How to improve presidential elections in four steps
3. Implement instant runoff voting (voting preferences)
Instant runoff voting (or IRV) is the only realistic way to break (or at least challenge) the two-party lock. With IRV, you don’t cast just one vote for president: you list candidates in order of preference. For example, I might have voted “1: Johnson, 2: Obama”. Votes are counted by first running the numbers with everyone’s first preference. If there is no candidate with a majority (more than 50%), the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated, and everyone who voted for that candidate gets moved to their next choice. Then this process is repeated until there is one candidate with a majority. What is fantastic about this is that voting third-party no longer helps out a major party candidate you don’t agree with, because you can specify which major candidate you’d prefer in the case that your third-party candidate doesn’t win. No more Nader or Perot spoiler effect! Because there would be no more spoiler effect, people would be much more willing to support third party candidates. With sufficient levels of support, these candidates could not be ignored by the televised debates. Their viewpoints would be represented, and the major party candidates challenged on the issues that they ignore because both parties are in lockstep. We could have real, substantive debates instead of a bunch of superficial tweaking on taxes, spending, abortion, how much each candidate loves the military and supports a certain middle eastern religious conflict theme park.
Blowback
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The constitution be darned.
Welcome to Europe.
Schadenfreude on November 11, 2012 at 5:15 PM
I don’t think the word “improve” means what you think it means.
Difficultas_Est_Imperium on November 11, 2012 at 5:16 PM
Too much manipulation to be useful.
It would be Operation Chaos all the time.
portlandon on November 11, 2012 at 5:17 PM
These days it`s just a one step process.
Step 1: Pass out money.
ThePrez on November 11, 2012 at 5:17 PM
IRV is a fantastic idea
commodore on November 11, 2012 at 5:17 PM
In today’s high speed elections (compared to long ago) one county, one electoral vote, enough with the the blue state red state crap.
Speakup on November 11, 2012 at 5:19 PM
Do away with the secret service detail when they leave office. That might at least give them pause.
MikeA on November 11, 2012 at 5:19 PM
Um, you’d have gone from Libertarian to the biggest nanny-stater ever?
rbj on November 11, 2012 at 5:23 PM
How’s this for starters? Stop having every debate monitored by pop-news stars and ideological hacks working in unison with a Journolist agenda. If you are a regular on any “news shows”, or have been a regular, on television, radio or are a popular word scribbler, you’re disqualified.
Mimzey on November 11, 2012 at 5:26 PM
That makes it even more unfair than it is now, some counties are thousands of times larger than others.
jonknee on November 11, 2012 at 5:27 PM
Winner of the state gets 2 votes?
The rest are by the winner of the Congressional district?
amazingmets on November 11, 2012 at 5:29 PM
Thinking there will be future elections is naive.
davidk on November 11, 2012 at 5:32 PM
What provision of the US Constitution do you think IRV violates?
JohnGalt23 on November 11, 2012 at 5:32 PM
Actually this is interesting. Is there anything in the Constitution that prevents states from using an IRV system?
commodore on November 11, 2012 at 5:38 PM
IRV also makes a ton of sense for the primaries.
commodore on November 11, 2012 at 5:39 PM
JohnGalt23, I meant this
2. Switch to a national popular vote
You have no idea how intelligent the founders were when they decided that the masses are bunch of dummies. It’s why they decided against a democracy. The USA is a constitutional republic, or was one, anyway, for so long.
Heh, on last week.
Yes, the system is a mess, but this would only make it a European mess, in addition to the European ideology which has befallen the once good ol’ country.
Schadenfreude on November 11, 2012 at 5:39 PM
Impartial. Probably an improvement.
Nope. That would be even worse.
I like this.
I like this too. Pretty easy to implement.
lester on November 11, 2012 at 5:40 PM
JohnGalt, I should have left out the “you have no idea”, because you certainly do. Not meant in a bad way, but cross off, pls.
Schadenfreude on November 11, 2012 at 5:41 PM
Let Simon Cowell run the election.
That’s pretty much what we’ve got anyway … an American Idol president.
Rod on November 11, 2012 at 5:43 PM
Wouldn’t it be easier to crown a king and be done with it?
darwin on November 11, 2012 at 5:45 PM
Not as far as I know.
JohnGalt23 on November 11, 2012 at 5:46 PM
All voting systems, in one way or another are unfair.
Free Constitution on November 11, 2012 at 5:47 PM
Premising a national popular vote on sympathy for NY, LA, and Chicago is just laughable. The great leap to national baseline standards is also amusing.
theperfecteconomist on November 11, 2012 at 5:47 PM
Lie back and think of
EnglandAmeriKa.Schadenfreude on November 11, 2012 at 5:59 PM
NO!
NPV makes it even easier to steal a presidential election. The reason that democratics couldn’t steal the House is that so much of the election apparatus for House seats are outside of the corrupt democratic-run inner cities.
slickwillie2001 on November 11, 2012 at 6:03 PM
So apparently there is someone even more arrogant than the man just reelected president.
radjah shelduck on November 11, 2012 at 6:04 PM
You aren’t catching on, San Francisco has one vote and Alturas county has one vote.
A county with 10 million has no more influence than a county with 100k. Which is as it should be, tyranny denied.
Speakup on November 11, 2012 at 6:56 PM
Which makes you a Liberaltarian, defined as a liberal partisan Democrat who favors the Libertarian position on legalization of drugs. True Libertarians would have ordered this 1: Johnson, 2: Romney, … 43: Obama.
But as my daughter is learning in the belly of the D.C. libertarian beast, libertarians are liberals who needed a better label.
Jaibones on November 11, 2012 at 7:02 PM
Don’t give up your day job.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on November 11, 2012 at 7:04 PM
Like Nebraska and Maine, all states being that way. We might actually have 50 state campaigns again. Aside from the popular vote idea, the ideas have merit. A national holiday every two years for federal elections, the only way to vote is to actually show up at a poll, stand in line, and wait your turn. Photo IDs for federal elections as well.
I do rather like the idea of instant runoff voting. I actually think under such a scenario, its possible Republicans and Democrats could actually be second or third choices, not the first. We might actually get some third parties into the Presidency, and actually have more than a few third party congressmen.
As for term limits, I’d either go one of two ways. Senators or congressmen would get term limited like the President, or just lose Presidential term limits. Part of the reason second-term Presidents have bad second-terms is because they think they are “beyond politics” and not beholden to the voters.
Jurisprudence on November 11, 2012 at 8:24 PM
The Electoral College is only a problem when Republicans win.
Moesart on November 11, 2012 at 8:26 PM