Killing the Electoral College is not enough. To truly improve how we elect our presidents (and governors and senators and any other office where proportional representation is impossible) we need to enact Ranked Choice Voting as well.
Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), also known as instant runoff voting, is pretty simple. Given a list of candidates for office, in a presidential election say, you simply rank them from your first choice to last. This completely eliminates the “lesser of two evils” conundrum. Consider the 2000 election. If you preferred Ralph Nader you could put him as your number one choice, followed by Al Gore, followed by Pat Buchanan, followed by George W. Bush. If no one wins a majority in the first ballot count of everyone’s top choice there is - in effect - an instant runoff election. The candidate with the fewest votes is removed from the count and the number two votes are added to the tally. If one of the remaining candidates gets a majority they win. If RCV had been in effect in Florida in 2000 Al Gore would have won because 37 percent of Nader’s voters would have put him in second place. This is the beauty of ranked-choice voting. A voter should not have to concern themselves with worries about “electability” or “spoilers.” In a republic, a voter’s job is to decide who they think is the best possible person to represent them. Ranked choice voting allows voters to do that. This neutralizes the zero-sum nature of our two-party system and allows people to vote their conscience without having to worry that supporting someone they like will end up helping someone they loathe. No one should be punished for supporting someone who is not a major party candidate.
Another beautiful aspect of ranked-choice voting is that even people who don’t select the winner with their first vote may have the winner as their second or third choice – so even if your candidate doesn’t win you feel like you are still giving the winner some measure support. This provides a sense of inclusion that’s missing now. It will also have a moderating effect on the polarization in our system. If you take away the zero-sum nature of winner-take-all, candidates are forced to fight for those second and third-choice slots on a ranked-choice ballot. This has the effect of rewarding moderation and punishing extremism.
One more benefit of ranked-choice voting is that more presidents will be elected by majority vote. The five presidents who won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote are only the most obvious manifestation of another common phenomenon – claiming victory with a minority of the popular vote. Since the US started keeping track of the popular vote (post-1824) 19 presidents have won with a plurality, not a majority of the vote. A plurality means winning the largest portion of the vote without getting a 51 percent majority. This means that 42 percent of American presidents have won the presidency without winning the majority of votes. Ranked choice solves this problem by handing elections to those who claim a majority of votes - through instant runoffs if necessary.
Like proportional representation, ranked choice voting is already in widespread use across the globe. Countries like Ireland and New Zealand use RCV in their national elections. There are even places in the United States that use RCV for local elections. We have nothing to fear by adopting such changes.
I realize it may sound far-fetched to discuss possible changes we could make to our political system. It may not seem likely to you that anyone could achieve these changes and you may believe that I am wasting my breath. I am not. Everything is on the table. Change is quite possible - we just need to organize to make it happen. Organizing is difficult, but not impossible. Change is difficult, but not impossible. The first step to affecting change is orienting yourself to a place where you believe that we can get there. Then it’s just a matter of finding a way.
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