My Candidate for a Better Voting System

 In my previous post I described our election system as "shitshow of biblical proportions". People tasked with monitoring its integrity described our 2020 election as "the most secure in American history". But a single person spreading a thoroughly discredited lie -- that the election was stolen from him -- was able to foment a violent insurrection that came uncomfortably close to toppling our system of government. A government that previously been thought to be amongst the most (if not THE most) stable governments in the world. If our election system produced "the most secure [election] in American history" then our system was working at its best. And it still could not withstand institutional divisions that almost split our country apart. If our present system can't do it then we need to change to one that is more resistant to those forces.

It is not hard to deduce what is force it is that split the country. It was obvious. It was partisanship. It was partisanship that allowed Republicans to NOT convict on the most impeachable offense ever committed by a President ... fomenting an insurrection. It was partisanship that allowed Republicans to refuse to consider Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court during one election year, but power through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination in a different election year. It is partisanship that keeps the outdated electoral college system which has caused five of our 46 (and two of our last four) Presidents to be elected to office despite losing the popular vote. It is partisanship that has led to disastrous gerrymandering [1].

Partisanship has become toxic. And that toxicity is exacerbated by our two-party system. Each party determines who their Presidential nominee shall by a drawn-out partisan primary [2]. It is the people who are most passionate about issues that participate in these primaries. These tend be people who are more on the right in the Republican party and more on the left in the Democratic party. The middle, where you would normally expect the bulk of the people to be, is underrepresented. This increases national division.

The two-party system creates tribalism, and tribalism creates demonization of the other. Republicans claim patriotism, law and order, and support for the flag as theirs and accuse Democrats of "hating" America and supporting rioters. Democrats claim the rights of the downtrodden as their bailiwick, and accuse Republicans of being the party of rich white guys, white supremacists, and idiots unable to see their own hypocrisy [3].

The point being one BIG factor (perhaps the biggest) is partisanship. So any new election system needs to minimize partisanship. I think one way to do this is to have non-partisan primaries. The federal or state government (not the party) holds the primary. Party affiliations are not listed. A voter can vote for anybody (s)he wants on that ballot.

Another problem with our present system is that our primaries are drawn out WAY too long. Early states (Iowa, New Hampshire) get way too much attention and they aren't representative of the country as a whole. But a candidate that wins or does significantly better than expected in these states can get a financial boost and change an otherwise no viable candidacy into a viable one. And conversely an initially viable candidate who does worse than expected can lose donors and be forced to drop out before a significant portion of the population has a chance to give their opinion on his/her candidacy. My solution to this problem is to have a nationwide primary on the same day.

So here is a more fleshed out proposal of what I think is a better primary system [4]:

(1) A primary ballot with a large number of candidates on the list. Eligibility can be determined any number of ways; (a) being above a certain percentage in an agreed upon nationwide poll; (b) being able to round up sufficient signatures from registered voters affirming their support; (c) an online website that would allow people to express their opinion on who should be considered, etc.

(2) Voting to take place on a single day. Voters can vote for only one candidate.

(3) The top four candidates in popular vote become the candidates for President. (Why four will be explained in a bit).

Now on to the general election. With our present system of voting only the Republican nominee or the Democratic nominee has any realistic chance of winning. A person could run as a third-party candidate but that person would not win. Theodore Roosevelt and his "Bull Moose Party" couldn't win in 1912 and no third party is likely to do it for the foreseeable future. It doesn't matter how good a third-party ideas are; they are not going to get elected with our two-party system dominance. Further, if you are voter and decide to vote for a third-party candidate the only REAL effect it will have is by making whichever candidate, Democrat or Republican, that you may have preferred over the other LESS likely to win because you didn't vote for that person. In other words, our present system punishes third parties and any ideas they may have to go along with them.

This system allows parties to take some base supporters for granted. Republicans can ignore the poor uneducated whites and give tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich because they know this demographic is going to vote for them anyway. Democrats can ignore promises made to blacks because other things come up and blacks are more likely to vote for Democrats anyway. Further the Democratic base has become more and more left wing; the Republican base has become more and more right wing. The middle doesn't have a voice and they are not likely to get one under our present system. My preferred solution to this is ranked-choice voting in the general election.

With ranked-choice voting the voters would number their candidates in order of preference/ One candidate would be my top choice, another would be my second choice, and then I would specify a third choice; and the candidate left over would be the person I would least like to win. Vote counting goes in rounds until one candidate had a clear majority. Here's how:

Round one: All first-place votes are counted. If someone has a majority (50+% of the vote) then the election is over; if not then go to round two.

Round two: The person with the least number of votes in round one is eliminated and his/her votes are distributed to the other three based on their voter's second choice. If someone has a majority the elction is over. If not go to round three.

Round three: Again the person with the least number of votes is eliminated and his/her votes are distributed to the other two remaining candidates based on which one the voter rated higher. The candidate with the most votes wins.

Here are some of the advantages as I see them:

(1) There is no third-party penalization for voting for a candidate whose ideas you like but doesn't necessarily have much of a chance. If that candidate is eliminated early then your vote goes to whoever is next on your priority ranking. This can allow ideas that our present system penalizes to develop a following.

(2) In our present two-party system what has been shown to be the most effective campaign technique is negative attack ads. This ends up demonizing our opponents and creates problems. It also makes mischaracterizations easy. "Candidate X  voted for/against this bill which would have done something bad/good. This is something only an uncaring scumbag would do, so vote for candidate Y". Candidate X may have voted for or against a bill not because of the consequence the ad talks about but because something else in the bill made it good or bad.

Under a ranked-choice voting system candidate Y may need supporters from candidate X to rank him/her higher up on their preference list. It may not behoove candidate Y to alienate them with negative campaigns.

(3) If you use less negative attack ads then to appeal to voters you will be forced to explain your positions and WHY you support/oppose the positions you do. Both the candidate and the voter are likely to understand differences better.

(4) Ranked-choice voting is a system that doesn't divide us, but can bring us closer together. It allows middle spectrum ideas to surface. Candidates who are closer together philosophically can actually campaign together. Each candidate can say "vote for me ... but put this candidate second on your ballot". That can foster cooperation instead of division.

(5) Hopefully political parties would have less influence and partisan divides would slowly crumble. And we go back to looking at our opponents as people who disagree rather than people who are evil idiots.

[1] All recent examples of destructive partisanship I use involves Republicans. That is because they have had much of the power recently ... especially at state levels. Democrats are not necessarily better people. Indeed during the "Solid South" days of our country gerrymandering was very much a part of the Democratic agenda. If the power spectrum shifts to the Democrats I highly suspect that Democratic partisanship abuses will happen so long as we keep our present two-party system.

[2] However, in the 2020 elections the Republicans broke with tradition and did not hold Presidential primaries, having decided beforehand that the incumbent, Donald Trump, would be their nominee by fiat.

[3] Even I am caught up in this partisan divide. I feel that Trump's lies and abuses have been so detrimental to this country, so numerous, and so obvious to see, as to make anyone who still identifies as a Trump supporter as being unworthy to vote for. And since Trump's footprint has become so stamped on what is left of the Republican party, I see any candidate who identifies as a Republican as almost certainly being a Trump enabler/supporter. In other words the stigma of identifying oneself as a Republican running for office not that different from the stigma of a candidate who runs for office and identifies as a member of the Nazi party. That alone is enough to disqualify the person from further consideration. I don't think this is necessarily a "healthy" attitude to have, but try as I might ... I don't see the fault in the logic I used to come up with that opinion.

[4] I wish I could take full credit for coming up with this new election plan (both primaries and general election which will follow the primary) but I didn't. I first heard it described in a podcast I listened to on the way to work. That was quite a while ago and I have been thinking about it ever since. Unfortunately, I don't remember who actually thought it up and I have been unable to find a good reference to it on the internet. So I regret that I cannot give proper attribution at this time. If I find it later I will edit this post and do so.

A Shitshow of Biblical Proportions

On November 12, 2020 the Department of Homeland Security issued this Joint Statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees of the Department of Homeland Security .

The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.

When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

Other security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) certification of voting equipment help to build additional confidence in the voting systems used in 2020.

While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.

This statement issued by Trump's own Department of Homeland Security, the cabinet-level organization that SHOULD know better than any other organization IN THE WORLD, says that the 2020 Presidential Election was "the most secure in American history". Yet, having the most secure election in America's history did not stop a large part of Trump's political base from supporting a violent insurrection against the United States on January 6, 2021, when the Congress of the United States met to certify the electoral votes. They were convinced the election was stolen despite the Department of Homeland Security's statement that "All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Nor did the fact that EVERY contested state's election committee and legislatures certified the votes as being accurate prevent this group of people from being convinced the election was stolen. Even though these state legislatures were all dominated by Republicans (the party that lost the presidency).

The same can be said of the statement from Bill Barr, Trump's highly partisan pro-Trump Attorney General who after having issued a directive to U.S. Attorneys to pursue any "substantial allegations" of voting irregularities came back and said a month later "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election".

The fact that in over 60 Trump-inspired lawsuits, over 80 judges (up to and including those on the Supreme Court; many appointed by Trump himself) have been virtually unanimous in their finding that there isn't even enough evidence of voter fraud worth considering, stop these people from being convinced otherwise.

And finally the fact that no election fraud scenario presented by Trump or Trump's lawyer explain how would have been possible for the election fraud cause the defeat of Trump but still allow the Republicans to GAIN seats in the House of Representatives.

None of this played a part in the thinking of these insurrectionists. In fact they were convinced of the exact opposite ... that instead of the evidence clearly showing that there was no significant election fraud; they thought the evidence was overwhelmingly the other way -- election fraud was a virtual certainty. Why did they think this obvious lie to be true?

They thought this because (1) their guy ... Trump ... loudly proclaimed without evidence before the election that the only way he could lose was by voter fraud. (2) Trump loudly proclaimed without evidence during the election that vote counts were fraudulent. (3) Trump loudly proclaimed without evidence after the election there was fraud on a massive scale; (4) some highly partisan news sources kept promoting it; and (5) other prominent Republican leaders did not have the courage to condemn his allegations as baseless.

So despite the 2020 election being "the most secure in American history", it was shown that any person with a large enough base of support, platforms to get his propaganda out to the public, and cowardly acceptance by other leaders in his political party can incite a violent insurrection simply because they do not like the results of a fair election. It is evidently that easy to do. If we couldn't make "the most secure election in American history" an election that people had confidence in then making adjustments to our existing election system to make it even more secure is not likely to help the problem.

Furthermore, it can be argued that since there was NO evidence of ANY significant election fraud and you can't get less than zero, there is nothing that can actually be done to actually make the election more secure. Republicans in many state legislatures are trying to invoke measures that they claim will increase election security but those measures are actually poorly disguised attempts at voter suppression. And voter suppression is just another form of election fraud. So these steps will create the very problem proponents claim they are trying to prevent.

I listened to some of Trump's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last Sunday. It is clear that events have not changed him. He is not the least bit remorseful about inciting the insurrection. He believes it was the right thing to do. He continues to promote the conspiracy theory that he was robbed and actually won the election (and just to repeat so any of his supporters who may still be reading this ... HE LOST, IT WASN'T EVEN THAT CLOSE OF AN ELECTION, THE ONLY ATTEMPTED "STEAL" OF THE ELECTION WAS BY TRUMP HIMSELF). Trump also showed he was the head of what remains of the Republican party and would like to run again. At this point he should be considered the frontrunner. If he does run again in 2024, I suspect he will lose. What will he do in that case? He will do what he has done when he has lost any election (be it the 2016 Iowa and Wisconsin primaries; the 2016 popular vote; Emmy for his TV show The Apprentice; or the Nobel Peace Prize) ... he will claim the vote was rigged!! And we will be right back in the same situation we had just a little while ago.

If our present election system can't be fixed, then the solution is to replace it. We need to replace it with one that resistant to the forces that have turned our present system into a shitshow of biblical proportions, but maintains the ideals of a liberal democracy. In my next post I will present what I think is the best candidate to be such an alternative system ... a national primary with rank-choice voting.