Ranked Choice Voting II

 

I’m A Loser

I'm a loser
And I lost someone who's near to me
I'm a loser
And I'm not what I appear to be

Is Sarah Palin, or Donald Trump for that matter,  a Loser?

Sarah Palin lost the Ranked Choice voting for the election of a representative in Alaska. Unsurprisingly, she and many Republicans blamed the state’s ranked choice voting system.  They have characterized it as too complex and unfair.  But it is not so complex that a form of it is used in college sports polling or parimutuel betting systems.  Just because the public changed the system, and you lost, doesn’t mean that the change was unfair.

The first college basketball tipoff is not until two months from now in November. But the preseason polls are already out.  The North Carolina Tarheels are ranked first.  They did not receive a first place vote on every ballot.  But that is not how basketball polls work.  They may work on a points system where a first place on a ballot listing the top 20 teams is worth 20 points, a second place ballot is worth 19 points, etc.  The consensus first place might not be the majority choice for first place, but that is not how these polls work.

In the Kentucky Derby or any pari-mutuel horse race, the first place pay-out is based on the number of people who selected that finisher for first place.  Unless the odds on a horse are lower than 1 to 1, they were not the first choice of the majority of bettors.  The race is not awarded to the consensus of the betting.  The race actually matters! 

Ranked choice voting is not uncommon.  It is how rankings with more than two selections are generally made.  The best restaurant is not the one that receives the most first place votes.  If a restaurant is everyone’s second place restaurant and people are divided on what is their first place restaurant, then that consensus second place is probably the best restaurant. Just because you didn’t want to lose, doesn’t mean that you couldn’t lose.