Time to Choose the Lesser of Two Evils Again

Novem­ber is rolling around once again for midterm elec­tions. 6 years of Repub­li­can “lead­er­ship” has really grated on my nerves. Is it too early to say, “I told you so?”

If there’s any­thing the last two pres­i­den­tial elec­tions have shown me, is that there’s a need for elec­tion reform because the cur­rent sys­tem does not result in a gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the vot­ing pub­lic. Crit­ics of alter­na­tive elec­toral sys­tems have stated that they’re too com­pli­cated to under­stand. They must really think peo­ple are stu­pid. Granted that may well be but not so much that they can’t under­stand other elec­toral sys­tems. So let me shed a lit­tle light.

Pick one can­di­date who you want to win.

Num­ber the can­di­dates in the order you’d like them to win.

So as you can see, from the vot­ers per­spec­tive, nei­ther sam­ple bal­lot is more com­pli­cated than the other. On the oth­er­hand, how these bal­lots are tab­u­lated do dif­fer in com­plex­ity, but pull a sam­ple of Amer­i­can cit­i­zens from off the street and I’d bet that the major­ity of them do not under­stand how their vote trans­lates to an elected pres­i­dent which prob­a­bly lead to much of the resent­ment felt after the 2000 elec­tion. It’s not like you need to know how a car works. You just need to be con­fi­dent that it’ll get you from point A to point B. The aver­age cit­i­zen does not need to know how their vote is tab­u­lated. They just need to be con­fi­dent their vote counted and that the result is fair and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the major­ity of voters.

The first bal­lot is com­monly known in the form of First Past the Post. The sec­ond is tab­u­lated using one of the fol­low­ing: Instant Runoff Vot­ing, a vari­ant of a Borda Count, or one of the vari­ants of the Con­dorcet Method.

Per­son­ally I feel that a plu­ral­ity sys­tem is sim­ply too divi­sive. Just see­ing how polar­ized the polit­i­cal arena has become in the last decade is cer­tainly an indi­ca­tion if not direct evi­dence. Plus can­di­dates who are not either blue or red sim­ply have lit­tle to no chance. Per­son­ally, I’m forced from the get go to often pick my sec­ond choice not because I want that can­di­date to win but more because I’d rather not see another can­di­date win. I have to choose the lesser of two evils.

Even though a pref­er­en­tial sys­tem would be an improve­ment, of the tab­u­la­tion meth­ods listed above, I’m not sure yet which may be the best choice. I listed them in order of increas­ing con­sen­sus which often trans­lates to a cen­trist can­di­date win­ning. A cen­trist gov­ern­ment hope­fully means more progress and less stand-offs. (FYI I con­sider myself cen­trist.) The Con­dorcet Method will always result in a can­di­date pre­ferred over every other can­di­date. How­ever, that can­di­date may not be the first choice of the major­ity of peo­ple as is the case with IRV. This implies if IRV picks a win­ner that is not the Con­dorcet win­ner, then there exists one can­di­date pre­ferred over the IRV win­ner but that is not a first-choice pick. Is it bet­ter to have a first-choice can­di­date be the win­ner even if there might be some­one vot­ers would rather have won or a win­ner accept­able to every­one even if it’s not a major­ity first-choice? Note: IRV can result in a Con­dorcet win­ner. It’s just not guar­an­teed. A Con­dorcet win­ner can be a first choice, but that’s not always the case.

What’s inter­est­ing is that in major polit­i­cal races where a pref­er­en­tial sys­tem was pro­posed or imple­mented, it was soon shot down or repealed by the oppos­ing party. Both blue and red are guilty of this. Just goes to show you that politi­cians regard­less of their color do not want a fair fight. Con­gres­sional redis­trict­ing, cam­paign fund­ing via spe­cial inter­est groups, yadda yadda. They say peo­ple have lost touch with the polit­i­cal main­stream, but some­times I think politi­cians have lost touch with the peo­ple they sup­pos­edly represent.