Independent news, information, and analysis on emerging alternative voting methods to replace the choose-one voting method used in most US jurisdictions and give voters more choice at the ballot box, including ranked choice voting, approval voting, STAR voting, and more.
In November, Mainers will vote for governor. Recent poll results show four candidates splitting the vote. Talk of “spoilers” is rearing its ugly head, again. Rather than discussing all of the candidates’ qualifications, voters are forced to consider the possible adverse consequences of a vote outside the two major parties.
Many must be asking: “Wasn’t ranked-choice voting going to solve this?” The answer is yes, it would have solved it. But our state lawmakers are hiding behind a constitutional technicality they could easily fix.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.- The San Francisco mayor’s race was a cliffhanger. After the initial tally of votes for San Francisco mayor, London Breed had 37%, Mark Leno had 24%. Then ranked-choice voting’s instant runoffs kicked in--due to the non-majority result--and Leno and Breed were suddenly neck-and-neck.
Mainstream business experts in America are waking up to the failure of our country’s political system.
Competition is the American way. In business, you hear the following saying: “If we don’t take care of the customer, somebody else will.”
As a nation, back to Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting and before, we’ve been well trained to distrust monopolies, or even situations where competition is limited to a handful of providers. We have about eight major airlines in the U.S., and that choice is often painful enough.
But would we ever let our airlines merge such that there were just two? How about our banks?
Mainers face an important choice on Question 5 when they go to the polls on November 8th—whether to support ranked-choice voting to restore majority outcomes for electing its leaders in government, or not. I’ve noticed that opponents of ranked-choice will make their case against this method, and then throw in “and besides, it’s unconstitutional.” For some opponents, it’s their only argument, made in an attempt to “win by forfeit.”