Talk:Ranked-choice voting in the United States

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Bloated

This article has become bloated with unnecessary details about every push and pull concerning RCV in the US. Plus, the leading graphic is out date. As a part of updating the graphic I'm going to simplify most of the information presented into table format to make it more easily digested unless there is strong opinion otherwise. Jasavina (talk) 02:07, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

As a part of this simplification I can spin off daughter articles if people think retaining the details on Wikipedia is necessary, but a lot of this stuff just isn't adding to the quality of the article. Jasavina (talk) 02:12, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

My plan for reorganizing is as follows:

After the introduction, the following sections will be, Current Use, Attempts to Install In Progress, Rejected Attempts to Install, Repealed Use, Legal Challenges

Each section will have an overview paragraph or two–describing the typical circumstances for each topic–and then a table with the relevant information. The narrative details of each individual event will be dropped from the article. Jasavina (talk) 05:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

This sounds to me like a worthwhile effort, as long as you spin off narrative that you think is excessive into a few separate articles.

As long as the narrative is supported by relevant references, I'd hate to lose that material. To support this thought, I feel a need to make two other points:

• Since 2019-09-15 this article has averaged 242 views per day. Making the article more concise may attract a wider audience, but some of those visitors likely come looking for details that may be "bloat" for other readers. If those details are retained in separate articles, we could get the benefit of the concision you are volunteering to provide without losing details.
• The guidelines on Wikipedia:Article size suggests that over 8,000 words, "May need to be divided; likelihood goes up with size." Below 6,000 words, "Length alone does not justify division." Of course, that's only a guideline. This article currently has 7,627 words. That's above 6,000 but less than 8,000 words.

Thanks for volunteering to do this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 06:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy Yeah no problem, it's just the current state of the article reads like the author tried to include every detail they could possibly find. Most of my edits so far are just focused on improving the readability of the article without compromising on substance.

Because my overall plan is quite a major rearrangement of the information, I'm going to be staging all of it over on my user page. I'll continue to pop in here to do writing style improvements, but eventually (a month or more from now) I'll take the cleaned-up prose and fuse it with the tables and new sections.

My plan is to try and retain as much detail as possible. Hopefully I won't need to create any spin-off articles, but I will if it becomes clear that's a better way to organize the information. Jasavina (talk) 19:40, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

So, in trying to stage the reorganization of this page, I started a draft page with no intention of publishing it. That got deleted by an admin since they don't want people using draft pages that way. Is there any way to stage multiple changes to an article without implementing them? Is there a collaborative sandbox area that doesn't get written over constantly? There's no smooth way to transition the article to a new organization in little steps.

I'm sure Wikipedia is general against this kind of large scale change to an article, but the dang thing is just so poorly organized as-is. The information is very inaccessible and leaving it this way would be a shame. Jasavina (talk) 17:00, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

For now, I'm planning on just adding the section about bans and repeals, since doing so won't change the overall structure of the article much. Jasavina (talk) 17:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

What did you do that was reverted by an admin? Was this material in your own sandbox? If yes, how did it come to the attention of an admin?

And have you asked that admin what they suggest? You should not have to invent a goofy way to circumvent a strange rule like what I've understood from what you've said.

Beyond what I just said, there should be a way to do what you have suggested. A couple of thoughts come to mind:

1. Is (are) there some substantial portion(s) of this article that could be spun off into separate article(s) and replaced with ~a single line and a reference to the new article(s)?
2. Post a brief description / outline of the changes you'd like to see to this Talk page, make the changes in a word processor on your private computer, while posting them, e.g., to your sandbox to make sure you have the syntax correct but keep a master copy on your own computer. If an admin deletes it again, you won't have lost much. AND you can ask others on this Talk page for help in understanding the concerns of that admin. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy I didn't realize I could access my sandbox from the app, so I had created a draft page as a way to setup an alternate space I could work in from the app. after the admin deleted the draft page we chatted and figured things out and we're all set.

Right now my re-write plan has stalled as I've worked on other things, but I do plan on finishing it. I have the the plan briefly outlined here, but no major changes will be introduced to this page without a through discussion of my final sandbox rewrite. Jasavina (talk) 18:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I've lost the enthusiasm for cleaning up this page. I've updated the map, but man, trying to rework this information into digestible form is just not something I'm excited about anymore. Maybe I'll come back to it eventually. Jasavina (talk) 05:38, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be more succinct. I plan to work on this gradually, as time permits, over a long period of time. Thiesen (talk) 18:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I've got the motivation again.

That "Use at the Local level" Section is absurdly long and detailed and the information is better presented in a table anyway. I'm going to start reworking most of it down in to a table while preserving as much information as possible. Any notable information that doesn't fit in a table will be preserved in text. Jasavina (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not giving up, but even just tackling this one section has reminded me why I lost enthusiasm the first time. This article is a fucking mess. It really needs to have better temporal organization and there's way too many pointless details that mostly amount to "elections continued to happen according to schedule" but with a bunch of extra words. If I were trying to make it harder to extract useful information from the article, this is how I would write it. I might split out a "repealed" section when I'm done, because they're currently mixed in with active elections. Jasavina (talk) 04:21, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

God damn that was a bitch to clean up, and it's *still* a total mess. Jasavina (talk) 05:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Pros and Cons of RCV

Besides eliminating some of the bloat I think there should be a section which spells out the pros and cons of RCV made in debates over the introduction of RCV. This section should also include references to the academic literature on empirical evidence for the effects of RCV.Blaze Droste1977 13:59, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

In general this should probably be over at instant-runoff voting. –Sincerely, A Lime 06:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Template:Undisclosed paid

I see no reason for the use of the "Undisclosed paid" template here. The Wikipedia page for this template says that when the "Undisclosed paid" template is used, the "Connected contributor (paid)" template should be added to the article talk page. This has not been done. I will delete the "undisclosed paid" warning a week from today unless someone has explained by then why it was added. Thiesen (talk) 18:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

agreed - thanks Superb Owl (talk) 23:06, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I saw the COI discussion that lead to the template being added, so I've added the "Connected contributor (paid)" template that matches what the editor who added the "Undisclosed paid" template believed. I suspect that isn't quite the right way to do it because the CEO of a company isn't classified as a "paid editor" for that company, but I'll leave that for others to figure out. --Brilliand (talk) 03:04, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

thanks for noting - looks like there may be excessive FairVote citations. Have you spotted any issues with the content? Superb Owl (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Based on comments by others in a Discord server, I think the article as currently written makes an effort to report every example that would reflect positively on RCV, while avoiding mention of things that would reflect badly on RCV. Someone commented that the page at https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV) (another encyclopedic source) provides a more neutral coverage of the same general topic. --Brilliand (talk) 12:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Brilliand - I will take a look - at first glance this looks more like a list article and doesn't seem to get into the pros and cons of IRV/Ranked-choice voting Superb Owl (talk) 13:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

FairVote wants to give the impression that RCV has lots of momentum and isn't facing any serious obstacles. So this article has largely turned into a list of all the momentum RCV has... but it shouldn't be that; it should be something like what Ballotpedia has - an overview that describes all the various ways RCV is treated throughout the country, and gives context so the reader can tell how big a deal those are. --Brilliand (talk) 18:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

(It's in the "attracting investors" [by saying the company is doing well] category of company promotion, rather than the "attracting customers" [by saying the product is good] category of company promotion.) --Brilliand (talk) 18:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

See my other comment on the talk page but I'm going to reduce some wall of text into tables to make them more digestible, That will incidentally make it "less impressive." Jasavina (talk) 19:08, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of this idea - seems to be excessive detail and multiple sources should be needed to expound upon a particular election Superb Owl (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Checked up more on the article. It seems like there's a lot of suspicious IP edits from Silver Springs, Maryland (where the FairVote headquarters is located), all connected to FairVote initiatives. Here's an example. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:58, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves Well that was a big headache, and I still think a lot of the other sections need work, but do you guys think we should remove the undisclosed payments tag to that section, now that I've completely reworked it? Jasavina (talk) 05:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but given other sections are apparently affected, I’d put one at the top of the page. I think there’s probably bigger fish to fry than this article, though, which is just a list of places IRV has been adopted. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 15:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves, sorry I went ahead and removed it since I only noticed that one section but flagged some issues in some others, including when FairVote was cited Superb Owl (talk) 16:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I applaud the alert editors who noticed possible COI problems with this article, but is the "Undisclosed paid" template accurate? I haven't seen any evidence that anybody was paid for contributing to this article. It appears that RRichie has been paid by FairVote, but was he paid for editing this article? And is there a COI? "Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships." I don't think the situation here matches anything listed in the previous sentence. I see RRitchie as a subject matter expert who has a strong opinion on the subject but whose edits generally reflect a neutral POV. I remain in favor of removing the "Undisclosed paid" template. What do other editors think? Thiesen (talk) 04:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

FairVote was his employer but I am in favor of removing the template unless someone can point to specific problematic edits, and even then, I much prefer a section flag or an in-line flag to clean those up than to also flag the other 94% of the article he hasn't touched (he only authored 6% of the current version)

Here are some of the major edits he made: https://xtools.wmcloud.org/topedits/en.wikipedia.org/RRichie/0/Ranked-choice%20voting%20in%20the%20United%20States Superb Owl (talk) 05:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

RRichie was employed not just at FairVote, but as a lobbyist and campaign advisor on many of these ranked-choice ballot initiatives. In other words, this page is effectively free advertising for him ("look at how successful all of my campaigns have been!"), which covers why this is a substantial COI.

More importantly, RRichie was not the only paid contributor here. After checking the IP edits, a large chunk of them come from FairVote's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. (Although I'm not sure how substantial these edits are when put together.) A single person working on their own time might be able to make an argument about being a "subject matter expert". However, given there are many contributions, coming from many different IPs and accounts, coming from the FairVote headquarters during working hours, I think it's clear this was a flagrant and intentional violation of Wikipedia's policies on paid editing, likely involving multiple employees making edits on paid company time. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 18:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Can you list the IP addresses here so we can see if they still show up in the authorship statistics? There doesn't appear to be significant authorship by any IP addresses Superb Owl (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. You have convinced me that there apparently was some paid editing. Like Superb Owl, I would like to know if the posts appearing to come from FairVote, aggregated together, represent major contributions to this article. Thiesen (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Jasavina,

I see that this article is much improved compared to a month ago. I haven't looked in detail to see what changes were made, but just looking at byte counts, you have done more than anybody else to remove excessive verbiage. Thank you. Thiesen (talk) 21:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

@Thiesen No problem. I keep coming back to see what else my brain thinks could be consolidated, but a lot of the stuff that's still prose-heavy is narrative on legal battles, which I think are relevant. The section headers don't indicate that this would be a good fraction of the text, so it still *feels* like padding, but I haven't come up with a good way to make it feel more... on-topic. Jasavina (talk) 22:26, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Can we please remove this tag? IP address geolocation is incredibly unreliable and not remotely a cause for placing a very prominent warning at the top of the article indicating its contents may be untrustworthy. This is an incredibly controversial subject in US politics and the implication that RCV enriches any particular article contributor serves to deeply undermine public trust in the subject. It's also notable that this tag was added months before a US presidential election, indicating that the template may have been added as an attempt to influence Wikipedia readers on a pressing political subject.

There is absolutely no explanation linked for the tag, which I think alone is enough to justify its removal until somebody wants to add it back with a link to a well-reasoned talk section that they're accountable for justifying. I think this is a potential case of political influence to dissuade the public against a controversial subject by misusing Wikipedia article templates, which are supposed to be used in a trustworthy manner and an accountable way. This tag does not appear to have been used in that way.

Given that the template does not link to a talk section, I will be removing it immediately. Someone else can feel free to add it back if they're willing to undergo the accountability of linking to a well-reasoned talk section in the tag when they add it back, instead of providing a bizarre tag without any context or accountability. Lcdrovers (talk) 04:48, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

100% agree - thanks for removing Superb Owl (talk) 07:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@Closed Limelike Curves, can you explain re-adding this template? There are no longer any remaining significant edits by IP addresses from Silver Springs Maryland (only 1 at 0.3% authorship) looking at this and seem to be no outstanding issues with the content. I see no reason to keep this flag up if there is nothing to fix Superb Owl (talk) 23:24, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Looking at xtools, there seems to be a huge chunk of text written by "others", which I believe is mostly IPs (which change a lot). This means the edits aren't grouped together as a single author in the statistics. However, I'm happy to remove it if we can verify that IPs from MD+DC aren't a substantial part of the remaining text. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:42, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

IP geolocation is, on its own, imperfectly reliable (it can sometimes mix up nearby cities). However, combined with several other strands of evidence, this is more than enough to establish a pattern of paid editing by an organization, particularly given

1. Editing by accounts clearly associated with FairVote, e.g. @RRichie
2. Similar COI edits by the closely-related RepresentUs organization that have already been established
3. Editing by large numbers of IP addresses located in the small suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland (not just one or two), and many others in the D.C. metro area
4. Self-admitted FairVote staff commenting on talk pages as soon as we flagged these issues, suggesting they watch these articles. None of them have disputed any of the evidence presented so far.

Please do not remove the tag without first building consensus on this talk page. So far, I count 4 editors supporting addition vs. 2 opposed.

It's also notable that this tag was added months before a US presidential election, indicating that the template may have been added as an attempt to influence Wikipedia readers on a pressing political subject.

Correct. The tag was added several months before the Presidential election (April, I think?), long before most people were paying attention to the race. The tag is also on a topic completely unrelated to the US presidential election (IRV is not exactly a hot-button issue in this race). Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for expanding on that and trying to help us understand where you are coming from for those of us who have not been around for all of this.

I still do not think the tag is merited if there are no issues with the content, because at that point, what does it accomplish if there is nothing to improve? If there is something to improve in the text that we can change, I will help to fix it. Superb Owl (talk) 23:51, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I think your suggestion (tagging individual sections) is reasonable, now that most of the paid content has been removed from the article—the leftover contributions are minor after Jasavina's edits. Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:57, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Ranked-choice or instant-runoff

Should articles in American English refer to the alternative vote as "instant-runoff" or "ranked-choice voting" in their titles? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Note: discussion was moved from instant-runoff voting after apparent off-site canvasing. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 05:05, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

For instant-runoff: The term "ranked-choice voting" is a misnomer, as many different voting rules involve voters making choices on ranked ballots. Although instant-runoff voting is by far the most popular ranked voting rule, calling it "ranked-choice voting" can result in confusion with other kinds of ordinal voting rules. Moreover, instant-runoff could in theory be implemented with other kinds of ballots, like rated ballots. The term IRV was promoted by FairVote through 2014, and is still sometimes used by some academics, so it does not violate WP:COMMONNAME.

For ranked-choice: While the term RCV can be misinterpreted, a misnomer can become standardized as the correct meaning for a term through extensive use, even if we personally dislike it. People who search "ranked-choice voting" are probably trying to learn about RCV specifically, not ordinal voting rules. The term "ranked-choice" has been defined as a synonym for AV by many reliable sources, including academics and experts, legal codes and media sources; Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires us to follow their lead. The first 20 results (two pages) of a Google scholar search for "ranked-choice voting" show all 20 defining it as synonymous with instant-runoff, and the laws of many states and cities both in the United States and Canada explicitly define the term "ranked-choice" to mean IRV. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Instant-runoff

Support/Neutral/Oppose. Reasoning. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Support - Tentatively support this change only if a separate article is made for Single Transferable Vote. I suspect that this RFC was made so that it could be used to justify changing the name of the main Instant run-off article, which the creator of this RFC just had their article change reverted earlier today. I would also be fine if the name was changed to Single Transferable Vote if the article specified the difference between the single winner versions (which is just instant runoff) and the usual multiwinner proportional version. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 20:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. Per Closed Limelike Curves' nomination and per Myceteae's comment that this is the wrong question. Calling it IRV rather than STV should require more association with the US than the article being written in US English. McYeee (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Maintain status quo. My rationale is detailed elsewhere in this RfC. Briefly, there is sufficient evidence presented here and in the other related articles and their talk pages that IRV, RCV, STV, and other terms have distinct uses and meanings. This article and instant-runoff voting should retain their current titles and the articles themselves should continue to describe alternative terminology and point to related articles where appropriate. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 21:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Ranked-choice voting

Support/Neutral/Oppose. Reasoning. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Support ranked-choice voting. The article about the method as used in the United State should reflect United States usage. As nicely outlined here, this is the common usage here and is the terminology used in several state voting laws. I am sympathetic to the desire to align usage with specialist sources and related articles but alignment with US English takes precedent here. WP:COMMONNAME states Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. The example given is heart attack, which is not only inaccurate as a medical term, but is also ambiguous because heart attack can refer to more than one medical event. That does not apply here; Ranked-choice voting in the United States is unambiguous and reflects not only common usage but also academic and official (legal) usage. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 15:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, specialist/academic sources do appear to also use "ranked-choice voting" to describe this method in the US. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 15:50, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose using RCV in other articles and Support maintaining the title of this article. My reasoning is essentially the same as stated above and further clarified in the discussion beginning here. I see this not as a question of WP:ENVAR and not of mandating use of RCV across all articles. However, consistent with WP:TITLEVAR, this article should retain the title Ranked-choice voting in the United States while other articles should use IRV or whichever more precise or more international terminology is deemed appropriate.MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 07:42, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. I don't think this is WP:ENVAR. Being written in US English is insufficient. McYeee (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment. I'd say this should match the IRV/RCV article, which is currently at Instant-runoff voting. If most states refer to it as ranked-choice, this can be mentioned in the lede, with a redirect from the other title. I can see the argument being made, though, that if most states refer to it as RCV, that should be the title for this article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

This is a completely different article from the IRV article. In the IRV article, the subject matter is entirely about instant-runoff voting, whereas in this article, there is substantial information about the adoption of other ranked choice voting methods, such as the proportional representation by the single transferable vote and an example of the supplementary vote. Right now that information still fits the article because they fall under rank choice voting, but that would not be the case if it were changed to just instant run-off voting. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed they should match—I'm basically raising this to settle which way we should make them match. (I created this RfC because the other discussion got a bit chaotic/messy. Someone informed me on Discord that it's been subjected to substantial canvassing.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, how about NOT messing with other editor's comments, ok? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Got it, sorry. I was under the impression that striking off-site canvasing was normal, since I saw it on a different RfC. (Is it that only admins can/should do that? Or was the person who did it also violating this rule, and I misunderstood in thinking it was acceptable?) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 20:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Ideally, I would want this article to be called "Ranked voting in the United States" (note the lack of the word choice) The section Ranked-choice voting in the United States#Absentee use seems relevant, but it does not technically fit under IRV or STV. Throughout the article, I would suggest we say IRV when referring to IRV, and use the phrase ranked voting to absentee use as well as any other non-IRV ranked voting as well as in cases where we want to talk about both IRV and non-STV ranked voting. I think ranked voting refers unambiguously a broader category of voting rules than just STV. I don't have any opinion on this for the article, but [Stricken because I've changed my mind McYeee (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)] When I say STV on this talk page, I mean a family of systems that includes IRV. I don't think this is a WP:ENVAR question. We should match the articles Instant runoff voting and Ranked voting. Are there any articles in American English that are clearly about IRV? What other articles in American English refer to IRV as RCV? McYeee (talk) 21:32, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I generally agree with you, I'll try to make some edits in this article to clarify which method is being referred to when it is clearly only referring to one type. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 22:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. This issue was considered in a 2019 RM. I believe it remains the case that in the U.S., especially where it has been enacted, is almost exclusively referred to as RCV and IRV,not IRV. I would oppose a change in name for the U.S. article unless there is evidence that this is no longer true. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Maine, for example, uses "ranked choice", not "instant runoff". SarekOfVulcan (talk) 23:34, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Are US sources consistent in whether RCV means IRV or ranked voting more generally? When discussing absentee ballots, we have to distinguish the two. McYeee (talk) 00:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  They seem to be very consistent in using it to mean AV. A couple say something like "Well, literally it means ranked voting, but everyone uses it to mean AV." When I Google the term, the top hits for me in order are:

  • FairVote defines ranked-choice voting as a synonym for IRV. (IRV was FairVote's preferred neologism back in 2005, when the IRV article was first written by some FairVote enthusiasts.
  • This source defines RCV by describing IRV.
  • Ballotpedia waffles on the question. (However, it's generally not a WP:RS because it includes user-generated content; I think this might be citogenesis, as earlier versions of Wikipedia redirected RCV to ranked voting.)
  • Alameda county registrar of voters explicitly states RCV is a synonym for IRV.
  • This source uses it to mean IRV.

  Academic sources generally agree:

  • MIT defines "RCV" as consisting of "instant-runoff voting (IRV) and single-transferrable vote (STV)".
  • Taking the first page of search results for "Ranked-choice voting" on Google Scholar as representative—

  1. Here it's defined as "alternative vote, single transferable vote, block-preferential voting, the bottoms-up system, and alternative vote with numbered posts"
  2. It is not explicitly defined here, but the reference to "overvotes" implies they mean IRV, because other ranked rules generally don't have trouble with handling overvotes.
  3. Defined as instant-runoff here.
  4. No definition here. Goes on to talk about the Maine and Alaska systems without ever referring to any other ranked systems.
  5. Explicitly defined as instant-runoff voting here.
  6. Defined as instant-runoff here.
  7. Defined as instant-runoff here.
  8. Defined as instant-runoff here.
  9. Defined as instant-runoff here.

  – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 01:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  (This is before going into the fact political reporting universally uses it as a synonym for IRV, or how about 70 different laws explicitly define RCV to mean IRV, while 0 of them refer to IRV except as a synonym for RCV. I get it's an unfortunate name, but it's still very clearly the common name used in reliable sources.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 05:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you! McYeee (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the name "Ranked voting in the United States" on an article exclusively discussing RCV is much more likely to reinforce the misconception that RCV=all ranked voting. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 05:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Is strikes me that this may be the wrong question: Should articles in American English refer to the alternative vote as "instant-runoff" or "ranked-choice voting" in their titles? This article is specifically about RCV in the United States. It uses the term as it is widely used in the United States—by lay people, in the news, by academics, by critics and advocates of the system, and in the law. It points out that RCV is used broadly and even inconsistently in the United States to describe at least two distinct alternative voting methods and points to articles that describe those. The instant-runoff voting article points to articles for related/often confused terms and describes regional/national differences in usage. I'm having trouble seeing the problem with the status quo. It seems appropriate for this article to retain its name while other articles written (primarily) in US English use more precise terminology to describe more narrowly defined voting methods. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 20:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems like US-English but using IRV rather than STV is a real compromise style like UK english with -ize rather than -ise. My only objection here is that I'm not convinced that the topic of this article is actually RCV because it covers the methods used in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2020 and for absentees in some TRS elections. Since Closed Limelike Curves has provided sources upthread that RCV refers only to IRV, the current title seems misleading. Calling it RCV instead of IRV also seems vaguely like using US units rather than metric units, something we also don't tie to WP:ENVAR. I think when this RfC is closed, the result should be no change. McYeee (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we might be saying the same thing, or at least reaching the same ultimate conclusion. If by no change you mean keep the current name of this article and keep the IRV and STV articles with their current names and usage then I agree. Even if the IRV article is written in US English, it should be titled IRV and should use that terminology throughout, with appropriate reference to alternative usage in the opening paragraphs. We should not use RCV and IRV interchangeably in most articles but this article, which is exclusively about the US, should be titled with and should use RCT throughout while appropriately highlighting the discrepancy with more precise usage and pointing to other articles. I agree usage across multiple articles is not really a question of WP:ENVAR in this case. I will amend my !vote above. I have not read each of Closed Limelike Curves's references completely but my takeaway is that they either use RCV=IRV or in some cases they make reference to the fact that RCV in the US is typically used to describe IRV or another voting method. For example, Ballotpedia, which Closed Limelike Curves says waffles on the question says this in the lead of its RCV article: A ranked-choice voting system (RCV) is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. There are multiple forms of ranked-choice voting. This page focuses on the most commonly used form of RCV, sometimes called instant-runoff voting (IRV), and provides some supplemental information on other forms of this electoral system. The article goes on to mostly describe IRV and then lists other systems. This article, and the others referenced, reflect usage in the US and are applicable to the question of what to title this article but not what should be used on other articles. MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 07:36, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything you said in this comment. Earlier I was waffling about something which made my position unclear, but we have come to the same conclusion. McYeee (talk) 09:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems like US-English but using IRV rather than STV is a real compromise style like UK english with -ize rather than -ise.

I don't think that's it—IRV is an exclusively American name as well, if not moreso. In countries outside the U.S., "ranked choice voting" is a much more common search term than "instant runoff voting" (by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1 according to Google Trends). It's also much less similar to other countries' names: in Australia, the rule is called "preferential voting" (because you provide a full preference order); in the UK/NZ/Ireland it's called "alternative voting" because you rank multiple alternatives; and in Canada it's called ranked-choice voting, just like in the United States. So every country uses some term closer to RCV than to IRV. IRV is the outlier in terms of naming, since it's a neologism coined by an American advocacy group (the Center for Voting and Democracy) back in 1997.

There's two reasons why IRV is used for the other Wikipedia article:

1. The historical reason is the instant-runoff voting article was one of the first articles to be created on Wikipedia, by a group of American electoral reform activists. RCV only gained popularity after 2005, when the San Francisco registrar of voters rejected the name IRV (they thought it might confuse people into expecting the results "instantly" after polls closed).
2. There's lots of people who dislike the term "ranked-choice voting", even though it's the common name, because it's a misnomer implying that the distinguishing feature of the rule is ranking (used by many other voting rules). (That's a big deal for the kinds of people who edit Wikipedia articles on voting rules, and typically have strong opinions on them. Often this involves accusing IRV activists of intentionally trying to conflate the two ... which is why within 24 hours of moving it, I had a Reddit mob storming that article. :p)

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:07, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you have any sources on the history of the change in terminology? I had assumed that the desire for conflation was an important factor as the change started happening, but It seems like you're saying it was never a factor. McYeee (talk) 04:12, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't say for certain what their motivations were or weren't, and I'd be speculating if I did. However, it does seem like "ranked-choice voting" was not initially the preferred term for most of these groups, who instead wanted the term "instant-runoff voting". Prior to 2001ish, the term "preferential voting" (borrowed from Australians) was most popular in the United States. From Electowiki:

Prior to FairVote's work, the single-winner version of single transferable vote was primarily used outside of the United States (e.g. in Australia), and was known in Australia as "preferential voting". In commentary published in the New York Times in 1992, John Anderson referred to the single-winner system as "majority preferential voting". In 1993, the Center for Voting and Democracy (now known as "FairVote") published their first annual report. In that report, they referred to the system as "preference voting", which included the following caveat: A Note on Terminology: Reflecting the range of contributors, this report has some inconsistencies in terminology to describe different voting systems. In addition, what many call the "single transferable vote" here is termed "preference voting" in order to focus on the voting process rather than the ballot count. In 1997, FairVote began referring to preferential voting as "Instant Runoff voting". However, the city of San Francisco preferred the term "ranked-choice voting", which was used as early as 1999. By 2004, San Francisco was careful to explain that the method codified as "ranked choice voting" was the same as "instant runoff voting. Because organizations in Arizona borrowed San Francisco's language, many used "ranked choice" as the preferred wording, which FairVote accommodated as early as 2006. FairVote didn't appear to publicly deprecate the term "instant runoff voting" until 2013, but now appears to prefer "ranked choice voting" to describe the method.

– Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 21:13, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I keep reaching the same conclusion, in defense of maintaining the status quo. My understanding is:

• There is substantial variation in the terminology English speaking jurisdictions use to describe certain voting systems.
• RCV and IRV are both used in the US (and perhaps Canada) more than in other English speaking countries.
• RCV is by far the more common term in the US. It usually means IRV but can also refer to other voting systems, like SVT. The term is somewhat ambiguous, as it can mean IRV, some other specific system, or a family of systems.
• IRV, while less common in US English, is more precise. In US English, it is less ambiguous when specifying a particular system that is distinct from other systems which also fall under the RCV umbrella in the US. It has many synonyms in other jurisdictions.

Uniformity among article titles and content is generally desirable but sometimes other considerations predominate. It makes sense for this article and instant-runoff voting to have different titles, given the focus and content of each article. Usage in other articles will depend on context. Passing reference in articles written in US English should probably default to RCV but there will be times when more precise or technical usage is appropriate.

I follow US politics closely and am familiar with the term RCV as used here. I had heard of IRV but was not familiar with the the technical description. I was not aware of the ambiguity of RCV as used in the US nor was I familiar with the international synonyms. I find the description, definitions, and links to other articles provided in this article and instant-runoff voting quite helpful. -- MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫— talk 18:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm becoming less and less sure that the term IRV is more precise. The system in Georgia is confusingly named IRV, for example. That said, it seems like all our options are bad, and I still agree with you that we shouldn't change anything. McYeee (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's correct—all of these terms (RCV, IRV, STV...) are so overloaded that no matter what we use, they're going to be at least a little ambiguous. (A few weeks ago someone used "IRV" to describe Baldwin's method and it's going to put me on suicide watch.)

So I think the dilemma that's posed here is just "Should we use IRV because it's more 'correct', or should we use RCV because it's more 'helpful' when searching?" I lean towards the latter, especially because we can keep using the term IRV in the body. For me, the main point of a title is to let people who want to know more about a topic find an article, since searches are pretty much the only time you interact with them; and chances are that if you're searching for "ranked-choice voting", the article most relevant to you is the one over at instant-runoff voting. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:11, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

My only objection here is that I'm not convinced that the topic of this article is actually RCV because it covers the methods used in the Democratic presidential primaries in 2020 and for absentees in some TRS elections.

Ironically, I think these are included purely because the governments of Georgia et al. call them "instant-runoff voting", which is another thorn for us—some people use IRV to mean a two-round system conducted by ranked ballots (i.e. runoff voting conducted instantly). This would suggest replacing the name here with instant-runoff voting. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 23:30, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Georgia really calls that IRV. [1] That's confusing. I'm not sure where that leaves us.

Arguably, the reason that content should be there is that this article is really about ordinal voting systems in the United States, which is what I would want to call it if the term were widely used. If Houston decides to elect Mayor using beatpath, this would be the article to talk about it. This doesn't change much about this discussion; I'm just pointing out that the content belongs there. McYeee (talk) 04:07, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's the case—the only rule discussed extensively here is RCV/IRV. The page was previously named "Instant-runoff voting in the United States". I also don't see any discussion of the several other ranked voting rules used in the country, most notably Nanson (in Marquette, Michigan) or Bucklin voting (which has an extensive history in U.S. politics).

(On a less practically-relevant note, FPP is technically an ordinal voting rule where only the first rank matters.) – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 17:56, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Maybe I should add something about that to the history section. Someone skimming this article right now might walk away with the idea that the only systems used are FPTP, primaries, RCV, and "supplementary voting" (Which may or may not be a kind of RCV). McYeee (talk) 19:23, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I also just realized I'd completely forgotten—in addition to all these, I've heard "IRV" used to describe the multi-winner variants of the rule before, particularly block IRV or "bottoms-up" (semi-proportional) IRV.

I think all of this becomes a lot less confusing when you remember most people don't care about enforcing a perfect one-to-one correspondence between words and concepts; all they care about is being understood. Sometimes people use "RCV" or "plurality" to mean specifically the single-winner variant, but some others also use it to mean proportional RCV or block plurality. Still others mean bottoms-up (semi-proportional IRV). So what really matters to me is, if someone starts typing the words "ranked-choice voting" into Wikipedia's search bar, which article is going to be most helpful for them? I think that one should be the article titled RCV. – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 19:11, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

• Invited by the bot. The headings kind of make a mess, seemingly requiring two responses. so I'm responding here. Leave as is. RCV and IRV are both terms and topics and articles, albeit with overlap. Each needs to be covered. There's no reason to go away from that by renaming one to match the other. North8000 (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

  RCV and IRV are both terms and topics and articles, albeit with overlap. Each needs to be covered.

  I'm a bit confused as to what you mean here. This article is about the history of IRV/RCV in the United States specifically, not about RCV in general. The main question is whether we should change either instant-runoff voting or ranked-choice voting in the United States to establish consistency. I will TL;DR the discussion above.

  • RCV and IRV are both American-specific names, with IRV being an older name that is no longer used outside of technical literature. RCV is more like the names used elsewhere ("Preferential voting" in Australia and "Alternative vote" in the UK, because they involve marking several preferences or alternatives).
  • RCV and IRV are overwhelmingly defined as synonyms in WP:RSs, like I outlined above.
  • The argument for using RCV consistently is WP:COMMONNAME, and that using IRV doesn't do much except make it hard for Americans to find the article. (e.g. the instant-runoff page doesn't appear on Google's search results for ranked-choice voting at all).
  • Some editors argue for using IRV consistently because RCV is a misnomer (name suggests it's the only ranked system, which annoys the hell out of me too).
  • IMO the strongest argument for keeping both is if we wanted to use "RCV", but didn't want to create a huge s#$%show of people storming the talk page from r/EndFPTP (like last time I proposed this name change). :p

  – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 00:44, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Even if that is what most of the focus is on, this article is not just about instant runoff, though. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 12:57, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah I would summarize the discussion differently than CLC did. This article is about a variety of systems that are labeled RCV in the US context. Mainly IRV but not exclusively. The title is not technically precise but reflects common and official usage. The IRV article covers one specific voting system that also goes by many other names. There are valid concerns about both titles and neither is perfect but the content of each article is distinct and there are sufficient differences between the terms and article content to warrant the current titles of each. Also, there was a robust discussion at IRV. I understand there were concerns about off-site canvassing there but consensus here was to maintain both titles based on the arguments discussed. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 05:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

  As I mentioned above, this article exclusively discusses instant-runoff and its variants (predominantly multi-winner variants). There's no discussion of any other ranked voting rules like Bucklin or Nanson, despite long histories of use in the US. It also strikes me as a very weirdly-delineated topic—why would this article be only about ranked voting rules and not any rated voting rules? – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 02:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Are/were these systems commonly labeled “ranked choice voting” when used in the US? Genuine question from someone unfamiliar with these. If so, they could be discussed in the article. If they aren’t typically bundled under “RCV” in the US but are still relevant, perhaps that discussion is relevant. The title must reflect common usage and the content of the article (among myriad other considerations). If the content is inadequate or incomplete, that should be addressed separately. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 03:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  The literal words "ranked-choice voting", taken together, mean ranked voting, so using them to mean RCV/IRV specifically is an unfortunate misnomer. Some people still insist on using these words to mean "ranked voting" (which would include Bucklin, Nanson, and any other ranked voting rules in the US). However, the overwhelming majority of sources defining the word "RCV" use it to mean IRV. I've never heard anyone refer to non-IRV rules as "ranked-choice voting". – Closed Limelike Curves (talk) 16:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I've never heard anyone refer to non-IRV rules as "ranked-choice voting".

  Here's an example that I was able to find w/in a few minutes:

  https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1452&context=unh_lr

  The author calls it Total Vote Runoff, but its essentially Baldwin's method, which on here is combined with Nanson's. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 17:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I wouldn't be opposed if you started working on an article on the use of rated voting rules in the US. I don't see why Wikipedia not currently having an article on that would have any bearing on this already existing article. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 16:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Also, I wouldn't mind adding in examples of Bucklin or Nanson to this article either. So, I don't really see the issue there. 180 Degree Open Angedre (talk) 16:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Just coming into this discussion fresh based on the RfC, and my initial impressions after a review of the article and a review of the discussions, is that RFV is WP:COMMONNAME although it is misleading as a term. Although it isn't WP's fault, not responsibility, to correct the commonname in this situation. Both independent sources and even when looking at the article itself, RFC is used far more times than any other term both in the content, as well as the cited references. This is what most people will be looking for. Now to what degree does the article need to help people navigate between the term that everyone is using, and the actually implementation is a different discussion. This is made somewhat complex by the fact that multiple US stated have drafted or passed laws that implement this differently, between IRV, STV and actual RCV. It is also somewhat complicated because it appears that there has been a history of COI editors who had (and perhaps still are) pushing their specific political agenda of what RCV is or how they want it to appear to look. And while I have not looked into how other English speaking countries have implemented similar concepts, it might be a good idea to specifically call this our as a US Voting Method, or something like that in in the lead and/or hatnote --- simply to be abundantly clear, even though even a cursory look at the content makes it fairly obvious that this is the USA implementation of this. TiggerJay (talk) 06:26, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

References

Need help: Formatting not displaying correctly: Michigan and Minnesota

Hi folks, I just made 2 edits to this article, one of which was to move the Michigan section before the Minnesota section to put it in the right alphabetical order -- EXCEPT that formatting isn't working and the Michigan table now shows up under the Minnesota header, despite my several attempts to check the all of the code. I'm not seeing why this is happening and hoping someone else's eyes can find the problem. Jcorvidae (talk) 14:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)