I’m also a fan of 3-2-1 voting, and I think it has another strong advantage—it’s the one I could most easily see explaining to my friends across the political spectrum, having them understand how it works and its potential advantages quickly, and leave thinking it might be worth a shot and maybe even discussing it with their friends. Some anecdata: I live in a state where ranked choice voting failed to pass in the recent election. A few years ago, before anyone knew ranked choice would even be on the ballot, I tried to explain how it worked, and was met with a few types of dismissals: many thought it was too complicated and couldn’t follow along*, while one friend’s reply was “no, in an election you should just get one vote, and that’s that”. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, or if it was even his true rejection, but it was an interesting response.
But with 3-2-1, I feel like I could explain it to the same people and many would immediately get it and have a positive impression of it and actually remember it again later. Why? Because now I can point out how the candidate on the other side who they can’t stand is gonna get knocked out in round 2. Like, not even in the finals… in round 2! Because obviously way more people hate that other party than my party, and then we just have knock off some Libertarian or whoever, and we’ll win every time! And even once they realize a different pool of candidates might emerge and change the dynamic, at least that terrible candidate who they’re thinking about right now would never win.
Plus, the name itself is very memorable, underscores its simplicity, and is very chantable (for better or worse—I feel somewhat uncomfortable pointing this out, but it seems relevant to a discussion about political systems).
*to be clear, these are smart, reasonable people who would easily understand the concept given enough time. it felt like they were trying to play out elections in their head, realized it was taking too long to figure out during a normal conversation span (understandably), so just figured “forget it” and changed the subject.
I’m also a fan of 3-2-1 voting, and I think it has another strong advantage—it’s the one I could most easily see explaining to my friends across the political spectrum, having them understand how it works and its potential advantages quickly, and leave thinking it might be worth a shot and maybe even discussing it with their friends. Some anecdata: I live in a state where ranked choice voting failed to pass in the recent election. A few years ago, before anyone knew ranked choice would even be on the ballot, I tried to explain how it worked, and was met with a few types of dismissals: many thought it was too complicated and couldn’t follow along*, while one friend’s reply was “no, in an election you should just get one vote, and that’s that”. I’m not sure exactly what he meant by that, or if it was even his true rejection, but it was an interesting response.
But with 3-2-1, I feel like I could explain it to the same people and many would immediately get it and have a positive impression of it and actually remember it again later. Why? Because now I can point out how the candidate on the other side who they can’t stand is gonna get knocked out in round 2. Like, not even in the finals… in round 2! Because obviously way more people hate that other party than my party, and then we just have knock off some Libertarian or whoever, and we’ll win every time! And even once they realize a different pool of candidates might emerge and change the dynamic, at least that terrible candidate who they’re thinking about right now would never win.
Plus, the name itself is very memorable, underscores its simplicity, and is very chantable (for better or worse—I feel somewhat uncomfortable pointing this out, but it seems relevant to a discussion about political systems).
*to be clear, these are smart, reasonable people who would easily understand the concept given enough time. it felt like they were trying to play out elections in their head, realized it was taking too long to figure out during a normal conversation span (understandably), so just figured “forget it” and changed the subject.