Who would like to change the voting system?

Question

It has been suggested that we should not just vote for one person for President, but be able to rank our top several choices. This way, we would avoid the Nader effect where the votes of like-minded people are split between several candidates. Voters would no longer feel like they had to pick between one of two likely winners, and could instead vote for someone who they really agreed with first, and then one of the likely winners a little lower on their list.

Who would support this, and do you know why it's not more popular?

Answer 1

Love the idea. Poeple like choices and that is what this voting system gives us. At least if your overall favorite candidate didn't win, your vote for your second favorite would get counted. This way your vote would not go waisted as most people feel when they vote and you could place your least favorite candidate on the bottom making it more likely that they are not elected over your other choices.

Answer 2

This is ridiculous. So do you assign a "3" point value to the number one rank, "2" for the number two, and "1" for the number three rank? What is the point? Just vote for who you think will be the best. There is no need to "rank" candidates as there is only ONE winner and that winner is elected by a majority of the voters. It isn't just a Nader effect either, you know. Due to Ross Perot, the Reps lost the election of Bush to Clinton. I would much prefer to call it the Perot effect since Perot actually garnered a decent percentage of the vote whereas Nader never gets anything even close to 2% of the vote.

Answer 3

I think it sounds like a great idea. It's for this same reason that I support the Electoral College. If say, the entire state of Texas voted for one person, then that person would win. With the Electoral College, all those votes still only count for the amount of votes designated for that state. This distributes the votes around the country. Of course what you are proposing does a way better job of distributing the votes. I personally would have voted for Nader if your system was in place. But I felt it was a wasted vote so I voted for Gore and Kerry. On hindsight, my votes for Gore and Kerry were wasted. I now wish I had voted for Nader since under the current system a third party needs several elections to become viable.

Answer 4

It used to be that the person who got the second-most votes ended up being VP. As you can imagine, this did not lead to polite discourse in the Oval Office. It actually lead to what one VP said was worse than "a warm bucket of spit." As with any system one implements, it is only going to work if every American exercises their civic duty and right to vote. The issues of the Electoral College, the two-party system etc., fall under an umbrella of the American Public. The higher the complacency rate, the more we see these problems manifest. The current leadership (and system) exploits a disinterested (or disengaged)populace and manipulates media to promote a political agenda for this distracted constituency. These kinds of insidous influences are diminished when the populace takes a more active role in monitoring and following what their local and national leaders are doing.
We hear so many stories of why it is a good idea to limit terms, but this disingenuous concept is a hard-wired rule that only takes away Americans rights to choose a preferred candidate. People justify this ludicrous concept by stating that the Presidency has a term limit, but this was implemented after FDR was elected to an unprecedented 4 terms. Quite frankly, I would prefer no term limits on the presidency as well.

Term limits should only be determined in the voting booth.

Answer 5

That doesn't make sense, because the winner is still going to be the one that got ranked the highest most often. That's the same as voting for one candidate.

Answer 6

Why do you vote for a person just because someone told you they were "likely winners"? That negates the whole purpose of voting. The theory is that you are voting for the person you think is best for the country, not the person you think, or more likely have been told by the media, is a "likely winner".

Answer 7

I'd support this. I'd also support a system in which seats in the legislature are given to parties based on the percentage of votes they received. Both changes would lead to more parties in the legislature.

Unfortunately we have two parties who currently control the political process. They're not going to support changes that would mean they'd have to make room for more parties.

Answer 8

This may have some value to it however I think that the Electoral College may put this on the skids. It seems that is what really decides which way the vote will go and not necessarily the people.

it certainally would eliminate the old "hanging chad" problem.

Answer 9

NO i dont support it, cause its stupid. Vote for who you want to be president, the person who loses shouldnt feel bad, so we dont need to say " Oh you didnt win but people kinda like you" As Ryan Seacrest (gay) would say "America Voted, and John Kerry, you will NOT be the next American President"

Answer 10

I would support it and it's not more popular because people are mentally lazy. Change takes effort and people dont put in the effort to vote in the first place.