Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
If you ask me, a big reason why democracy in America is in trouble is because of the way we’ve set it up.
First, there’s our Electoral College for electing presidents. By using state electors for selecting the overall winner through an antiquated Electoral College, instead of the majority of all voters, a lot of votes end up not mattering.
For example, if you’ve been a Trump supporter in New Mexico, your vote for president in 2020 didn’t count toward the final tally that gave Biden the election. All of this state’s five electoral votes went to Biden, so your vote really didn’t count.
But of course, if our presidential elections were decided by a majority of the nation’s ballots instead of electoral votes, Trump would never have been elected in the first place — either time. And neither would George W. Bush have won the 2000 election, when Al Gore actually won the majority vote.
For that very reason, the idea of dumping our Electoral College for presidential races is a non-starter during these divisive times. Conservatives and rural states would oppose it with a vengeance because the Electoral College gives them more power, and a better chance at winning the presidency.
So, given the futility of taking up that would-be reform, let’s set it aside and take a look at something that’s actually do-able for the down-ballot races, because moderates on both sides can embrace it.
I’m talking about “ranked-choice” or “instant-runoff” voting. It’s gaining traction because it dramatically improves our democratic process.
It works when there are three or more candidates in a race. Here’s how:
Voters cast their ballots by ranking their choices of candidates by preference; their top choice gets marked as “1,” the voter’s second favorite gets a “2” and so on. If a candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, he or she is the winner and that’s that, but if no candidate gets a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate who got the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and the second choice on those ballots are counted and the vote is tallied a second time. If that count gives someone a majority, they’re declared the winner, but if there’s still no majority, the candidate with the next fewest votes is eliminated and his or her supporters’ second choices are counted.
And so it goes until one candidate gets the majority and is declared the winner.
It might sound complicated, but for the voter it’s simple. You rank your choices much as you might on a survey and cast your ballot. And the vote count itself is pretty straight-forward, too, though you might have to do more than one count until a majority is reached.
It’s a process that encourages more moderate candidates because the candidates themselves will be motivated not to alienate their opponents’ base of support. Extremists on both sides of the political spectrum generally represent a minority of voters — most Americans are center left or center right, or independently in the middle — and ranked-choice voting tends to skew the results away from the extremes.
Plus, it discourages negative campaigning, which tends to polarize voters. Since some candidates will want to make a “second-choice” play for their opponents’ supporters, they’ll want to cast a wider net for their votes.
Most Americans aren’t extremists, they’re center left or center right. Ranked-choice voting is a way to make their voices become the most important voices of all.
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at: