Sarah Palin's loss and ranked choice voting

 Poor Sarah Palin.  As it turns out, she shall not represent Alaska's at-large district in the House of Representatives.  On cue, the voices rise up from the ranks of the Republican Party that the voting system adopted by Alaska is unfair.  Let us consider.

Alaska recently adopted the ranked choice voting system, as opposed to the simple plurality rule, the jungle primary, or any of the other voting systems one might concoct.  If you were to ask me, "hey, fuck-o, what is the ideal voting system?"  My response would be, "that's Professor Fuck-o."  You may also address me as Dr. Fuck-o.  As the new school year starts, it is always fascinating to see how many incoming students think that one addresses a professor as "Mr./Mrs."  I mean, just plain "fuck-o" is fine.  But really.  A little respect.

But anyway, let's talk political science and fuckery, because there are those who are in the thinking that one is looking at those good systems that are the kinds of ways of voting in that good way that is and are ways that those good voters are wanting to vote 'cuz votin' is... goddamnit, I'm not doing that.  Get out of my head, Sarah!  This is not a guest post!

Right.  Let's right this ship.  Remember Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem, derived in Social Choice & Individual Values.  If you have a group of people with diverse preferences over any set of choices, there is no mathematically coherent way to aggregate their preferences.  Huh?  What the fuck does that mean?  Let's say there are three choices, A, B and C, and three voters, 1, 2 and 3.  Each voter ranks them from most favored to least favored in the following way.

1:  A, B, C

2:  B, C, A

3:  C, A, B

Here's the problem.  A majority prefers A to B.  A majority prefers B to C.  And... a majority prefers C to A.  Which makes zero fucking sense.  This kind of paradox is unavoidable when you have large groups and more than two options.  Implication?  Whatever outcome you get is entirely a function of the voting system you use, unless some rare and narrow conditions are met.  If I felt like a longer post, I'd explain Condorcet rules, but I have things to do.

Do I think highly of ranked choice voting?  Not especially.  Can it give you a different outcome from plurality rule?  Yup.  Does that make it better or worse than a primary-to-general sequence under plurality rule?  Nope.  Because they are all bullshit, mathematically speaking.

So quit whining and stop looking for a way around Arrow.  This has been a public service announcement by Professor Fuck-o.

Here's a live performance by Primus of "Professor Nutbutter's House of Treats."