The way we vote in America makes no sense
By: Ross Sherman
Tags: Elections, Democracy, Politics, Election 2020, Voting

Let’s pretend for a minute that, starting from scratch, you were given the power to create a new U.S. election system. The goal? To get the most people to vote, and to end up with a candidate who most of the country preferred.

I’m willing to bet that what you’d come up with is better than what we have now. That’s because our current voting systems are irrational, illogical and — at worst — prevent a lot of people from participating.

The evidence of how imperfect our system is all around us — from people waiting several hours in line to vote to eligible voters being turned away at the last minute. That led to the New York Times editorial board recently publishing an article with the blunt headline: “The Primaries Are Just Dumb.” The editorial decried our current primary system and makes a compelling case for ranked-choice voting (more on that later).

To make matters worse, we’re also seeing the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) throw wrenches in the democratic process around the country, with several states deciding to delay their primary elections. Clearly there are pressing COVID-19-related public health issues to take care of immediately, but the pandemic also offers a springboard for thinking about how we can adjust the way we vote.

Of course, we shouldn’t need the COVID-19 outbreak to recognize change is necessary. In fact, the most frustrating part of this issue is that there have been several immediate solutions at our disposal for quite some time, yet we haven’t been using them.

As a Colorado resident, I’m pretty lucky. My state makes it pretty darn easy to vote. Thirty days before any election, my ballot gets mailed directly to my address. That gives me more than enough time, if I haven’t done the research already, to look at the candidates and issues I’m voting on to make an informed decision.

Not only that, but once I’ve filled out the ballot, I also have the option of mailing it in or dropping it off at any time at any one of the drop boxes scattered conveniently around the city. Typically, since I work close to the drop box at Denver’s Union Station, I’ll deliver my ballot during my lunch break.

If for some reason I mess up my ballot or lose it, I also have the option of voting early at my polling location. If I procrastinate and wait until Election Day, I can vote then instead.

Voting by mail. Photo: Chris Phan via Flickr CC BY 2.0.

Overall, I’ve found Colorado’s process to be effortless, and it’s so obvious to me that voting should be this easy everywhere. Unfortunately, we know that’s not the case. A recent study by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that since 2010, half of the states in the country have passed voting restrictions, whether it be stricter voter ID laws, shorter early voting periods or rules that make it harder to register to vote and then stay registered.

While proponents of these stricter voting laws argue that they are preventing voter fraud, there is no evidence to support those claims. The net result is those laws limit participation in the democratic process — which is absurd. Shouldn’t we want more eligible people to participate, not less? Especially when, as a country, we have some of the worst voter turnout numbers in the developed world.

So, what do we do about it? As I mentioned earlier, we have several tried-and-true solutions to improve voter turnout. For example, we should have automatic voter registration, meaning that when you interact with a government agency, your voter registration is also updated. That would instantly ensure that a greater number of people can more easily participate in democracy and have their voices heard.

Additionally, we could make Election Day a national holiday, which would allow people who can’t get off work the opportunity to vote. We could have early voting in every state — whether it’s by mail or in person. We could increase the number of polling locations, rather than cut them. The list goes on and on.

Apart from taking steps to increase voter turnout, we should also rethink the manner in which we choose candidates. Currently, our system seems to reward divisiveness, and — especially in really crowded fields — candidates can win elections with a small plurality of the overall vote.

Again, as the New York Times editorial argued, there’s a better way to do it: ranked-choice voting. In this system, voters rank candidates running for office in order of preference. If after the first tally, nobody gets a majority of the vote, the candidate who finished last is eliminated, and the second choices of people who chose the eliminated candidate get those votes. This process repeats until one candidate gets a majority.

There are many advantages to ranked-choice voting. Knowing that voters’ second, third or fourth choices might determine who wins the election, candidates are less likely to attack one another, and more likely to work at broadening their appeal to more constituencies.

My home state of Maine recently passed ranked-choice voting, and this led to a “friendlier” type of campaign in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary. In an interesting twist that you otherwise wouldn’t see, two candidates who shared similar views formed a quasi-alliance, each telling their supporters to vote second for the other.

Ranked-choice voting would also help to solve the “spoiler candidate” or “strategic voting” problem. The latter was a huge story through the early part of this year’s Democratic presidential primary process. Many people, because they could only voice their preference for one person, based their decision on who they thought could win or would win in the general election, rather than on who they thought would make the best president. With ranked-choice voting, picking your preferred candidate would no longer feel like a wasted vote.

Additionally, many people in states like Colorado and California voted early and chose candidates who dropped out of the race before their Election Day. Ranked-choice voting would ensure that those folks’ second and third preferences were taken into account. Again, this avoids that feeling by many that they casted a wasted vote.

The New York Times editorial summed up the appeal of ranked-choice voting perfectly: “Already in use all over the world and in cities and towns across the United States, [ranked-choice voting is] a popular and proven way of electing leaders who are — what a radical notion! — actually supported by most voters.”

Admittedly, none of us will be able to wave a magic wand and implement all these ideas right away. Yes, the fact that there are so many obvious solutions to our voter participation woes make it all the more frustrating that they aren’t getting done at a large scale. But to solve the biggest problems of the day, we have to keep pushing for commonsense, widely popular voting reforms. It’s the only way forward.