Good questions, Valerie.
Ranked Choice Voting is winner-take-all wrapped in better packaging. In the end, a single person is still going to occupy that one seat for the entire district.
Ranked Choice Voting is a very smart way to incorporate run-off elections in one and the same election. So, it saves money.
But… it still hands the seats to the winners only and a large group of voters will not get the one they wanted to represent them. That means we still have a system where our democracy is based on partial representation and not on full representation.
If voters were to vote on the political issues directly, then 50% establishes the win, agree?
But if we vote for representatives then they and not we establish the decision with 50% of them voting on an issue, right?
That means we must avoid picking winners because that eliminates majority rule.
In an example if 60% represents the majority, then our current system is .6 x .6 = .36. We pick the winners with 60%, and these winners make the decision with 60%.
When the majority picks the winners and the winners decide with a majority among themselves, we end up in most cases with minority rule.
So, only a system of full representation delivers majority rule with the decisions.
Ranked Choice Voting does not change our current set up of winners making the decision and not a council based on full representation.
--
The Vote Alignments are put in place for the voter, but they are not established by the voter. The voter sees the letter or number behind the candidate of their choice, so the voter is aware who else is in that Vote Alignment.
The candidates are the ones looking at the specific population at large, and they are in the know -- through experience -- if for instance a bicyclist aficionado made it to the board or not. When they realize there are indeed enough voters for such a representative, but it is not happening, then they can Vote Align on that issue.
Let's say three candidates can find themselves in supporting bicycle infrastructure, but they differ on other issues, then they can Vote Align to capture at least one political issue they agree on and have one of them on board or council.
The Vote Alignments are therefore set up by the candidates and not by the voters or anyone else. They will, however, be set up with the voters in mind. They also last only for one election.
Vote Alignments are not like parties because a Latino socialist and a Latina Business woman may end up in one Vote Alignment, simply because they realize that no Latino will make it to the city council if they don't collaborate. Again, they do so for just one election cycle. They agree on one issue that they both know reverberates with voters.
--
To make sure we are both understanding it the same way:
Proportional voting does not have any gerrymandering.
Proportional voting does not have any ranking of candidates (one vote only).
Proportional voting cuts up the pie of seats according to the outcome (the 'portion' in proportional indicates the same portion of voters is seen again as the exact same portion of the representatives).
The voters are in the driver's seat because they pick the one they want from many candidates.
Today we go to a store with $10 in our hands and six candidates to pick from. In reality, we all know that just two candidates make any chance of getting the seat. We pick our candidate, but the majority gets the winner.
In proportional voting we go to the store and there are 40 items to pick from for our $10. We walk around, two or three times, and we pick the item we want.
Most of us will get the item we picked, and a small number of us will get a similar item from the one we picked.
Full representation.
When there are 4 seats on the council then 80% of the voters are guaranteed they will like their representative.
When there are 9 seats on the council then 90% of the voters are guaranteed they will like their representative.
Our system? 50% plus one vote, that is the guarantee.
Thanks, Valerie, for your questions. I know it is difficult to see how another system functions differently.
We have flipping a coin (50% plus one vote).
Proportional Voting is rolling a die and getting your pick from a choice of 1 to 6. It is a more refined voting system and empowers the voters more (and picks more women sitting in these seats as well).
I lived in three nations with three different voting systems, and that gave me good insights in how political systems work and to what level voters are empowered.
