Word: systemize
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...modern era, the 2000 election was the most notable example of a case in which voters’ preferences were not properly represented. Through our plurality voting system, a right-of-center candidate took office despite the fact that a clear majority of the public voted for liberal policies in the form of former Vice President Al Gore ’69 and consumer rights activist Ralph Nader. By 2004, Republicans were funding Nader’s campaign for office, and the gaming of the system reached new levels in congressional elections, with major candidates strategically funding fringe opponents...
When confronted with this reality, political analysts and commentators often exclaim helplessness at the outcome, citing Kenneth Arrow’s “impossibility theorem” as a justification for using a flawed voting system. Arrow, a Stanford economist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his theorem explaining that no voting system could perfectly represent the preferences of a group of voters. According to the theorem, a perfectly representative voting system would create an outcome where the ranking of winners would align with voter preferences, unanimity would be respected, there would be no dictators, and irrelevant choices...
...William Poundstone observes in his book “Gaming the Vote,” it is important to realize that the existence of the impossibility theorem certainly does not rule out the prospect of improving our electoral system. Rather, the theorem sets an important foundation for a discussion of the efficiency and representative nature of voting systems, and should encourage the discussion of electoral improvements in local, state, and federal governments...
There are a variety of voting systems that should be examined as alternatives to our currently flawed system, but there is a specific one, instant-runoff voting, that holds the most potential for the future. Already endorsed by President Obama and Arizona Senator John McCain, instant-runoff, used by Australia and Canada, allows voters to rank candidates preferentially. When all the votes are received, if no candidate receives over 50 percent of the first-rank preferences, the candidate with the fewest number of first-preference votes is eliminated and the ballots that ranked the eliminated candidate first transfer their first...
...system is by no means mathematically perfect, and, like any other system, it can still be manipulated. The system does, however, provide solutions to a variety of problems with our current electoral system. It could prevent low turnout primaries from determining the general election slate of candidates while also not allowing every candidate who files for election a place on the ballot for November elections. If America had instant-runoff, a majority of abolitionists might have elected an abolitionist president in 1844, and a majority of liberals might have elected a liberal president in 2000. The winning candidate of every...