“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” – John Quincy Adams
Voting is a very serious thing. Voting in elections allows us to choose our representatives in local, state and federal governments. Our system of voting is considered sacred to many because of the importance of such an act. It has been done the same way since the beginning of our country
for that exact reason. But is our system the best way to vote?
Currently, in federal elections and the vast majority of local elections in the United States, we use what is referred to as “simple plurality voting.” This is a winner-takes-all voting system in which the person with the most votes wins. It’s simple and direct. There is no costly and time-consuming second round of voting. What could possibly be wrong with this?
Being forced to vote for one candidate causes many problems, especially for smaller, third parties or independent candidates. One of these problems is that it encourages people to compromise their principles. Voters are pressured to vote for one of the two candidates they predict are most likely to win, even if their true preference is neither, because a vote for any other candidate will likely be wasted and have no impact on the final result.
For example, in US Senate election in Arkansas this year, there were four candidates, the Democrat incumbent Blanche Lincoln, the Republican John Boozman, Independent Trevor Drown, and Green Party candidate John Gray.
In this election, there were many people on the left who didn’t like Lincoln, and many people on the right who didn’t like Boozman. However, most of the people who took issue with the two leading contenders voted for them anyway to keep from what they would perceive as wasting their vote. This resulted in the voters election Boozeman with 58.01%, a Republican who voted for TARP, the Patriot Act and many spending bills as a US Congressman. This appeared to be in direct opposition to most Arkansas conservatives and Tea Party types. Lincoln, who most Democrats and progressives were against because of her faltering and changing opinions of positions that are dear to the left, came in second place with 36.86%.
The “alternate” candidates didn’t fare very well, even though Trevor Drown was a Tea Party issues guy who is more more conservative and small government than Boozman and John Gray was a progressive voters dream candidate. Drown only received 3.26% and Gray received only 1.86%. Why is this? Because the vast majority of people who more closely aligned with the alternate candidates could not bring themselves to “waste their vote” on them.
There are many other disadvantages to plurality voting as well. It almost always leads eventually to a two-party system that both try to claim the center and yet fully represents the ideas of only a small percentage of the voters. Plurality voting also leads to gerrymandering.
So, how can these issues be resolved? Although there are many different ways that voting can be done, I believe the two ways that are most effective are called Instant Runoff Voting or Approval Voting.
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is a ranked choice system of voting. This allows you to select multiple candidates on a single ballot by ranking them in the order of your preference, or not rating some candidates if you do not care for them at all. You would put a ‘1’ beside your most preferred candidate, a ‘2’ beside the second most preferred, etc. The preferred candidates (the amount of votes each candidate has as the #1 preferred candidate) are then counted. If there is no majority, the candidate with the lowest votes is dropped for consideration. Ballots assigned to eliminated candidates, and the person from each of these ballots who was the second most preferred is given the votes from those ballots. This process continues until one candidate achieves a majority vote.
For example, if a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and Green candidate were in an election together, the results could be as follows:
| Party | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 |
| Republican | 36% | 36% | 47% |
| Libertarian | 21% | 33% | 53% |
| Democrat | 26% | 31% | – |
| Green | 17% | – | – |
As you can see, the clear front runner in round one is the Republican. The Green candidate is last and he is dropped from the race. All of his ballots are then given to other candidates in round two based on their second preferences. This leads to the Democrat and the Libertarian getting more votes and the Republican staying the same since he was not listed as a second choice on any of the Green’s ballots. In round two, there is still not a majority winner, so the Democrat is dropped from the ballot. In round three, the new totals are counted, and the winner is the Libertarian candidate instead of the person who started with the majority in round one. This more clearly elects a person who more voters were comfortable voting for.
IRV has been used in countries such as Australia, Ireland and others. It is also used in several local jurisdictions in the United States, such as San Francisco and Oakland. There are many pros and cons to this type of voting.
Approval Voting is the type of voting where a voter can vote for as many candidates as they want. You are simply “approving” of the people you select and “disapproving” of the others. Each of these votes are counted and the winner is the one who received the most votes. So, if there is an election for R, D, L, G, the voting may go as follows:
Reagan votes for R and L. Grayson votes for D and L. Rodger votes for only for the D. Jessica votes for G and L. Dagny votes for G, L, and R. Scout votes for R, L and D.
The results would be:
| Party | Votes |
| R | 3 |
| D | 3 |
| L | 5 |
| G | 2 |
More people approved of the L candidate, so he won. This is a very simple and inexpensive way to hold elections.
The election system in this country is broken and it needs to be repaired. We have a two-party system that doesn’t truly represent the will of people. There is more voter discontent than ever, especially now, where a Rasmussen survey last week shows that only 11% of likely voters give the current Congress good or excellent marks. This is the same Congress we just voted into office two years ago!
I encourage you all to research voting techniques and educate yourself. These changes have to begin locally. Begin to discuss alternative voting styles with your County Elections Commissioner. Most of these commissioners don’t even know there are alternative ways to vote, much less know that people in their areas want to see changes. It is up to us to make a difference!
Rodger Paxton is the Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Arkansas. For more information on the Libertarian Party of Arkansas, please go to https://my.lp.org or email info@lpar.org. If there is a topic you would like to see in this blog series, please email me at chair@lpar.org and I will consider using your idea in the next blog!
