How would you design an ideal democratic system?

Question

Suppose 9 people run for election, and no one of them gets 50% of the vote. If you give office to the one with the most votes, you are giving it to someone whom the majority did not want. Perhaps the majority would prefer a different, compromise candidate instead of the one who won.
I thought about a run-off system: if no one candidate receives 50% or more of the vote, the bottom candidate is eliminated. Then those who voted for #9 vote again for one of the remaining 8, and so on, until a single candidate has the majority vote. But this is also not perfectly fair: perhaps, when candidate #3 is eliminated, a majority of voters would prefer candidate #9 to candidates #1 and #2, but they no longer have the ability to vote for him.

So for the question: suppose you have a list wherein all the voters have ranked the candidates in order of preference.
1) How would you determine the winner of the vote?
2)Why is this the ideal method?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

There is a concept called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) which works well in races with one winner.

Single Transferable vote (STV) is similar to IRV except it is designed for elections with more than one winner (i.e. some school boards and some offices in New Zealand.)

These systems work well because you do not need to hold a second election.

Answer 2

Under communism, the people go to the polls to vote. There is only one name on the ballot. The voter can either vote 'yes' or 'no'. If most voters selected 'no', there would be a second election with a different name on the ballot.
The point being, no type of voting scheme qualifies a country as a democracy. The candidates should truly be representative of the people in their electoral district. Our candidates are all rich, and most of them either come from, or are supported by, the elitists in the New England states. It's hard to decide which one to vote for since they seem like carbon copies of each other.

Lobbying groups should be banned from contributing to candidates and parties.
We should be able to call for early elections if an administration is under-performing.
Like many democracies, we should have a run off with the two top vote getters if the winner has less than 50% of the vote.

Answer 3

Candidates will be defined by the issues they support.
On ballots the canidates will not be listed, only questions about important issues.
Whichever candidate has the most issues that match a majority of the votes, wins the office.

Ends party politics, and purchasing elections.

Answer 4

You've asked and answered your own qustion Kemosabee. But with a limited amount of people in your country/state or city you could have a referendum on literally everything. Where to put the "stop" sign. How much to pay the snow plow guy. Should we have a parking ban after 2am. Everything would be put to the voters.

Answer 5

The system we have now is just fine, thank you.

It could be refined by requiring photo ID to vote, proving you are an American citizen to get the ID, and if convicted of commiting voter fraud...execution !

That should apply to cantidates, the higher ups in all parties that did the fraud, and individual voters. Frame ups don't count !

Answer 6

Generally I like the offering of Auntiegrav, it is thoughtful and clearly considers the question beyond a bumper sticker mental regurgitation of lack of thought. To it I can only add the following. Certainly the corporate world has developed elements which seek to make legislation to their advantage and some representatives of that corporate world use the opportunity to buy favors from those enacting such legislation. It is also clear that they (representatives of the corporate world) cannot succeed without the willing participation of at least some of the elected representatives. It is first to the voters to control such elected representatives who demonstrate a lack of ethical standards by voting them out of office. Sadly, many people do not vote and many who do vote are swayed by the same bribing mentality of offered boons from these elected officials. Clearly the fault is in ourselves. Then too there are some controlling elements which once existed but are no longer functionally available. State nullification was once the capability of a single State legislature to examine federal actions and determine on their own that they were extra-constitutional and make them null and void within the borders of that single State. Up until the 1880s the judges informed the juries that it was not only their responsibility to judge the facts of the case to determine guilt, but it was also their responsibilities to judge the application of the law in that single case and to acquit if the law (in their opinion) was applied inaccurately or was a bad law. This was part and parcel of the evolving Common Law function on which much of our law is (once was?) based. At one time there was a People’s Grand Jury different from today’s grand jury. That is a single county would elect other county residents to serve on this jury only once in their life time (usually for about two years) and their job was simply to investigate elected and appointed officials to ensure that they were doing their job correctly. It is import to emphasize the point that Auntiegrav made as to reality of our country being a democracy. The founders never wanted a democracy and were in fact afraid of such a system knowing (from historical sources) that such a government became rule by mob and would lead to dictatorship. Rather, the desire among the States was for a republican form of government with democratic functions of elections for those who made decisions. Our federal government was intended by the Founders to have only the United States House of Representatives elected by democratic vote of the people and that vote only in the district represented by the representative. The United States Senate was elected by the various State legislatures, and the President was elected by the Electoral College. All of this in part to remove the federal government from the possibility to being swayed by a democratic process. In short, the viability of “good” government is dependant on the proactive involvement of the people. Our culture has evolved this system over a 3,000 plus year period. To expect a society to “easily” accept a similar system when their cultural roots are in other type systems is not realistic..

Answer 7

Actually, living in a democracy would require each of us to travel to DC to vote on every piece of legislation.
Fortunately, we live in a representative democracy, as established by the US Constitution.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Reform the funding for elections.
The Constitution is a brilliant document that suits me just fine. Hands off.
Are you listening, Pres. Cheney?

Answer 8

I would start with unwavering term limits, campaign reform, prosecution of liberal judges who legislate from the bench. A constitutional amendment banning the Clinton clan from politics.

Answer 9

One in which the only democrat wins, no matter what their vote total, and all other candidates are executed at sunset.

Answer 10

No corruption,
No interest groups,
No nepotism,
No family dynaties, and
No patronage.