Imagine if you lived in a country where you had no fair and equal say in government. Your opinions on how to run the country would be skewed, contorted, and misrepresented. This is our reality as citizens of the United States on presidential election days. The votes are not fair under the Electoral College, today’s system of electing our president. In this system, citizens vote for electors in each state who convene in December to decide the next president. For numerous reasons, the Electoral College does not treat every vote fairly and equally; thus, the US should switch to a system called instant runoff voting. The Electoral College is not fair for numerous reasons. First, the system does not let the citizens directly vote for president,
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Instant runoff voting (IRV), also called “preferential voting” and “alternative vote,” works similarly to the first-past-the-post system (FPTP, or plurality voting). In FPTP, each citizen gets one vote for one candidate. The candidate that wins the most votes, regardless of if the candidate has a majority of votes, wins office. In IRV, each citizen gets as many votes as there are candidates. Voters rank the candidates to create a preferential list, starting by listing the candidate that is the most liked and going on to list next liked candidates until all remaining candidates are liked equally. Voters are not required to use all their votes under IRV; they only need to use the number of votes that matter to them until all other candidates available are equally liked last. IRV determines the winner of the election via a short looping process. First, determine if a candidate has a majority; if so, the candidate wins the office. Next, eliminate the candidate with the least number of votes. Take the candidate’s votes and distribute them to the other remaining candidates based on the second choices given by the voters. Repeat. If only one candidate remains with a majority, some organizations will grant them office anyway. The one major difference between FPTP and IRV is the decrease of the spoiler effect. Imagine a scenario where two candidates are running for office. A third candidate, similar in policies to the more
Instant runoff voting (IRV), also called “preferential voting” and “alternative vote,” works similarly to the first-past-the-post system (FPTP, or plurality voting). In FPTP, each citizen gets one vote for one candidate. The candidate that wins the most votes, regardless of if the candidate has a majority of votes, wins office. In IRV, each citizen gets as many votes as there are candidates. Voters rank the candidates to create a preferential list, starting by listing the candidate that is the most liked and going on to list next liked candidates until all remaining candidates are liked equally. Voters are not required to use all their votes under IRV; they only need to use the number of votes that matter to them until all other candidates available are equally liked last. IRV determines the winner of the election via a short looping process. First, determine if a candidate has a majority; if so, the candidate wins the office. Next, eliminate the candidate with the least number of votes. Take the candidate’s votes and distribute them to the other remaining candidates based on the second choices given by the voters. Repeat. If only one candidate remains with a majority, some organizations will grant them office anyway. The one major difference between FPTP and IRV is the decrease of the spoiler effect. Imagine a scenario where two candidates are running for office. A third candidate, similar in policies to the more