George W. Bush lost the popular vote in the 2000 election and
was installed as president by a questionable party-line vote of the
U.S. Supreme Court despite the illegal and widespread
disenfranchisement of African American voters in Florida perpetrated
by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. Rather than challenging or
investigating these blatant banana republic shenanigans, the press
and the Democrats decided that the greatest failure of the American
electoral system in history was the fault of one individual: Ralph
Nader.
Now that Mr. Nader has again decided to seek the presidency, the
media and the incredibly shrinking Democratic Party will overlook
the obvious once more. The problem isn’t having an accomplished
consumer advocate or too many candidates in the race. No, here’s the
problem: It’s the electoral system, stupid.
The problem is an electoral system which has allowed a president
to take office with a minority of votes for the past three
presidential elections in a row. The problem is an electoral system
which forces voters to choose a candidate they really don’t support
because voting for the candidate of their choice would be a “wasted
vote.” The problem is an electoral system so unresponsive and
irrelevant that it’s boycotted by half of its potential users.
Fortunately, for the citizens of the “world’s greatest democracy,”
there are solutions.
One solution is the voting method which has come to be known as
Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV. Used to elect the president of
Ireland, a variety of office-holders in Australia and approved by
San Francisco voters for city-wide use there, Instant Runoff Voting
deftly deals with multiple candidates and ensures that the winner of
an election is supported by a majority of voters. It works like
this: instead of voting for just one candidate, voters instead rank
the candidates in order of preference. Their first choice candidate
is number one, the second choice number two and so on. If any
candidate receives a majority of first choice votes, that candidate
has won and the election is over. If, however, no candidate receives
an absolute majority of first choice votes, then the candidate with
the fewest first choice votes is eliminated from the race and the
ballots are counted again. This “second” round of voting, or runoff,
is conducted automatically. In the second round, the ballots cast
for the eliminated candidate are scanned for their second choice
votes and are awarded to the remaining candidates. This process of
eliminating the last place candidate and recounting the ballots
continues until one candidate receives a majority of the vote.
IRV is simple to use. All the voter has to do is rank the
candidates in order of preference: 1,2,3. For local elections which
currently require a runoff to produce a majority winner, IRV can
save considerable amounts of money by eliminating the need for two
separate and costly elections. If we were to use IRV for our
presidential elections, the “spoiler” problem would be immediately
eliminated and people would be free to vote for the candidate of
their choice without concern that their vote might help elect a
candidate they fear. IRV would encourage strong issue-oriented
candidacies and broaden the debate in our country since candidates
would not only have to seek first choice votes, but would have to
appeal to voters supporting other candidates for their second choice
votes. This would discourage negative campaigning since a candidate
wouldn’t be likely to attract the second choice votes they might
need to win an election if they “went negative” on another
candidate.
With growing third parties and rising registration numbers of
independent voters, it is clear that Americans want more choices at
the ballot box. For far too long, Americans have been force-fed a
two party diet. This, some might say, has led to civil stagnation
and a lack of innovation. With a spiraling national debt, high
unemployment and shrinking civil liberties, we could use some
creative solutions. And certainly a country which embraces hundreds
of channels of satellite television, scores of breakfast cereals and
thirty one flavors of ice cream can handle more than two choices in
the voting booth.
