Sarah Palin and ranked choice voting

I find the results of this election quite telling, and revealing of the problems with today's GOP and their extreme candidates.

It sounds like people either voted Palin #1, or put her last. There are a few hints that nationally some of the extreme GOP candidates may fail in the general election in the same way in states/districts that are moderate or evenly split.

Just remember, poll after poll shows a strong majority of Americans:
1) Support some kind of abortion rights,
2) Think Trump needs to be criminally investigated,
3) Know the 2020 election was legitimate

Extreme candidates win in districts/states that are gerrymandered, or lean heavily to one party.

Even conservative Kansas rejected further abortion restrictions.

It will be interesting to see what happens in November. The GOP will probably regain seats, but it will be nowhere near what it was in 2010.

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ElwoodBlues · M

I think it's better than the "largest plurality" we currently have in most US states.

If you look deep into the math of voting systems involving 3 or more candidates, weird paradoxes always arise. There is no known perfect voting system for more than two candidates. I think ranked choice is probably the best system. Here's how it worked recently in Alaska among 3 candidates:

Instead of picking just one candidate, as voters do in most other states, Alaskans were invited to rank the three candidates on the ballot in the order of their preference. And after all ballots were counted, 40 percent of voters had chosen Peltola as their first choice, 31 percent had chosen Palin and 29 percent had chosen Republican businessman Nick Begich III. Under the rules of ranked-choice voting, Begich — as the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes — was then eliminated, and his votes were redistributed to whomever his voters ranked second.

Unsurprisingly, most of Begich’s votes (50 percent) went to his fellow Republican, Palin. But an impressive 29 percent went to Peltola, and 21 percent were “exhausted,” meaning there was no second-choice pick, and the votes were essentially thrown out. That combination was enough for Peltola to win. While Palin gained more votes from the redistribution than Peltola did, Peltola was starting from a higher total, and receiving 29 percent of Begich’s votes was enough to keep her ahead of Palin. In the end, Peltola received 51 percent of the votes counted in the final round, while Palin received 49 percent.