Why it wasn’t Trump, Hillary or Johnson’s fault and how we can fix it

Ranked Voting, Dual-Candidate Primary Nominations, Voter Autoenrollment, Open & Nationwide Primaries

1. Switch to Ranked Preference Voting for the General Election AND Primaries

Enough is enough, our current election system is grotesquely antiquated. Let’s give our system the attention it needs and the flexibility it deserves.

Want parties to be able to send multiple candidates to the general election (proposed change #2 below)? Want to prevent anyone from claiming any vote was split by 3d party or protest votes for any race electing a single candidate (i.e., Federal, State and local executive elections)?

If you aren’t familiar with ranked preference voting, also called ranked choice voting and instant runoff voting, similar systems are already in place sporadically across the United States, such as for some local races in California, North Carolina and Colorado.

Below is a gif explaining how ranked preference voting works and here is that explanation slide by slide (since there is apparently a maximum gif duration on giphy).

Basically everyone ranks candidates by their preference. The candidates that are the least preferred are then eliminated, those votes instead being reallocated towards those voters’ next-preferred candidates until at last a candidate wins the absolute majority (>50%) of votes cast. If everyone’s first preference resulted in a clear winner with the absolute majority, then that candidate wins exactly as they would have under our current plurality system (called first-past-the-post).

This would ensure that no one voting for a 3d party candidate or otherwise lodging a protest vote with their first preference could ever be blamed for splitting the ticket. It would also reduce the benefit of negative campaigning and would make possible my favorite proposal, change #2, up next.

2. Send TWO (2!!) Candidates to the General Election from Each Party

This would reduce two serious problems that have frustrated both the public and parties for decades: (A) the public v. party elite candidate selection problem and (B) the news between the general and primary election problem.

Here’s how that could work: Each party holds public primaries to elect a popular candidate for the general election and the leaders of each party select their own preferred candidate. The party leaders select their candidate first and then the public selects their top preference from the remaining pool.

If the public’s most preferred candidate is the same as the preferred candidate of party leaders come the general election they can select that candidate as their first preference and then any other candidate as their second preference and so on.

This would provide all Americans with increased choice and would make everything far more fair and transparent. The party leader selection part, isn’t really in and of itself actually that bad, it’s bad when that choice means the public has no real alternative choice in the general election.

3. Make All Primaries Open

Let’s not forget how angry we all were during the primaries that a significant amount of even registered voters were unable to participate in deciding the candidates they must choose between come the general election.

We must open all primaries, at the very least, to unaffiliated voters. Ideally, voters affiliated with a minority party should also be allowed to vote in the primaries of a major party — their vote being instead of, and not in addition to, a vote for the candidate of the minority party with which they are registered.

Any dilutive effects for major parties due to this additional inclusivity will be more than offset by their party leadership’s ability to nominate a candidate of their own, re proposal no 2 above.

4. Enact Nationwide Automatic Voter Registration

Is there any rational reason to have opt-in voting registration? I can’t think of a single one, but even if I could, I doubt it would be able to outweigh the benefits of autoenrollment. It is hard enough to get all registered voters to vote, why add the additional difficulty of having them register at all?

For evidence of the severity of this problem look no further than turnout and registration rates. The table below shows that although high percentages of registered voters vote, nearly a third of the population on average is not registered to vote at all. Note also that both registration and participation declines even further in non-presidential elections.

Derived from United States Census Department Bureau and United States Elections Project data (for specifics, see footnotes 408 and 409 of Table 3 )

I think it’s safe to say that we all had a good dose of voter exhaustion. How could we not, the primary voting season alone was almost half a year (February to June).

Primary elections should be state-run elections (i.e. just like the general election) that take place on a single day across the country. Perhaps sometime in Jun, close to the party conventions. The months leading up to the primary election day will then provide parties with the time for longer state by state or national process of collecting signatures for the public candidates on their party’s primary ballot.

Any desired caucuses could be held before the state-run primary election day to facilitate discussion or signature collections, but not to actually vote. The timing, length and intensity of caucuses makes them so useful and meaningful, but too often reduces the ability for all voters to participate in the party nomination process at all. Holding caucuses in addition to primaries would instead allow for the best of both worlds, a primary vote plus meaningful caucus debate and discussion for those who can attend and at least a primary vote for those who cannot.

Comments welcome, but please keep them civil. This was a long and hard election for all of us.