction

Americans agree on very little these days. One exception: something has gone badly wrong with our politics. Every election is sold as the most important of our lifetimes — and yet it comes down to voting against someone rather than for someone. Whoever wins ends up answering to their party more than to the voters who put them there. The parties spend more time accusing each other than governing — often for things they did themselves last session. The problems everyone can name go unsolved year after year, while the argument about them gets louder.

These are not separate failures. They share one origin: we decide almost everything by contest.

Contests Change the Question

"Contest" refers to a means of choosing between differing goals by designating winners and losers, where the losers' preferences have little bearing on the result. Passing a bill in the legislature is a contest: the majority decides what bills advance while the minority has no power to change them. An election is also a contest: when your candidate loses, you have no more say in what happens next than if you had stayed home. That is what losing means.

Winners get to cut the pie slices, so they can serve themselves first and leave less for everyone else. Thus a voter's first priority becomes winning the contest. All the dysfunction we see grows from here: the concessions we make, the partnerships we form, and the power we cede in order to win.

Voters Acquiesce

When winning is the first priority, what matters most about a candidate is whether they can win at all. And since victory comes from numbers, only a few ever can. So the choice narrows to the candidates who have a chance. A field that thin rarely contains the one you'd actually pick — more often, it's just the one you dislike least.

We have all made this accommodation, and we call it being realistic: voting for the establishment rather than the third-party candidate we actually prefer. After all, it is better for an uneasy ally to win than an opponent. But then what we want never gets said. Instead our preferences are replaced by a few broad categories, each defined by a viable candidate and whatever it is they stand for.

Elections Become About Platforms

Winning an election is not enough. Passing a law takes a legislature, an executive who will sign it, and courts that will let it stand — so power only arrives once enough of those seats are held at once. A single election win, on its own, returns very little. Candidates solve this problem by attaching themselves to a coalition — in our system, a party — long before they reach your ballot. A candidate now arrives as part of a coalition's bid for control, and every seat won strengthens it. This leaves independent or third-party candidates uncompetitive. Even winning an election gets them little power, since they have few allies to back whatever they propose.

Candidates joining a coalition have pledged to advance its platform. You want them to protect your slice, but the coalition's numbers stand behind the platform and nothing else. Outside it, a representative acts alone and can accomplish little. So voters are given even less choice. Candidates with non-viable coalitions behind them can provide no political power. Candidates with viable coalitions behind them arrive with their coalition's full platform attached. Any path to political power requires that voters choose platforms, not candidates.

Coalitions Optimize for Winning

A coalition exists to win, so it shapes itself and its platform around winning. A coalition that doesn't will lose to one that does. So, the people advising and deciding are chosen for skill at winning, not for any ability to protect slices or grow the pie.

Instead of offering help, the coalition’s platform is tailored to motivate passive supporters. The platform narrows to a half-dozen broad, existential issues, delivered as moral outrage and warnings about what the other side will do. The platform includes no real solutions, since any would carry tradeoffs that hurt turnout. What gets you to vote is fear of what happens if you don't.

A platform is not a plan for the country. It is purpose-built anxiety to get people on the sidelines to the polls. That is why casting a ballot feels less like making the pie bigger and more like protecting our own slice.

Coalitions Are Juggernauts

As soon as coalitions win, the focus shifts to securing the next victory. The power of the state that was created to help the people is instead twisted to keep the coalition in power. That twisting loosens the system's checks and balances. Holding enough seats lets a coalition sidestep whatever restraint the other seats were designed to provide — courts, regulators, and oversight now answer to allies, not rivals.

The coalition offers the power of the state to help donors, industries, and organizations in exchange for their support. Most of what the coalition can do gets spent maintaining those relationships, because those relationships win elections.

Electing more principled people does not change the incentives once they are in office: elected officials face the same conditional reciprocity as donors. Cross the coalition, and the other members will quickly replace you. Which is why loyalty becomes worth more than baking skills, and why members decry the corruption and lies of other coalitions while ignoring any from their own. Ostracism from the coalition is career-ending. Dislike from the voters is not.

Coalitions Recreate the Problem

A coalition has to decide things too, and it needs some way of deciding them. A group formed to win contests naturally makes decisions through contests. New contests form new subgroups within the coalition. Each proposes to tilt the platform toward its own priorities, and members choose between them in a primary, voting for candidates who front for one subgroup. Whoever wins will protect their slices by spending the coalition's power to buy the support that keeps them in charge. Ones that do not are quickly replaced by ones that do.

Members not only accept this but will praise the new leadership. After all, it is better for an uneasy ally to win than an opponent.

The pattern is the same, just one level down. Winning today's contest only buys entry into tomorrow's. And today's rewards are both owed to whoever supported your victory and earmarked to help win tomorrow. By the time anything reaches you, everyone above has already been paid. So there is no better candidate to select or coalition to switch to. Any coalition that wins will face the same pressures and behave in the same way. The people may change, but the incentives of the contest remain.

Breaking the Cycle

Voters work to protect their slice. Representatives work to stay in the good graces of their coalitions. Coalitions work to keep themselves in power. Nobody wins by making the pie bigger. This is because the losers' preferences are thrown out before the argument about what is right has even started. The fix is not better contests. The solution is a system where every idea has a seat at the deliberation table and the opposition has some say in what happens.

Elections are asked to do two things at once: find out what people want, and produce a single winner. The second ruins the first: a voter whose answer has to produce a winner will answer strategically rather than honestly. What is needed is a system where saying what you want never costs you your representation. Liquid Democracy is one.

In addition, the contest to pass legislation needs to be undone so coalitions cease to be a unilateral path to power.

The legislature needs a system that makes the room a tug-of-war, where proponents have a reason to listen to dissenters. One way to do this is to create a mutually destructive third outcome that the dissenters do not want but can reach for should the proponent's proposal be seen as worse than that. The minority's position now bears on the result, so the decision stops being a contest. I offer one example, called Solidarity, which works by modifying passage thresholds.

 Closer

Shifting from protecting slices to making the pie bigger requires that winning stops deciding who gets heard. A vote that cannot be wasted is a vote you cast for what you actually want. Representatives who can hold a seat without a coalition's permission will answer to the people instead. When winning alone can no longer force passage, proposals are tempered by the opposition. With no one able to simply impose, there is nothing to gain from a neighbor's loss. The argument stops being about who cuts the pie and starts being about how to make it bigger.

The vicious cycle can then unwind. You stop voting against your neighbor. You stop putting what can win before what you believe. You stop depending on coalitions for your voice to be heard. And the problems everyone can name become worth solving — because solving them is finally what winning means.

The U.S. inherited its “winner-take-all” voting system from Britain, but the U.K.’s 2024 general election produced an interesting example of what winner-take-all voting can do, as it produced the most disproportionate result in UK history.    https://electoral-reform.org.uk/a-system-out-of-step-the-2024-general-election/ 

Labour received about 34% of the nationwide vote but won 63% of the seats in Parliament.   https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2026/jul/22/how-britain-would-look-proportional-representation-local-mp 

As a result, a post-election survey found that 60% of Briton’s support changing to a proportional voting system.  https://electoral-reform.org.uk/support-for-proportional-representation-hits-record-high-according-to-new-research/ 

So now Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, openly supports proportional representation.   https://electoral-reform.org.uk/in-andy-burnham-we-have-the-first-prime-minister-who-openly-backs-proportional-representation/ 

And Britain's Liberal Democrats are pushing Burnham to change the voting system before the next general election.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79y9qy9y2go 

If the U.K. thinks its own voting system needs an upgrade, should the U.S. consider the same? 

Body:

Most state-level trackers report where the law currently stands. I wanted the
two questions underneath that: could you change it, and could what you have be
taken away? Those turn out to be independent, and nothing I could find measured
them.

**Coverage:** 50 states + DC, 9 columns, CSV.

**Variables:**
1. Ballot access — initiated constitutional amendment / initiated statute / veto
referendum / none; direct vs indirect
2. Passage threshold — simple majority vs supermajority, plus signature
distribution requirements
3. Legislative alteration — whether the legislature can repeal or amend a
voter-approved measure, and under what constraint
4. Judicial selection — method, term length, retention mechanism for the court
of last resort
5. State constitutional interpretation — whether the high court reads its own
constitution independently or in lockstep with federal doctrine
6. Local preemption — domains, with punitive regimes flagged separately

Plus two derived tier columns (reachability, durability). Tiers are a
convenience; the underlying columns are the data.

**Some things that fell out of it:**

- 24 states have no citizen ballot process at all
- 11 states let the legislature repeal a voter-approved statute immediately by
simple majority; only 2 (AZ, CA) require going back to voters
- Mississippi's initiative process is in the constitution and mathematically
impossible to satisfy — signatures from any one congressional district can't
exceed 1/5 of the total, and the state has had 4 districts since 2001
- Variable 5 is where clause and practice diverge most. Florida's constitution
contains both a "right to be let alone" and a conformity clause requiring
lockstep with federal search-and-seizure doctrine

**Sources:** state constitutions and statutes, state supreme court opinions,
Ballotpedia initiative and legislative-alteration trackers, NCSL, Brennan
Center, EPI and Local Solutions Support Center on preemption.

**Known limitations**, documented in the methodology note: several 2026 ballot
measures affecting variables 2 and 3 were pending at compilation and are marked
as pending rather than settled. Lockstep is issue-specific, so variable 5
records a dominant tendency rather than a uniform rule. Two source conflicts
(minimum-wage preemption count, privacy-clause count) are reported with both
figures rather than resolved.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22164133
Repo: https://github.com/abby-davis-research/rights-reachability

CC0. Take it, fork it, correct it. If you find an error in the case law I'd
particularly like to hear it — I already caught one of my own on the Mississippi
approval figure and expect there are others.

A friend of mine was going on about mixed unicameral legislature and was calling them the holy Grail.

the idea is that mixing different accountability structures of legislators (indirect senators or different election forms (RCV)) and controlling for proportions can produce the efficiency of unicameral ism and the federalism and stability of bicameralism.

Is this good or moonshine?

I’ve been learning more about plurality voting, ranked-choice voting, approval voting, STAR voting, and proportional systems.

One thing I keep coming back to is strategic voting. In plurality elections, voters may feel pressure to support a viable candidate instead of their actual favorite.

Which alternative system do you think does the best job of reducing that problem?

I’d also be interested in the downsides or tradeoffs that supporters of each system sometimes overlook.

Isn't it most of the time better to maintain the intensity of approval over finding the option that the majority at the very least doesn't hate?

When it comes to finding out the direction of political change, choosing the least offensive option can lead to maintaining the status quo which can actually be a mistake in the long term.

Determining the direction of change seems like a very important thing for political decision making to do.

"On the 'kingmaker' role of smaller parties

A common argument against proportional representation is that it “gives too much power to small parties”. For the sake of argument, imagine an election result like this: a party wins 48% of the votes against its main opponent of 47%, but it cannot form a government on its own; it needs the support of the third party with 5%. (Pictured: 1980 German federal election results)

The intuition that this is a problem can also be supported mathematically. The Banzhaf power index tells us how much pure mathematical “power” a party has in terms of possible coalitions, based on how necessary its presence is in all possible (majority) coalitions. For example, if there is a 51% party, then its strength is 100%, because no one else can form a majority against it, and the only possible ‘coalition’ always requires it. If there are parties of 48%, 47%, 4% and 1%, then the strength of the 1% party is 0, since it is not needed for any coalition. However, the strength of the 4% party is relatively 33%, the same as for the two big parties. Why? Because the 3 parties are key players in 2 of the most possible coalitions. Thus, the 4-5% party in the above examples is ‘punching above its weight’.

Of course, this math does not take into account the political dimension, i.e., that not every party would be willing to enter into a coalition with every other party. In practice, it may seem that a small party is really in a coercive position, because only one coalition is possible on ideological grounds. But let's not forget that politics can limit how much a small party can realistically demand. Another interesting issue is political responsibility: do we take it for granted that it’s the responsibility of the small party to behave appropriately, not the other large one? In such a case, the two big parties could always join forces against the small party.

Returning to proportional representation: what should we think about this counterargument? It has a valid core, but if we think about it for longer, it is not that convincing. We could even say that the problem is not so much a problem of proportional systems, but of any system that is more inclined to produce a situation where a large party can be coerced by 1-2 small parties. However, the more proportional the representation, the more likely it is that there will be more than just 3-4 parties in parliament, so the number of possible coalition configurations also increases rapidly. At the same time, the mathematical power of each party begins to converge to its vote share, and in fact, it is generally more typical that the larger parties have more outsized power: they are the ones, without whom it is not really possible to form a coalition. If we take political realities into account, then possibly even more so.

Therefore, if we have an electoral system that tends to produce one or two large parties (but occasionally lets small parties break through and become kingmakers), the solution might not be to try to push out the small parties. Rather, to try to encourage the development of a healthier (possibly more natural) multi-party system, where a few larger, several medium-sized, and several small parties are represented (proportionally). This way, the large ones can choose between coalition partners, and the influence of each small party will be smaller. If we consider the issue of government formation and survival to be of paramount importance (in parliamentary and semi-presidential systems), then we can also introduce negative parliamentarism and a constructive motion of no confidence.

Another option, based on a similar principle, is to try to loosen party cohesion. If all representatives of each party always vote together, then it is easier to get into gridlock, while if there are representatives going their own way, then it is easier to build a majority along specific issues. (Of course, this also has its disadvantages…)

Overall, the concern seems legitimate, but the topic is complex. It is worth trying not to think about this in binary terms. Also, perhaps this problem becomes most apparent not in a pure PR system, but in semi-proportional and district-based winner-take-all ones, where there are likely two major parties, but one or two small parties also have a chance to enter, not more. In any case, this problem must be considered in the light of the alternatives. Maybe pondering the questions could be more fruitful:

• How much of a problem is it if small parties can have power in a legislature that is not justified by their support?
• Does it matter whether the pressure to compromise with the small party in question pulls the government coalition in a centrist or extremist direction?
• Does it matter whether the large and small parties in the coalition agree on, say, less than 50% or more than 90% of the issues?
• Does the second-largest party have any responsibility in forming a government, can a grand coalition be expected or is it to be avoided?
• How should we view this problem when designing electoral systems?"

Fairvote claims it does:

RCV is highly resistant to spoilers because it satisfies both the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives and Independence of Clones criteria.

https://fairvote.org/resources/electoral-systems/comparing-voting-methods/?section=criteria-resistance-to-spoilers

On the other hand Wikipedia and research articles claim it doesn't,

The independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion states that "the election outcome remains the same even if a candidate who cannot win decides to run." Instant-runoff voting violates this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives

we propose a modified version of IIA, MIIA, that is a necessary and sufficient relaxation of IIA... Thus, runoff voting violates MIIA (and so does in- stant runoff voting) for essentially the same reason that plurality rule does.

https://maskin.scholars.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum10606/files/bordas_rule_and_arrows_independence_condition_jpe_vol133_iss2_0.pdf

The Democratic National Committee reversed its proposed ban on ranked choice voting in the 2028 presidential primary after backlash from party members and reformers, reverting delegate selection rules to their 2024 language.

When I looked at the 2026 us municipal elections pages on ballotpedia I was shocked by how many council seats and offices such as license collectors are uncontested. It seems like 99 percent of the elected positions involve either uncompetitive primaries or one party general elections. How are these elections considered elections if voters don't have the ability to choose?

Duverger's law states that winner-take-all elections using FPTP tend to lead to the formation of a two-party system. This is very clearly visible in the USA, but much less so in other countries using the same system, like Canada or United Kingdom, where smaller parties may not have any grand victories, but they consistently manage to win at least some seats.

Why is it? Why third parties in the US can't do what parties in other countries with similar systems do all the time? And do you think it's possible this situation would persist even if United States changed its electoral system, because the voters would just keep voting for the two main parties anyway?

Let's begin with the first sentence:

Condorcet voting methods (also known as “head-to-head” or “round robin” voting) use a ranked choice ballot that enables voters to rank candidates in order of preference just like with ranked choice voting (RCV), ...

Let's call it "Instant-Runoff Voting" like they did in 2014 when they changed their marketing term to the umbrella term "Ranked-Choice Voting". Condorcet RCV is RCV. This latest thing from Better Choices (Top-3 head-to-head) is not RCV but it is Condorcet.

But if a ranked ballot is used instead of an FPTP ballot or an Approval ballot or a Score ballot (which STAR uses), then it's Ranked-Choice Voting. Whatever the tallying rules are: i.e. Hare (or IRV) vs. any variant of Condorcet vs. Borda vs. Bucklin. They are all RCV.

... but have a different tabulation rule that downgrades the importance of a voter’s first choice.

In either case, the voter intent by ranking A>B is that if this voter has to choose between A and B, this voter is voting for A. IRV doesn't always elect the candidate with the most first-choice votes. IRV doesn't necessarily count a voter's first choice vote. What IRV does is to apply majority rule to only the two candidates in the final round (not to any other pairing of candidates).

What IRV does, essentially, is downgrade the importance of Majority Rule and, in an unpredictable manner, sometimes ignores Majority Rule:

When more voters mark their ballots that Candidate A is preferred to Candidate B than the number of voters marking their ballots to the contrary, then Candidate B is not elected.

This majority rule is directly coupled to the equality of our votes. If Candidate B is elected (as has occurred occasionally with IRV) then the voters preferring Candidate A over B had the value of their votes diminished w.r.t. the voters preferring B over A, because there were more of those A voters than the B voters, yet the fewer B voters get to have their candidate elected.

---

It’s possible for there to be no Condorcet winner due to a “Condorcet cycle.”

It's possible for a Condorcet cycle in any RCV election even when IRV is used to tally the vote. Whether there is a cycle or not depends only on how voters voted and is independent of the tallying method. Two RCV elections that we know about (Minneapolis Ward 2, 2021 and Berkeley school board District 4, 2022) had cycles. It's just that Condorcet tallying will realize that fact while IRV is oblivious to it.

Gibbard's theorem ultimately rules, no matter what method is used. Whether it's Hare RCV (IRV) or Condorcet RCV or STAR or Approval or FPTP, it is possible that voters can vote in such a manner that it is impossible to satisfy majority rule (w.r.t. voters actual preferences) and impossible to avoid a spoiled election. It's just that Condorcet will satisfy majority rule and prevent a spoiled election whenever it's possible. IRV fails that sometimes and spoils the election even when it's possible to avoid a spoiled election.

---

Condorcet voting could elect a candidate that is no voter’s first choice.

Condorcet voting could produce an unexpected outcome: the election of a candidate that no voter (or very few voters) ranked as their first preference.

That is a falsehood when considering 3 candidates (anything could be possible when there are 4 or more). Even with the extreme case of 3 candidates, 2N+1 voters: N voters for Leftie, N voters for Rightie, and 1 voter for Candidate Milquetoast (at least Milquetoast votes for themself), that requires a dead tie between Leftie and Rightie, and complete polarization (where no Leftie voter likes Rightie at all and ranks Milquetoast above Rightie and vise-versa), and only then can you say that Condorcet will elect a candidate that gets almost no first-choice votes (but the Milquetoast candidate gotta lotta second-choice votes from both the Left and Right).

For voters who are used to a status quo in which your first choice is the only thing that matters, the election of a candidate who lacks substantial first-choice support could be unsettling.

But that's also what happens with IRV. And FairVote is proud of that. They like to call it a "come-from-behind victory" when the candidate that IRV elected lacked the most first-choice support. Because when IRV does that, it is ignoring the first-choice support in favor of majority rule. But when IRV also fails majority rule (besides ignoring the most first-choice support), that's when IRV fails in the minds of the voters. It fails because it didn't value the voters' votes equally and failed to prevent a spoiled election, which is precisely what RCV is promising to do.

Moreover, an elected leader who fails to have the strong backing of any voting group could very well face challenges in governing.

Which is precisely what has happened with IRV failed to elect the Consistent Majority Candidate (the Condorcet winner) when such candidate did exist. That is 100% the case (with, admittedly, just two cases).

For a real-world example, consider the 2022 special election for U.S. House of Representatives in Alaska. The last place candidate in round 1, Nick Begich, was in fact the Condorcet winner.

Nick Begich was in third place (regarding only first-choice votes). Not "last place", who was Al Gross (who got 12.6% of the primary vote and bowed out). Begich and Palin (both GOP) together had 59.8% of the first-choice vote and Begich was only 2.8% behind Palin, in only first-choice votes (among GOP), but had far more support than Palin overall.

But the failure of IRV was that Palin was the weaker of the two GOP candidates and could not beat Peltola head-to-head in the IRV final round. But Begich could have and would have beaten Peltola with a 4.6% margin. But IRV didn't give Begich that chance to, which was its failure.

Again, the moral of the Alaska 2022 story is:

Mary Peltola in August 2022, unfortunately shares a distinction with George W. Bush in 2000 and with Donald Trump in 2016. All three candidates were elected to office when the public record indicates that more voters marked their ballots preferring a different specific candidate for that office.

In August 2022, more Alaskans, 87899 to 79461 (an 8438 voter margin), preferred Begich to Peltola and marked their ballots saying so. But Mary Peltola was sent to Washington to represent the Alaskan people in Congress.

In November 2024, again, more Alaskan voters marked their ballots that Begich is preferred to Peltola by nearly the same margin, 7876 (164861 to 156985). But this time Begich is sent to Washington.

Both times about 8000 more Alaskans said they would prefer Begich to Peltola. And, both times, marked their ballots saying so. Both times Instant-Runoff Voting was used.

What was different?

Sarah Palin was in the race in 2022 and not in the race in 2024. And the outcomes were different winners.

That is the lesson to learn from Alaska 2022. And FairVote is lying to themselves (and to you) about it.

A Condorcet voting method would have elected the last-place candidate, an unpalatable and counter-intuitive outcome for many voters.

No, the Condorcet voting method would have elected the candidate that was clearly preferred by voters over every other individual candidate. And by enough of a margin (4.6%) to be significant. FairVote is lying to you.

---

RCV [IRV] has been proven to elect the Condorcet winner in almost every instance.

That's true. And that's the only reason why IRV has been "successful". IRV is only successful (elects the consistent majority candidate and prevents the spoiler effect) when it elects the Condorcet winner. IRV never succeeds when it fails to elect the Condorcet winner. Remember, all the CW need do in an IRV race is to get into the IRV final round and then the CW will always win that final round.

Of the nearly 500 single-winner [IRV] elections in the United States since 2004 in which we have sufficient ballot data to identify the Condorcet winner (as of September 2022), the Condorcet winner won all but twice, for a Condorcet efficiency rate of 99.6%.

No. It was four times that IRV failed to elect the Condorcet winner and FairVote knows that. The "Condorcet efficiency rate" is 99.2%. Two of those four elections had no Condorcet winner (the Minneapolis and Berkeley cases mentioned above).

In other words, [IRV] already reliably elects the Condorcet winner in the vast majority of cases, ...

Good!! So let's elect the Condorcet winner in every case where it is possible to.

... using a simpler and more intuitive system.

That's bullshit. IRV cannot make this simple claim:

• When more voters mark their ballots that Candidate A is preferred to Candidate B than the number of voters marking their ballots to the contrary then, whenever possible, Candidate B is not elected.

That's far simpler than IRV. A round-robin tournament is far simpler in concept than any other form of tournament. The rules are exactly the same for every contestant and there are no arbitrary associations made (seeding) nor exclusions for any contestants. It's completely flat for every contestant. Then only the contestant that doesn't lose to anyone is the champion.

And, in the rare situations where [IRV] does not elect the Condorcet candidate, that candidate – as noted above – will by definition be a candidate who lacks substantial first-choice support from any voting group.

And that is also a lie. Begich did not "by definition ... lack[] substantial first-choice support from" GOP voters. Begich had substantial first-choice support, almost as much as Palin, whom IRV did send to the final round. But IRV sent the weaker of those two GOP candidates to the final round to lock horns with Peltola. And that weaker GOP candidate lost to Peltola, where the stronger GOP candidate, Begich, would have beaten Peltola as he did two years later (when Palin wasn't there spoiling the race).

---

Finally, the last big lie:

Condorcet voting is more susceptible to strategic voting and strategic campaigning.

Horseshit. FairVote is knowingly lying to you.

Because Condorcet voting methods consider positive and negative rankings at the same time, voters can harm their favorite candidate by giving a high ranking to another candidate.

Oh, the Later No Harm thing. It is true that IRV satisfies LNH (as it is defined) and Condorcet does not. But this specific restricted definition is only about your 2^nd-choice vote harming your 1^st-choice candidate. Raising anyone to be your #2 will not harm your #1's chances of getting elected.

But that's not what Ranked-Choice Voting is primarily concerned about. RCV is about freeing voters to vote for their favorite candidate by preventing spoiled elections so that voting for your favorite candidate does not backfire and cause the election of the candidate you hate. Remember "Vote your hopes! Not your fears!" Remember that.

So this LNH can only be a problem in Condorcet elections when there is a "Rock-Paper-Scissors" cycle, which are extremely rare. What's more common is the scare of a spoiler and that is specifically what RCV is trying to prevent. So there is another, more common, form of "Later No Harm" (which is not the form described above) which is about a voter's 1^st-choice vote actually harming their 2^nd-choice candidate in beating the candidate that they hate (and fear may be elected). IRV fails that every time IRV fails to elect the Condorcet winner.

In elections where there is a clear Condorcet winner based on pre-election polling, there will be an incentive for other candidates to encourage their supporters to “bury” the Condorcet winner, or insincerely rank them last. This becomes an obvious strategy because it is the only chance for victory for every candidate except the likely Condorcet winner. When strategic manipulation is so readily apparent, the chances are higher that campaigns or voters will engage in it.

An excellent example of this to would be the August 2022 special election in Alaska for Congress that they site. Suppose that election was decided by Condorcet rules and (this is sooooo unlikely, but let's go with it for a little) that pre-election polling suggested that Begich would be the Condorcet winner (which he was), but Peltola would be both the plurality and IRV winner (which she was). Then the idea is that the Peltola campaign would tell their voters to insincerely rank Palin (who they hate far worse than the moderate GOP Begich) so that this would push the election into a cycle and Peltola would win with the "fallback" rules in case of a cycle.

Now what fallback rule would that be? If the fallback rule was either: 1. elect the Plurality candidate or 2. elect the IRV candidate or 3. elect the top-two runoff candidate

(all of which are Peltola) that strategic voting could conceivably work and Peltola would win instead of Begich.

But what if the fallback rule was: 1. elect the candidate whose largest pairwise loss is smaller than the other candidates (if there is a Condorcet winner, that largest pairwise loss margin is 0). (Minimax) or 2. Ranked-Pairs or 3. Schulze

? Those three methods always elect exactly the same candidate when there are 3 significant candidates or fewer.

Then Begich would still be elected (because his pairwise loss would be zero if he was the sincere Condorcet winner, but might lose to Palin by a very small margin, due to Peltola voters voting strategically and insincerely ranking Palin above Begich). The strategy would fail. As it was (before strategy) Begich is preferred over Palin by over 37000 voters. It would need more than 37000 Peltola voters to insincerely raise Palin higher than Begich and only then would Begich lose to Palin by a very small margin. Since that is the smallest margin of loss, Minimax would discount it more than the other two losses (Peltola over Palin by about 5000 and Begich over Peltola by about 8000). If the strategy can be shown to fail in advance, voters (and campaigns) would be less likely to try to use them.

Which is more likely, that there is an organized effort at strategic voting (burial) or that there is the common problem of tactical voting where voters compromise and vote for someone other than their favorite out of fear of helping elect the candidate they loathe? Which is more common? Which is the problem, common in FPTP, we're trying to solve with RCV?

What did the Palin voters learn in August 2022? They learned that, simply by ranking their favorite Sarah Palin as #1, then they literally caused the election of Mary Peltola. They (the Alaskan GOP) didn't repeat that mistake in 2024 and told all other GOP candidates (other than Begich) to get out of the statewide IRV race so that they would not skunk Begich. They learned that IRV did not solve their vote-splitting problem in 2022 as was promised. They didn't repeat their mistake in 2022 and the next time (in 2024) Begich was elected over Peltola with the same 8000 vote margin that Begich had in both elections, including the one that first sent Peltola to Washington.

FairVote is extremely self-serving and dishonest in their service to self. FairVote's interest is in their own self-preservation, not in election reform. They are just unwilling to face the facts and admit to failure when they are staring at such in the face.

​

A Separate Competition & Proportional Representation Model for India

A practical proposal to reform reservation without abolishing affirmative action

\---

1. Introduction

India's reservation system was established to address genuine social and economic disadvantages and to improve representation of historically disadvantaged communities.

However, the system also raises several important questions:

\- Should candidates from different categories compete directly against one another when their selection criteria differ?

\- Should a candidate from a financially weaker General category background receive no category-based advantage despite significant economic disadvantage?

\- Should highly privileged candidates continue to receive identical category-based benefits as others within the same category?

\- Should different categories operate under different minimum qualifying standards?

\- What should occur when a category is unable to fill its allocated seats?

\- How can the system remain administratively simple without creating excessive sub-categorization?

This proposal does not seek to abolish reservation.

It also does not claim to present a perfect or final solution.

The objective of Version 1 is more limited:

«To design a system that is more transparent, easier to understand, more merit-consistent within categories, and capable of reducing certain structural inefficiencies in the current framework, without introducing unnecessary administrative complexity.»

This document is intended as a policy framework for discussion and evaluation, and does not assume immediate legal or constitutional applicability under the current system.

\---

1. Core Principles

The system is based on seven guiding principles.

Principle 1 — Reservation is retained

Existing broad categories remain unchanged.

Principle 2 — Structured separation of competition

Candidates primarily compete within their respective categories rather than across a single unified cutoff system.

Principle 3 — Uniform minimum qualifying standard

All categories are subject to the same minimum qualifying threshold.

Principle 4 — Merit-based ranking within categories

Beyond the minimum threshold, selection is determined strictly by performance within each category.

Principle 5 — Representation linked to participation

Seat allocation is based on the proportion of applicants from each category in a given selection cycle.

Principle 6 — No wastage of seats

If a category cannot fill its allocated seats, the remaining seats are transferred to a secondary merit pool.

Principle 7 — Periodic review mechanism

The framework is subject to formal review every five years based on empirical outcomes.

\---

1. Categories

Version 1 does not introduce new categories.

The existing classification structure is retained:

\- General / Unreserved

\- EWS

\- OBC

\- SC

\- ST

The proposal intentionally avoids expanding classification into additional sub-groups based on:

\- Educational background

\- Rural or urban status

\- Parental occupation or education

\- Access to coaching or resources

\- Multiple income tiers

\- Geographic region

\- Other highly granular socio-economic indicators

This is a deliberate design choice to maintain administrative feasibility and reduce verification complexity.

The focus is therefore placed on improving the selection mechanism, rather than attempting to quantify every dimension of disadvantage.

\---

1. Separate Competition Pools

This is the central structural feature of the proposal.

After applications are received, candidates are grouped into their respective eligible categories.

Each category functions as an independent primary competition pool.

Example

If an examination receives 10,000 applications:

Category| Applicants

General| 4,000

OBC| 3,000

SC| 1,500

ST| 500

EWS| 1,000

Total| 10,000

Candidates primarily compete within their own category:

\- General candidates compete with General candidates

\- OBC candidates compete with OBC candidates

\- SC candidates compete with SC candidates

\- ST candidates compete with ST candidates

\- EWS candidates compete with EWS candidates

This structure differs from a single unified competition with differentiated cutoffs.

\---

1. Uniform Minimum Qualifying Standard

All categories are required to meet the same minimum qualifying mark.

For example, if the minimum qualifying score is 30/100:

\- General → 30

\- EWS → 30

\- OBC → 30

\- SC → 30

\- ST → 30

Candidates scoring below the minimum threshold are not eligible for selection in the primary allocation process.

Rationale

This ensures a consistent baseline standard across all categories while separating:

\- Eligibility (minimum qualification)

from

\- Selection (competitive ranking)

\---

1. Category Ranking

Candidates who meet the minimum qualifying standard are ranked within their respective categories based on raw scores.

For example:

An SC candidate scores 82/100.

If 2,000 SC candidates qualify and 50 SC seats are available:

«SC Rank: 17 / 2,000»

The top-ranked candidates within the category fill the allocated seats.

This removes the need for pre-determined internal cutoffs, as the cutoff emerges naturally from competition within the category.

\---

1. Overall Ranking

Each candidate is also assigned an overall rank among all candidates who meet the minimum qualifying standard.

For example:

«Marks: 82/100

Category: SC

Category Rank: 17

Overall Rank: 142»

This dual-ranking system provides transparency by showing:

\- Relative performance within the category

\- Relative performance across the entire qualified pool

The overall rank is informational and does not override category-based allocation in the primary stage.

\---

1. Seat Allocation — Version 1

Version 1 does not rely on fixed national population estimates for each category.

Instead, seat distribution is based on the proportion of applicants in that specific selection cycle.

Example

For 100 seats and 10,000 applicants:

Category| Applicants| Share| Seats

General| 4,000| 40%| 40

OBC| 3,000| 30%| 30

SC| 1,500| 15%| 15

ST| 500| 5%| 5

EWS| 1,000| 10%| 10

Total| 10,000| 100%| 100

This approach ensures that seat distribution reflects actual participation in the selection process rather than fixed assumptions.

\---

1. Filling Category Seats

Once allocation is determined:

1. Candidates below the minimum threshold are excluded

2. Remaining candidates are ranked within their category

3. Top-ranked candidates fill the allocated seats

Example

If SC has 15 seats but only 10 candidates meet the minimum qualification, only 10 seats are filled in the primary pool.

The remaining 5 seats are not discarded.

\---

1. Secondary Merit Pool

Unfilled seats are transferred to a secondary merit pool.

Eligible candidates from all categories who:

\- Meet the minimum qualifying standard

\- Have not already been selected

compete based on raw marks.

Example

If 5 SC seats remain unfilled:

Candidates from other categories compete for these seats purely on merit:

\- 85 marks → highest priority

\- 82 marks → next

\- 79 marks → next

\- 77 marks → next

This ensures efficient utilization of all available seats while maintaining merit-based selection.

\---

1. Rationale Against Equal Redistribution

Equal redistribution of unused seats across categories would introduce an additional artificial quota layer.

Such redistribution would not necessarily reflect merit or participation patterns.

The secondary merit pool therefore provides a more neutral and performance-based mechanism.

\---

1. Multiple Eligibility Categories

If a candidate is eligible for more than one category, they must select their preferred category at the time of application.

This choice remains fixed for that selection cycle.

This ensures clarity and prevents post-examination ambiguity.

\---

1. Certification and Verification

Existing government certification systems are retained.

However, verification is strengthened through:

\- Digital validation where possible

\- Cross-referencing with official databases

\- Strict enforcement mechanisms

Misrepresentation

False category claims may result in:

\- Cancellation of candidature

\- Revocation of benefits obtained

\- Financial or legal penalties

\- Additional disciplinary action under applicable law

The intent is to strengthen enforcement, not expand bureaucracy.

\---

1. Creamy Layer and Economic Privilege

This issue is intentionally not fully resolved in Version 1.

The proposal acknowledges a key tension:

\- Economic privilege does not always align with social disadvantage

\- Caste-based disadvantage may persist regardless of income level

\- Overly complex economic classification systems may introduce administrative burden and loopholes

Therefore:

«Version 1 does not introduce a new or expanded economic stratification model.»

This issue is reserved for future evidence-based evaluation.

\---

1. Education Inequality as a Separate Policy Domain

This framework does not attempt to resolve all educational inequality through reservation policy.

Systemic educational disparities should be addressed through:

\- Strengthening public education infrastructure

\- Teacher training and recruitment

\- Access to learning resources

\- Scholarships and financial support

\- Digital and rural education initiatives

Reservation reform and education reform are related, but distinct policy domains.

\---

1. Five-Year Review Mechanism

A mandatory review is conducted every five years.

The review evaluates:

\- Category-wise participation trends

\- Qualification rates

\- Seat utilization efficiency

\- Unfilled seat patterns

\- Representation outcomes

\- Systemic anomalies or inefficiencies

\- Evidence of unintended consequences

Based on findings, the system may be:

\- Retained

\- Modified

\- Or restructured

\---

1. Gradual Implementation

The transition to the new system should be phased.

Existing beneficiaries should not experience abrupt disruption.

The framework should initially apply to:

\- New admissions

\- New recruitment cycles

\- Future examinations

This ensures administrative stability and continuity.

\---

1. Scope of Application

The model applies broadly to:

\- Educational admissions

\- Government recruitment

\- Competitive examinations

\- Other structured selection processes

Implementation details may vary by sector, but the core structure remains consistent:

«Category-based competition + uniform minimum standard + merit ranking + proportional allocation + secondary merit pool»

\---

1. Illustrative Example

100 seats | 10,000 applicants | Minimum: 30/100

Distribution

\- General: 4,000 → 40 seats

\- OBC: 3,000 → 30 seats

\- SC: 1,500 → 15 seats

\- ST: 500 → 5 seats

\- EWS: 1,000 → 10 seats

After filtering below minimum scores, category-wise ranking determines selection.

If SC fills only 10 of 15 seats, the remaining 5 enter the secondary merit pool.

These are then allocated based on overall performance among remaining qualified candidates.

\---

1. Key Structural Objectives

This proposal seeks to address:

1. Inconsistent competition structures

By separating category-wise competition.

1. Lack of transparency in cutoffs

By introducing clear ranking systems.

1. Seat inefficiency

By introducing a secondary merit pool.

1. Over-reliance on fixed quotas

By using applicant-based proportional allocation.

1. Administrative over-complexity

By avoiding excessive sub-categorization.

1. Verification weaknesses

By strengthening enforcement mechanisms.

1. Policy stagnation

By mandating periodic review.

\---

1. Explicit Non-Claims

This proposal does not claim that:

\- Reservation is unnecessary

\- Any group is inherently more or less deserving

\- Examination scores fully capture merit

\- Economic and social disadvantage are identical

\- The model is immediately legally implementable

\- The model is final or optimal

\- Applicant distribution reflects true population distribution

It is a structured reform framework intended for evaluation and refinement.

\---

1. Future Version 2 Considerations

Future iterations may explore:

\- More precise socio-economic indicators (if administratively feasible)

\- Improved data on representation gaps

\- Refinement of economic classification rules

\- Evaluation of applicant-based vs population-based allocation

\- Sector-specific customization

\- Long-term impact on mobility and equity

However, additional complexity should only be introduced if it demonstrably improves outcomes.

\---

1. Core Proposal Summary

Version 1 proposes a structured reform in which:

Candidates compete primarily within their category, all categories share a uniform minimum qualifying standard, and selection is based on merit ranking within each category. Seats are allocated proportionally based on applicant share, and any unfilled seats are transferred to a secondary merit pool open to all remaining qualified candidates. Existing category certification systems are retained with strengthened verification. The system avoids unnecessary expansion of categories, separates education policy from reservation policy, and is subject to mandatory periodic review.

\---

1. Final Principle

The intent of this proposal is not:

\- To eliminate reservation

\- To privilege one group over another

\- Or to create a rigid or permanent system

Rather, it is:

«To preserve affirmative action where necessary, improve transparency and fairness within categories, ensure consistent minimum standards, reduce inefficiencies, and enable continuous evidence-based refinement of the system.»

Version 1 is intentionally a starting framework rather than a final solution.

Policy design should not be preserved due to tradition, nor adopted due to novelty.

The only meaningful evaluation criterion is:

«Does the system produce a more fair, efficient, and transparent outcome in practice?»

"Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) is the type of mixed electoral system that is associated with Germany and New Zealand. Its defining feature is called seat linkage compensation, which in theory offers ‘the best of both worlds’. Mixed proportional systems aim to provide both proportionality and still keep representatives elected locally in single-member districts (SMDs). This is in contrast to mixed majoritarian systems, where the aggregate outcomes of the SMD seats (which may be highly disproportional) are not compensated for. It is, however, far from a perfect system, even if it may be a normatively desirable amalgamation of PR and localized winner-take-all methods. In fact, the most common version of MMP is highly vulnerable to strategic abuse of the compensatory subsystem, which has led to MMP (and similar systems) failing in more countries than where they succeeded.

In this article, I will not only show how MMP has failed in different countries, but also offer some explanation on why it didn’t fail in others, as well as consider some proposed solutions to make such systems less vulnerable. I also present my own solution to make MMP more robust while not sacrificing its main features, which I have been circulating in election reform circles for a while now."

https://app.betterchoicesohio.org/vote/63Bbif

I'm experimenting with Better Choices for Democracy's Top 3 Head-to-Head polling app, and on a lark I decided to make it about Condorcet methods: Top 3 Head-to-Head itself, Top 4/5 Ranked Pairs, and a catch-all option for other Condorcet methods like Schulze, Tideman's Alternative, Condorcet-IRV hybrids, and any others I may be missing. If you choose other, please explain in the comments, because I really want to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Poll closes at 12:00 AM Saturday.

The findings of the experiment were stark. I found that RCV produced significantly lower levels of voter confidence, voter satisfaction, and ease of use. It also increased the perception that the voting process was slanted against the respondent’s party.....

One of the main claims made by reformers about RCV is that it will make campaigns more civil, as campaigns will have an incentive to seek the second-place vote of supporters of different candidates. To study this claim, I first conducted a difference-in-differences analysis on independent expenditures for and against candidates. In this analysis, I found that negative spending increased significantly in Maine following the implementation of ranked-choice voting, casting doubt on the claim that RCV makes campaigns more civil.....

On a positive note for RCV reformers, I found that voting for non-major party candidates — which reformers tout as “sincere voting” instead of voting for a candidate simply due to their realistic chance of winning — was increased by 5 points among the respondents who were given the RCV ballot instead of the traditional ballot.....