Defeat Partisan BS With Accurate Elections
Merry Christmas! I got you an improved election method!
(Scroll to the bottom for the link.)
A choose-one election is presumed to elect the very-most-favorite candidate of the most people, but only if the people vote honestly.
In reality, voters try to maximize their influence by voting only for a candidate who has a shot at winning, regardless of who their actual favorite is.
So choose-one isn't even reliable for electing the largest faction's very most favorite, which isn't even a smart objective in the first place. I personally don't trust the silly and emotional motives that cause a voter to choose a favorite, I care about electing someone competent and reliable, even if they aren't flashy or attractive or reminiscent of your dad.
Choose-one doesn't measure popularity. Approval does.
You may recognize "Approval Voting" from North Dakota news. This year, the dolts in their state government not only banned "RCV," they also banned Approval, which was being used in Fargo elections.
Approval Voting removes the rule that restricts each voter to choosing only one candidate. Voters approve as many as they see fit. The candidate approved by the most people will win - that's popularity.
But Approval might not be the best way. For example, a majority-preferred candidate could lose an Approval vote. This is one reason why many of us call for ranked ballots, which can reveal who the people prefer.
"RCV" is the popular ranked-choice election. It is the Australia method, also called Hare method, or Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).
While superior to choose-one, IRV suffers similar drawbacks, because in each round, your vote goes to only one candidate. When three remain, vote-splitting (dividing of one bloc of voters into two parts) can swing the outcome, by eliminating the most preferred candidate in 3rd place.
A different ranked-ballot concept, using only two-way comparisons (pairwise comparisons), minimizes the risk of detrimental vote-splitting. This type of method is often called Condorcet-consistent.
But for the sake of actual progress, I propose a very simple ranked-ballot evaluation.
A reasonable primary for finding the top three.
A second ballot that will elect the most preferred candidate of the three.
I despise the two-party system. It has given us a president of the United States who is a creep, a criminal, a destroyer of countless lives, and a damned traitor. Because of two-party brainwashing, Republicans still love him, no matter how bad it gets, because an R is next to his name.
We need elections that reserve a spot for a 3rd party, or an independent, or even the 2nd-most-favorite of a major party. This will bring voters back to reality, protecting them from "the one viable opponent is evil so our one guy must be good."
Or as Ralph Nader said, "the lesser of two evils."
Recent nonpartisan primaries for Nebraska legislature and for Omaha city council have eliminated the 3rd candidate by very few votes, "most-favorite" votes. Let's give that 3rd candidate a fair chance, and measure the people's preferences to bolster confidence in the accuracy of election results.
The new rules can be quite simple, as shown in this proposal that calls for each voter to rank only two candidates: