I've heard ideas of how to add additional parties to our system. Right now due to our laws people don't vote for folks outside of Dems or Repubs cause if they do the person they REALLY don't like will be elected. So, I heard a way where if the person you select doesn't get X % of the vote then you can vote for a backup candidate.
Changes to elections / breaking the two party system
Tags: voting elections democrats republicans
Comments (4)
I understand your thinking on this but I'm not big on the backup vote. I think Canada has an interesting way to do it that encourages voting outside the main parties: When a candidate admits defeat in the election, he or she then gives over all votes to the candidate of his/her choice and most in keeping with his/her ideals. So you can feel safe in voting for a "minor" candidate that you aren't "throwing your vote away."
There are several voting systems that allow you to specify a "backup vote".
In IRV and Condorcet, you rank the candidates from best to worst. I won't try to explain the rules for selecting the winner, but they're on wikipedia if you care to learn more.
My favorite is approval voting: the voter is allowed to vote for more than one candidate. In effect, you're voting for or against each candidate in isolation. The candidate with the highest "approval rating" wins.
Here's my approval voting proposal:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/5966-4049
And someone else posted an IRV proposal:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/5170-4049
If you really want to know more about voting systems, I suggest familiarizing yourself with Arrow's theorem. Don't let it discourage you, though -- just because all voting systems have serious flaws doesn't mean that there aren't some that are much better than the current "one voter, one vote" plurality system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_theorem
Vote for your favorite candidate!
If in the end they have no chance of winning your vote goes to your second choice. How hard is that in this day and age?
reply to: emiliy " understand your thinking on this but I'm not big on the backup vote. I think Canada has an interesting way to do it that encourages voting outside the main parties: When a candidate admits defeat in the election, he or she then gives over all votes to the candidate of his/her choice and most in keeping with his/her ideals. So you can feel safe in voting for a "minor" candidate that you aren't "throwing your vote away."
The negative part in this is that it opens the door to behind the scenes manipulations and vote buying. Look at what happened regarding Obama's senate seat. Here in Colorado, we're stuck with Michael Bennet cause he was picked to fill Salazar's empty seat. I prefer a voter having a direct say in who they want with a backup vote. Better for small d democracy.