Ranked Choice Voting, a Better System for Voting in America

in #blog7 years ago

I was recently talking to a friend about what the USA could do to improve our system of voting for elected officials, and we got on the subject of ranked choice voting. I realized my friend didn't know anything about the subject, and neither did many people, so I'll explain it a bit here for you.

Let's say there's a Presidential election with 4 people on the ballot. Candidates Adams, Bart, Combs and Davers.

I go to the voting booth and rank the candidates like this:

  1. Adams
  2. Bart
  3. Combs
  4. Davers

After the voting is done, the votes are tallied up, and 1st place votes are counted. Let's say Adams got 10%, Bart got 30%, Combs got 40% and Davers got 20%. No candidate has broken 50%, so Adams would now be eliminated for receiving the smallest % of 1st place votes.

Now they look at the #2 votes of only people who voted for Adams (like me) and everyone who voted for Bart, Combs or Davers #1 still stays voting for those people #1. My #2 was for Bart, so now my vote is for him. The new numbers are Bart 40%, Combs 40% and Davers 20%, so once again no one has broken 50%. Now Davers is eliminated for being the lowest %, and either Bart or Combs will win based on the remaining votes. Since my top 2 have been eliminated, my vote is now for my #3, Combs.

The reason this system would work better, is that people rarely vote for 3rd parties in the US, because they feel that's a vote "taken away" from their preferred candidate. In ranked choice voting, this isn't an issue. The opposing candidate gains nothing by you putting a 3rd party candidate #1, since the opposing candidate needs to break 50% to win anyways. If he was already going to break 50%, it didn't matter which way you voted.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Voting_booth_-_Ohio_primary_election_-_March_15,_2016_(25784960616).jpg

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This post has been approved by a Kryptonia member @richardmacneil

I see what your thinking. It wouldn't work in the Uk (mind you what we have doesn't work either) lol

We all want a free society, but choose not to value it in the UK
I have Upvoted your task from kryptonia @stevehuggett :)

That is quite confusing but I guess that practice works well in Amerika. We just cast our vote one to whoever our bet is and thats all.
Upvoted and here's my kryptonia id @wilsonblue5

This is a way to get around the Constitution which calls for our electoral delegate system. It isn't needed in a parliamentary system. For us to get rid of the electoral college and delegate system it would require a constitutional amendment which is hard to do.

Well done steemit

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Elections have always been tricky and the electoral college in the US just makes my head spin.

From Kryptonia with the same username.

nice post, kryptonia id jamescrusader44

Nice article sir!
kryptonia @Lucero3210

Process of elimination on percentage scale makes sense, we have so many new arrivals in politics representing one or two seats, not enough weight in the pants to do much, or to change anything.

Having a system of 'clean' politics has yet to be found, those who have the biggest purse (high value backers), end up normally running the show.

Kryptonia: @joanstewart1

yes. that's true.