This week, Krist Novoselic, rock-n-roll bassist of Nirvana fame and fellow board member of FairVote.org, appeared on Fox Business’s Kennedy to explain ranked choice voting.
Krist compared a single ranked ballot under the proposed system to two ballots under the current method. Often, a voter will mark the ballot for one candidate in the primary, and, if the candidate doesn’t make the cut, for another in the general election.
Ranked choice voting sort of collapses multi-candidate primaries and the shorter list of the general election into one, allowing voters to rank their choices so that when their first choice doesn’t make it, their less valued candidates get counted.
So if you prefer a candidate unlikely to win you aren’t “wasting” your vote by marking that candidate first, as today in most American elections, because your vote goes to your second choice.
The current system encourages “strategic voting,” where we deny our preferences to work around the defects of the electoral system. We end up voting for candidates we do not like, to avoid even worse, promoting mediocre and downright bad elected officials.
In Maine, Question 5 on the November ballot, sets up a ranked-choice ballot system for “the offices of United States Senator, United States Representative to Congress, Governor, State Senator and State Representative for elections held on or after January 1, 2018.” It has a not insignificant amount of support, from Mainers across the political spectrum.
But not from the state’s governor (and voicemail-performance-artist) Paul Le Page. He dubs it a way for “loser” candidates to get a “second chance.”
Just like a politician! He focuses on politicians’ chances not voters’ options.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
2 replies on “Question 5 Fixes Flaw”
Such an approach during the Republican primaries would almost certainly have spared us the unfolding disaster.
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Zoe for NY’s 20th CD
(Fulfilled Democracy Everywhere, Instantly & Practicably: a How To)
This November there will be initiatives on the ballot in Maine & Benton County Oregon in support of Ranked Ballot (RB). Because it gives an equal chance to all combinations of programs {not just parties} RB, voters ranking candidates in order of preference, is the only thing simultaneously most Just & most Free. Because of this shining light in the eyes of the world & because it always picks the one most in the middle, while giving alternative proposals an equal chance, on a case by case basis, RB is more top dead center counter-extremist than all the many recent retrenchments combined. The “additive” form of RB is counting the first chokes, & then, if no one has 50%, adding in the next choices, & so on, ‘til someone finally does.
RB wouldn’t change the political climate of any area, but rather just give its inhabitants more nuance. Wikipedia on Initiative & Referendum in the US gives little hope that I & R would be a universal solution for all places. The rules are too predictably variegated. But RB, plus the “instant” part, running on the single issue of RB, promising a citizens’ advisory board, based on “Organized Communications” (OC) randomly assigned discussion groups electing reps to higher & higher random levels (by means of RB) ‘til one small group, most exactly in the middle, remains, will truly allow everything from sharing the work (the workweek attached to the unemployment rate) all the way to replacing public education with having to prove you can read to vote (now that learning is universally valued & there’s broadband).
For those with fear of secret code & remote control of voting machines, the larger the discussion groups, the fewer the levels needed. RB will give us All Powers to Their Lowest Appropriate Level, An Ecological Politics, A PERFECT MARRIAGE OF Rich & Poor, Left & Right, FREEDOM & JUSTICE, Tradition & Modernity, Young & Old, Red, Black & White, Woman & Man & Palestinian & Jew, A Head for the Headless (tech) Beast & even a Real Solution for Bleeding Syria, Ukraine, Central African Republic or wherever’s next. RB will give collective leaderships the means to avoid adventurism, the Arabs a means to choose their leaders from among the middle, without having to rely on men of violence of either extreme & give the “Democracists” compromise, unity, direction & creativity. RB, is to the corrupting, unsustainable, horse & buggy two-party system as shopping at the Mall of America is to shopping in Soviet Russia. By its mere example RB will win the hearts & minds of all mankind. Let everyone supporting RB try to get on the ballot, run on the single issue, promise an OC based citizens’ advisory board, ask those who sign for them to petition for them as well, cast a blank/NOTA (None-Of-The-Above) ballot or support this effort or the initiatives in Maine & Benton County. See RCVMaine & BetterBallotBenton.
If only the 100 registered voters per week I’ve managed to mail ten pages to in the last few months, or just females who flip three coins & get three heads were to vote for me, it’d make them sit up & take notice
See preferentiality on yahoo groups & Ranked Voting Systems on Wikipedia
“zoe” norman z{idbeck]
freeassociation0@gmail.com
rankedballot@mail.com
preferentiality@juno.com
USA, Planet Earth