My short essay on Rank-based Voting
 

Rank-based Voting would solve many of today’s problems

The partisan nature of today’s political world is both shocking and depressing. Party members hold biased ideological views only to support their party. Many issues are instantly and perpetually polarized, and rational debates in political forums and the media are few and far between. It is no wonder why a majority of Americans have a fleeting interest in political affairs, not to mention voting.

To inject honesty and integrity into politics, a new rank-based voting system is needed that will allow new parties to be established effectually. Such a system would eliminate any worries of splitting the Democrat or Republican vote, since voters would indicate their order of preference for candidates. The top rank choices of a liberal or conservative voter would include parties comparable to the Democrats or Republicans, respectively. Competition among these parties for the 1st rank choice of voters would diminish blind partisanship among party members and in the media.

All of the of rank-based voting systems represent the will of the people better than our current system, plurality voting. The most reliable of the rank-based systems is simple majority rule (a.k.a. true majority rule). Unlike plurality voting, simple majority rule will prohibit a vote for one candidate to politically benefit any other candidate. Because no voting system is perfect, simple majority rule has a flaw, although an inconsequential one. The Condorcet paradox, in which no preferred majority is chosen, is realistically inconceivable. Simple majority rule is practically perfect.

If the United States of America wants to remain the bastion of democracy, it will have to switch to a superior voting system. We can no longer present to the world petty political bickering and a dismal voter turnout as the best system of government. With Ralph Nader accused of being a “spoiler” for trying to add a voice to the political debate, an overhaul of the political system is clearly and sorely needed.


E Gordon

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780 or anyone who wants to put this anywhere can go right ahead.

comments?

"political world"?
You mean American political environment.

This is an opinion which is not backed up with any supporting evidence. Do you really think ideology is what keeps Republicans and Democrats perpetually at odds? gimme a break. They both have the same ideology. $$=votes=power.


Get the fukk out of here. Great Britain has rank-based voting, and their politicians have neither honesty nor integrity as predominant character traits.

You have neither explained how rank-based voting works nor how it would do these things which you claim it will do.

If I wasn't at work I would print a copy of this paragraph out and piss on it. Your argument that plurality voting allows a vote for one candidate to beneft another is baseless. Plurality-based systems always have a runoff election, so if Gore lost to Bush because of Nader, it wouldn't matter because in the runoff the Nader voters would vote for Gore and he would win. If you're going to bring up the Condorcet paradox, you'd better define it clearly. And the sentence "Simple majority rule is practically perfect." is detached from reality, history, and common sense.

This conclusion is poor. First of all, you're implying that the most important part of our political process is how it looks to the rest of the world. Secondly, multi-party systems are by no means absent of political bickering or low voter turnout. That is baseless. Furthermore the closing sentence is not very convincing at all.

i wasnt trying to go into too much detail. the point was to get ppl talking. i'll type up something longer soon

they both do what now?

i thought the blind partisanship was self evident, but point taken

course not. but they're better than in the u.s. and the media is much less stupid. and voter turnout is around 70% to our 40

take my word for it, why dont ya. maybe in a later much longer essay

how can plurality-based systems always have a runoff if our current system doesnt? yes, our system is plurality-based. and we cant have runoff elections for every office up for grabs. and run-off elections have their flaws.

or else what? i refuse!

what history? what i wrote is the only flaw in the system. how can we possibly do any better? it's hard to explain that flaw without some long, nonsensical example. maybe later

what the? i implied no such thing. the fact is that in general we're all proud of our system when it's far from where it should be

just about all there is here is petty bickering and overt political maneuvering. we cant do away with all of it, but we can cut it down to where it's not the norm.

and voter turnout in multi-party systems is pretty damn high, whachou talkin bout, willis? baseless my ass. http://www.idea.int/voter_turnout/vo...rnout8.html#30
here's a link to their voting system definitions for figure 24.

thanks for the comments. more please. my uber-essay must be hotness