What if we could then rank the choices from best to worst?
Based on a point system the best candidate would then get elected!
And, we could do away with the Democrat and Republican primaries which are a complete waste of time and resources!
I'm going to do an example. Please bear with me. This is a Presidential example, but it would work for everything.
In this election cycle there were only 3 Republicans running, but you probably didn't know that.
So, in the interest of fairness and to make my example less complicated, I'm going to go with 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans.
They shall be the Republicans: Tiny Hands Trump, Wild Bill Weld, and Mean Joe Walsh.
The Democrats: Crazy Bernie, Sleepy Joe and Amiable Yang.
Your ballot would be electronic and let you move the names around until they were in your preferred order (top to bottom).
My ballot, for example, would look something like this:
- Amiable Yang
- Wild Bill Weld
- Mean Joe Walsh
- Tiny Hands Trump
- Crazy Bernie
- Sleepy Joe
No hating allowed.
There's only gonna be 3 people voting this election cycle, lest my example gets completely out of control.
Person 2 is going to be a staunch Trumpster Republican who has the utmost ire for his perception of socialism. His ballot might look something like:
- Tiny Hands Trump
- Wild Bill Weld
- Mean Joe Walsh
- Amiable Yang
- Sleepy Joe
- Crazy Bernie
Person 3 might be a die hard stubborn Libertarian who doesn't recognize a good thing when it hits him in the face.
- Wild Bill Weld
- Tiny Hands Trump
- Mean Joe Walsh
- Sleepy Joe
- Amiable Yang
- Crazy Bernie
I've suddenly decided to add person 4 to make my example more exciting. He's going to be a happy go lucky big government, give me free shit, pay for my college, educated hippy.
- Crazy Bernie
- Amiable Yang
- Sleepy Joe
- Mean Joe Walsh
- Wild Bill Weld
- Tiny Hands Trump
I'm playing this by ear. How does ranked voting work? Do you eliminate people after they aren't the first choice? Then go to the second choice until someone is a clear winner? Or do you hand out points based on each ranking? Top person gets the number of candidates (6 in this example)? Bottom person gets 1 point? Let's try both ways. Each round at least one person is eliminated. Either the least votes or 0 votes. There could be more than 2 get eliminated!
If we do it by elimination: Amiable Yang, Tiny Hands Trump, Crazy Bernie and Wild Bill Weld are the only ones to move on to round 2. Round 2 is going to eliminate Crazy Bernie. Round 3 would eliminate everyone else so it doesn't count. Round 4 would make it between Amiable Yang and Tiny Hands Trump. Round 5 would make Amiable Yang the President. I like the result, but I'm not fond of the process. Let's try points.
Round 1: Amiable Yang 6, Tiny Hands Trump 6, Wild Bill Weld 6, Crazy Bernie 6.
In the following rounds we add 1 less point so round 2 gets 5, round 3 gets 4, etc.
Round 2: Amiable Yang 11, Tiny Hands Trump 11, Wild Bill Weld 16.
Wild Bill in the lead!
Round 3: Sleepy Joe 4, Mean Joe Walsh 12.
Wild Bill still in the lead!
Round 4: Mean Joe Walsh 15, Sleepy Joe 7, Amiable Yang 14, Tiny Hands Trump 14
Still Wild Bill with 16 points!
Round 5: Wild Bill Weld 18, Amiable Yang 16, Sleepy Joe 9, Crazy Bernie 8
Wild Bill is looking unstoppable! Now 18 points!
Round 6: Tiny Hands Trump 15, Crazy Bernie 10, Sleepy Joe 10
This would make Wild Bill Weld the President.
It takes a a bit to wrap your head around, but I'm not upset by it. No one disliked Wild Bill (in my example). It leads to more moderation. Millions of people can go around saying, "Well, he wasn't my first choice, but he is a lot better than the alternative." It would generate a calmer, less stressed out, America.
We may have to put more weight on the first choice. Maybe use a more logarithmic scale. Give the first place points equal to double the candidates, second place equal to the number of candidates * 1.5, third place equal to the number of candidates, etc.
I don't know, but it is doable. We also need to make voting as quick and easy as ordering toilet paper from Amazon as a Prime Member!
