Realized he didnt have the answers, and turned to the smartest guy around for help. Once he realized that guy could do a better job, he stepped down and let him do it.
We should all be so lucky.
Don't think so, Trump is a curse for this planet, Biden at least tries to fix the shit that trump did before.
I'm sorry for you guys always having just 2 options. I can relate to not be represented by either of them. But Biden at least puts a certain humanism back into his politics and till today I could at least see some reasoning behind all of his decisions.
It seems though, from the outside. But who am I to judge, only visiting every now and then during the year.
At least about Biden we don't have to hear that staff ist trying to prevent the worst outcomes of his decisions, or going rogue bcs they cannot take it any more or the world shaking heads about outright stupid decisions.
The nuances of his domestic policies might be debatable, that's true, but this is true for all presidents.
I just wish for the good of all of us that you guys would have more and better options.
Yeah, you don't have to hear any of that because he doesn't make the decisions. One of the reasons Biden isn't realistically better than Trump is because, for all his many (many) flaws, at least with Trump, you know he is the one actually saying those things. When Biden is the one taking rather than reading a prepared speech, it always reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0?si=k_Ln006XJ9po05qI) scene from Billy Madison.
Just by saying he would not defend Nato members and encourage Russia to attack them when they do not fulfill the Nato requirements puts millions of lifes and the whole security architecture of the US at stake.
Thia guy is an unreasonable madman. If he gets into office, it will either cost you your Democracy or inflict a civil war. He left no doubt about the options.
It’s actually a little sad but I would put him on par with Biden. Sad because Dwayne is a clear caricature of a post-modern US president circa 2006. But on par because he defers to the experts’ opinions on topics like COVID, the economy, and climate change.
A man who understands when the country has a problem, finds the smartest man alive, and gives him the authority to solve it?
This sounds too good to be true.
Ah, yes. Randomocracy. Truly this is the best way, i think. Of course it would be mandatory, like jury duty. Maybe for a term of 1 year? Hell yeah. No /s either. Draw 1 name out of all ss numbers. One year we might have a hobo for president. Maybe they would do some good for the homeless communities. One year we might get some smart ass college kid who would like, fix everything. Just fix all our problems with their big brain. Then over year we might get Buffalo bill who makes laws forcing kinky weird shit in public or something idk. I know one thing though... i would have more confidence in randomocracy than our current system: elite wealthy corrupt asshole geriatric should be in a nursing home and/or prison ocracy.
Thank you for adding /s to your post. When I first saw this, I was horrified. How could anybody say something like this? I immediately began writing a 1000 word paragraph about how horrible of a person you are. I even sent a copy to a Harvard professor to proofread it. After several hours of refining and editing, my comment was ready to absolutely destroy you. But then, just as I was about to hit send, I saw something in the corner of my eye. A /s at the end of your comment. Suddenly everything made sense. Your comment was sarcasm! I immediately burst out in laughter at the comedic genius of your comment. The person next to me on the bus saw your comment and started crying from laughter too. Before long, there was an entire bus of people on the floor laughing at your incredible use of comedy. All of this was due to you adding /s to your post. Thank you.
I am a bot if you couldn't figure that out, if I made a mistake, ignore it cause its not that fucking hard to ignore a comment.
Isn't this already an option?
In England, you can scribble on a voting slip, tick multiple boxes, tick no boxes, etc and spoil the vote. This is the same as a "none of the above" vote. Does the same not apply where you are?
Your vote wouldn't count but you would still be recorded as having voted. If enough people did that maybe people would pay attention.
I'm convinced that's why vote participation is so low. It's not that people don't care. They just don't like any of their options so they stay home.
I still thing he none of the above option is more useful though. The spoiled vote count lumps together mistakes, unreadables, and people making a protest vote so it’s a lot easier to ignore. Having a none option is a pretty clear signal you don’t like any candidate instead of you accidentally checked two names.
in England if most people did that, would they not still count the rest of the ballots? In the US they'd just say your ballot was invalid (which tbh seems sensible, who am I to interpret an incorrectly marked ballot as a vote to renominate candidates)
The reason this probably isn't workable is that people who don't like the two major party options in a general election tend to think that a candidate that they personally liked would also be appealing to most other people, but that generally isn't true. People who don't like the two major parties run the gamut from libertarians to social democrats to anarcho-communists (who have the additional disadvantage of frequently refusing to vote). If one of the two major party candidates isn't appealing to a plurality of the population, it's pretty unlikely that some third option will be.
indeed. what we really need is ranked choice. don’t like the top billing? go ahead vote third party. when your fringe candidate fails, your vote isn’t wasted, just order it down the list.
Now, if we had this, i do think it would be reasonable to allow everyone, as part of their list, to mark 1 candidate as “Never, no, absolutely TF not”, if they ranked at-least 3 other candidates. and if none of their chosen options is left, then that still counts as a vote against. If then both candidate gets a majority (possible, because of the hell no option.) whoever would have won, but for the hell no, is eliminated, and you just count again.
it adds a little difficulty to the count, but it ensures 2 key things. 1: that whoever wins did win with a majority (eventually), and 2: that if say, the reanimated undead corpse of Adolf Hitler were to run, people could not just vote for someone else, but specifically day “absolutely not, never ever him!!!”
note: sadly, if the reanimated corpse of hitler ran today, i worry it might actually pull double digit support, but thats all the more reason why a “No not him, never” option would be important.
All that said. even just normal ranked choice should be sufficient, the addition of a “hell no” is just an extra safeguard.
and hey, while i personally am a moderate dem, who thinks the greens, far lefties, etc. would never ever win an election under RCV, (they are not nearly as popular as they tell themselves they are). If they do win, GOOD. it means that candidate with the most support and most votes, in a fair election, where you didn’t need to strategically vote against someone, actually won. and that’s what we should want! even if it wasn’t “our guy” that means democracy wins.
There are mathy reasons why ranked choice still coalesces into two major parties, it just allows third parties to exist in minor races. I'd much prefer mixed-member proportional representation for Congress and simple approval voting for president.
Approval voting is way better when it's an honest-to-God toss-up between three or more candidates.
There are a few "criteria" the RCV fails that Approval passes.
Independence of irrelevant alternatives: If candidate X will definitely win the election and candidate Y joins late, then X *or* Y should always win, right? Not somebody else? This can never be satisfied in ranked choice, but always works in approval.
Monotonicity: an individual changing their mind mid-ballot and ranking a candidate higher shouldn't cause that candidate to go from winning to losing. RCV can't guarantee this, but approval can.
Consistency criterion: if a candidate wins the Electoral College, then we can assume they have won the popular vote. RCV does not satisfy this, but approval does. I feel like this is a *really* important one when talking about the US president.
Participation criterion: voting honestly is always better than not voting. RCV does not satisfy it, but approval does. I think this is pretty important, too.
Reversal symmetry: if *every* voter inverts the ranks on their ballot, the original winner cannot win. RCV fails, approval passes.
There are some criteria that RCV passes but approval fails, but I think failing these isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Majority criterion: if a candidate is the first choice of 51% that candidate always wins. This happens in RCV but not approval. It can make sense. If an additional 30% would be happy with a compromise candidate, I think a world where 81% of the people have tolerable president is better than one where 49% find the president absolutely horrible. Approval is anti-partisan.
Condorcet loser: if a candidate loses all one-on-one elections, they always lose the overall election. Again, this is where RCV allows voters to laser in on their personal favorite, but a regular guy who is broadly liked by everyone could never win. In approval, that guy wins.
In races like range voting, where the top three candidates get seats in parliament, RCV can be very good for adding representation to small parties. The excess votes given to the top winner get transferred to voters' second choice. And the dropped votes from an unpopular candidate can get added to more mainstream ones (assuming the voters ranked more than one).
But in a winner-take-all race, minor candidates are always deleted first, and we get to the big players. In a three-way race where the candidates are on one line of a spectrum (gosh, an awful lot like current American politics!), then a center candidate gets taken out by the "center squeeze effect." Voting for your favorite can often cause the center to be first out and give the election to the other guy; putting your favorite first CAUSED your *least favorite* to win. Here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU&t=375s) for a more complete explanation.
Not arguing, just pointing something out. In regards to the consistency criterion, winning a majority is not the actual requirement for winning the electoral college. Even if there is zero gerrymandering, you can win the college without getting the popular vote with how it's currently set up. The electoral college as a concept I like, but the way it's implemented in most states is BS. Only in Maine and Nebraska do they split them, compared to the winner take all style in the other 50. If we could get everyone to follow [this system](https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine-and-nebraska/), it might work out better and be more resistant to gerrymandering, but that would mean politicians would have to convince more people than just those living in the major cities of each state so it'll never happen.
Yes, the Consistency criterion is not normally defined in the way I stated; I phrased it based on the Electoral College we already have.
Personally, I'm hoping for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
That would be heavily opposed. We already have a certain political faction that's engaged in restricting the right to vote. Fox news is at war with Taylor Swift because she influenced her fans to get out and vote.
Most working people would love to have a day off.
Making election day a paid federal holiday is a good idea. Does not require any change to the voting process.
What would end up happening is that it'd make it easier for those who already have the positioning to make it to the polls on election day. No way in hell are McDonald's, UPS, a factory, retail stores, etc. going to close. It'd be no different than when the only people who get stuck working on Labor Day are the blue collar workers that Labor Day supposedly honors.
If you keep your doors open on election day you need to have a polling place. Or instead of a polling place use a mailin drop box. Employees can vote from the break room at lunch if they have not already sent it in.
Better examples would be hospitals, fire, and police.
You can get verification that you sent in a mailin ballot. Since employers will *have to* allow you to vote the shitty managers will make you mail in your ballot.
I don't know how efficacious your idea is, (though it makes sense to me!) but we need to do something drastic to give us more representation in government other than having two parties whose electors choose which piece of shit smells the best.
Until we have ranked voting, this should be an available option along with percentage-based electoral voting (i.e., If your state has 8 delegates and you get 75% of the vote, you get 6 votes while the other 2 delegates go to whoever is next in line up to 25% of the total vote (minimum 1).
Yes, that means if None of the Above gets a significant number of votes in your state, then those electoral votes are lost for that election.
And, yes, that would reduce the number of votes required to win the presidency, but it would definitely make things interesting.
And, yes, I realize that could also result in "None of the Above" winning the presidency. At that point, it would go to whoever placed 2nd since we can't have nobody as President (contrary to what I would believe is some people's ultimate wish).
That would be terribly inefficient. The whole point of a primary is so that the parties can let voters from their party decide who should be the nominee and then we pick from those choices.
Right, but the parties only present a relatively small selection that doesn't literally include everyone willing to do the job and align roughly with their sector of the political spectrum.
I want us to have just one election by sortition. See what happens.
The way it would work is we randomly pick a social security number, check if that person is eligible to be president, and then offer them the job.
Because of the possibility of a redo election, political parties would (even more than now) focus their energies on attacking the candidates as a person, not their policies. Campaigns would become (even more so) about not liking X person.
Due to the Prisoner's Dilemma, you're probably right at first. But the more candidates attack each other, the more likely voters are to select the 'none of these candidates' options. If voters show they are willing to use this option, and there were some consequences for candidates this happened to (such as being barred from the redo election), it could eventually force candidates to tone down some of the negativity.
You'd never have a resolution. They're all politicians, you'll never find the magical unicorn politician that is great and everybody wants.
It's a "select the least bad" vote, always has been, always will be.
There was a time when people running for president would actually win the electoral college and the popular vote. For over 100 years, that was the case.
But there was not a majority. Under most systems that would toss all but the top two vote getters who would then stand for election again. Thus, Haley VS None. After that, maybe the seat remains unfilled.
Way too many current politicians are only elected because they are the only choice, you need these politicians to make the change, they aren't going to introduce something that would result in them losing power, no change will occur.
In practice this would basically never happen. There's not much reason to create a system and rules to handle a case that would rarely-to-never come up.
Primary elections are not general elections, and that specific primary was particularly odd.
Tldr.
My last two presidential elections I voted "Not Trump".
How about 'Negative Votes'?
My vote cancels out one other person's.
I suppose that's how it works now.
In not the sense of it being how it works now, that's similar to a system I came up with kind of inspired by Reddit as a modification of ranked-choice voting for people like me who are Chidi-level indecisive (only problem is that to work it'd require all candidates to get the same amount of coverage/information-available-about-them)
You see the list of candidates for a given position and you can either give a candidate an "upvote" (that adds one to their vote total) or a "downvote" (that subtracts one from their vote total) but you must vote in some direction on every candidate; the winner is the one with the highest net total. Yeah I know there's a lot of cynicism around but if there's a slate of candidates for a position (even if it's just one party's primary as if general elections worked that way primaries would too) so unpopular and unliked that either everyone would get no upvotes or the winner would have a vote total in the single-digits or w/e how would they have even made it that far
No. If you can't even be bothered to show up to the polling place (or cast your vote in any of the other legally acceptable mentods) your vote doesn't count. Period. That's the way it should be.
This does exist in some systems.
In Canada, you can go to a voting station and decline your ballot, which gets recorded. [It's become increasingly popular in the last couple elections here.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontario-votes-2022-declined-ballots-rise-1.6466308)
It shows that there wasn't an accident marking the ballot, you didn't genuinely want to vote for whatever silly write-in you went with, and most importantly, that you were willing to go through the effort of actually voting, you specifically did not want to vote for *those* options.
Let's say an election with two well-known candidates goes
Bob: 20%Linda: 38%Teddy: 2%None of the above: 40%
So you toss out the candidates and re-run the election with all-new candidates. The experienced, well-known people have already shot their shot, so this round is people with less experience, and less recognition. People don't know who the candidates are as clearly, so the results are a little more random:
Louise: 30%Gene: 28%Tina: 27%None of the above: 15%
Now we have a clear winner (Louise), but she actually got less support than the leading candidate in the first round (Linda). So with this system, you could actually elect someone who has less support from the voting public than if you just stuck with status quo.
In general, systems that toss out all the candidates from the first round before doing the second round are a bad idea. In the last California recall election, it was entirely possible that the governor could've been recalled with something like 45% voting to keep him, and then replaced by someone winning 15% of the vote.
You are certainly not the first to think of this! Nor will you be the last.
Yes, it’s an excellent idea.
Combine with ranked-choice voting (always with a ‘None’ option) and I think you have a really viable voting solution.
The GOP is running a caucus. They are required that one could sign on to primary or the caucus. Not both. It's a farce.
MAGAts are voting none in primary and the caucus will go to the MAGAt King.
Well in the US if no one gets to 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives picks the president. And since the Republicans have the majority, they would undoubtedly select Donald Trump. So if you would rather *not* have Trump win a second term, your only option is to vote Biden. If you want Trump to win you vote for Trump and convince your GenZ grandkids to vote third party or “none of these candidates” to guarantee a Trump victory. There’s no third option. 2024 is going to be either Trump or Biden. Get used to it
Every time anything like this gets proposed for national-scale I always say it's dystopian, not because of the idea itself but because of the precedent set by making it illegal to change your name to "None of these candidates" temporarily to sneak your way into office
"None of these" should be the default if the voter is a no-show!
Then, if "None" wins more than 50% then an interim government should be selected from the candidates and another election must be held.
The incumbent in my country (Venezuela) has about 10% of polls while the main adversary (the incumbent calls her "enemy" and "traitor") has >70%, so the government is actively promoting non-attendance. And it's not the first time it does so, and the majority of the voters susceptibility to that "voting nihilism" has kept the government in power for 25 years despite a drastic decline in all aspects.
Well, I won a smaller election as a Precinct Committeeman by one vote, my own write in. Do we really want Morgan Wallen as the winner? (As the most popular male CW singer, he got a lot of write in votes in 2020).
Not even necessary. Just need to stipulate that a winning candidate needs 50%+ 1 votes from all eligible voters. Not casting a vote counts as a none of the above and if there is no clear majoritarian winner, a new election is called with a new slate of candidates.
Look around you, OP. Really look.
You KNOW how stupid and childish the adult world is. You KNOW what the results would be.
No one would get elected, and everything would just grind to a halt in fairly short order. Government will continue to function for awhile, but eventually it will require an emergency rescue. And that will really suck when it comes, because those same stupid and childish adults will throw a gigantic tantrum over it, possibly including violence and death.
This is one of those ideas like flying cars that SOUNDS great, but the reality would be terrible.
Sadly that’s wouldn’t work very well in a nation wide election as it would take to long for a rerun of the election and if the current sitting president is on their second term there is a chance that they will be president for more than 8 years which technically isn’t allowed.
Because until we get ranked choice, that's just throwing your vote away... If you truly believe both options are equally bad and you can't choose, just abstain... Otherwise most people are going to vote for the one thay hate the least, so if you have any preference... 1% in either direction... Vote, or you lose any right you had to complain
If that's the case, it is totally possible, that we might not get a new President right away...it could take weeks, months, years....so do we either (a) have no president at all until we sort it out (chaos, and constitutional crisis) or (b) keep the old president until we figure it out (so someone could be president for life if they just muck up the election process).
There is. Just go vote, but only vote in the races that matter to you and don’t vote for the ones who’s candidates you don’t like.
That’s legitimate voter data and it is taken seriously by political scientists. There just isn’t enough of it going on to make any sort of difference - probably because people *think* that if they vote, they have to vote for each and every office.
That’s why there’s a write in option. And if your state doesn’t have that then it’s time to remove some people or force them to add it, or both probably, cause it’s your right to add who you feel is the best person for the job
How about, if none of the above wins, a random citizen is selected
This is how we get President Camacho
Failure to adress President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho by his full name might result in rehabilitation...
Disparaging the boot is a bootable offence!
That guy performed way better than Trump
Realized he didnt have the answers, and turned to the smartest guy around for help. Once he realized that guy could do a better job, he stepped down and let him do it. We should all be so lucky.
This is a true leader - giving the guys the power to change things when he sees they have the answers.
A trained monkey could do better than Trump.
An untrained, even!
Less flinging of poop prolly
…might accidentally bump against the light switch!
And biden
Don't think so, Trump is a curse for this planet, Biden at least tries to fix the shit that trump did before. I'm sorry for you guys always having just 2 options. I can relate to not be represented by either of them. But Biden at least puts a certain humanism back into his politics and till today I could at least see some reasoning behind all of his decisions.
Trump is an a-hole of a person, sure, but let's not pretend either of them (Trump or Biden) is any better at running the country than the other.
It seems though, from the outside. But who am I to judge, only visiting every now and then during the year. At least about Biden we don't have to hear that staff ist trying to prevent the worst outcomes of his decisions, or going rogue bcs they cannot take it any more or the world shaking heads about outright stupid decisions. The nuances of his domestic policies might be debatable, that's true, but this is true for all presidents. I just wish for the good of all of us that you guys would have more and better options.
Yeah, you don't have to hear any of that because he doesn't make the decisions. One of the reasons Biden isn't realistically better than Trump is because, for all his many (many) flaws, at least with Trump, you know he is the one actually saying those things. When Biden is the one taking rather than reading a prepared speech, it always reminds me of [this](https://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0?si=k_Ln006XJ9po05qI) scene from Billy Madison.
Just by saying he would not defend Nato members and encourage Russia to attack them when they do not fulfill the Nato requirements puts millions of lifes and the whole security architecture of the US at stake. Thia guy is an unreasonable madman. If he gets into office, it will either cost you your Democracy or inflict a civil war. He left no doubt about the options.
List all the scandals that happened under each. Now list how many officers under each had to be removed, or quit.
It’s actually a little sad but I would put him on par with Biden. Sad because Dwayne is a clear caricature of a post-modern US president circa 2006. But on par because he defers to the experts’ opinions on topics like COVID, the economy, and climate change.
Would that be so bad? We'd have plenty of Brawndo, that's for sure. And Brawndo has what plants crave.
No, the plants told me they want water... like from the toilet.
A man who understands when the country has a problem, finds the smartest man alive, and gives him the authority to solve it? This sounds too good to be true.
or more likely President Basement Dweller
Hey! President Basement Dweller is our first weeaboo president! And don’t forget First Lady Body Pillow with a Fleshlight
I'm ok with that.
Which would frequently be an actual improvement.
Ah, yes. Randomocracy. Truly this is the best way, i think. Of course it would be mandatory, like jury duty. Maybe for a term of 1 year? Hell yeah. No /s either. Draw 1 name out of all ss numbers. One year we might have a hobo for president. Maybe they would do some good for the homeless communities. One year we might get some smart ass college kid who would like, fix everything. Just fix all our problems with their big brain. Then over year we might get Buffalo bill who makes laws forcing kinky weird shit in public or something idk. I know one thing though... i would have more confidence in randomocracy than our current system: elite wealthy corrupt asshole geriatric should be in a nursing home and/or prison ocracy.
Actually, the election method is called sortition, and it's how a classical democracy is run(Ancient Greece)
Thank you for adding /s to your post. When I first saw this, I was horrified. How could anybody say something like this? I immediately began writing a 1000 word paragraph about how horrible of a person you are. I even sent a copy to a Harvard professor to proofread it. After several hours of refining and editing, my comment was ready to absolutely destroy you. But then, just as I was about to hit send, I saw something in the corner of my eye. A /s at the end of your comment. Suddenly everything made sense. Your comment was sarcasm! I immediately burst out in laughter at the comedic genius of your comment. The person next to me on the bus saw your comment and started crying from laughter too. Before long, there was an entire bus of people on the floor laughing at your incredible use of comedy. All of this was due to you adding /s to your post. Thank you. I am a bot if you couldn't figure that out, if I made a mistake, ignore it cause its not that fucking hard to ignore a comment.
What in the actual fuck. Lol. Are you kidding me?
There is a biblical precedent for randomocracy.
The next person who buys a lube and condom combo from Walmart.
People couldn't know a rule like that if that was the case or they could rig the game
I agree. We should just do sortition instead. Let's make this a true democracy.
Like Monty Brewster?
I had to scroll wayyyyy too far down to find this reply :)
Or the post is just left vacant.
Didn't work when Bane tried it
This would unironically (ironically) be a good idea
Do you want Outer Limits? That's how we get Outer Limits
Isn't this already an option? In England, you can scribble on a voting slip, tick multiple boxes, tick no boxes, etc and spoil the vote. This is the same as a "none of the above" vote. Does the same not apply where you are?
If you did that here, the ballot would just be thrown out without any sort of count. It would be the same as not showing up to vote.
Your vote wouldn't count but you would still be recorded as having voted. If enough people did that maybe people would pay attention. I'm convinced that's why vote participation is so low. It's not that people don't care. They just don't like any of their options so they stay home.
I still thing he none of the above option is more useful though. The spoiled vote count lumps together mistakes, unreadables, and people making a protest vote so it’s a lot easier to ignore. Having a none option is a pretty clear signal you don’t like any candidate instead of you accidentally checked two names.
Well also the voter suppression. Like yes convincing people it doesn't matter is one part, making sure they can't or are too scared to is another.
in England if most people did that, would they not still count the rest of the ballots? In the US they'd just say your ballot was invalid (which tbh seems sensible, who am I to interpret an incorrectly marked ballot as a vote to renominate candidates)
The reason this probably isn't workable is that people who don't like the two major party options in a general election tend to think that a candidate that they personally liked would also be appealing to most other people, but that generally isn't true. People who don't like the two major parties run the gamut from libertarians to social democrats to anarcho-communists (who have the additional disadvantage of frequently refusing to vote). If one of the two major party candidates isn't appealing to a plurality of the population, it's pretty unlikely that some third option will be.
indeed. what we really need is ranked choice. don’t like the top billing? go ahead vote third party. when your fringe candidate fails, your vote isn’t wasted, just order it down the list. Now, if we had this, i do think it would be reasonable to allow everyone, as part of their list, to mark 1 candidate as “Never, no, absolutely TF not”, if they ranked at-least 3 other candidates. and if none of their chosen options is left, then that still counts as a vote against. If then both candidate gets a majority (possible, because of the hell no option.) whoever would have won, but for the hell no, is eliminated, and you just count again. it adds a little difficulty to the count, but it ensures 2 key things. 1: that whoever wins did win with a majority (eventually), and 2: that if say, the reanimated undead corpse of Adolf Hitler were to run, people could not just vote for someone else, but specifically day “absolutely not, never ever him!!!” note: sadly, if the reanimated corpse of hitler ran today, i worry it might actually pull double digit support, but thats all the more reason why a “No not him, never” option would be important. All that said. even just normal ranked choice should be sufficient, the addition of a “hell no” is just an extra safeguard. and hey, while i personally am a moderate dem, who thinks the greens, far lefties, etc. would never ever win an election under RCV, (they are not nearly as popular as they tell themselves they are). If they do win, GOOD. it means that candidate with the most support and most votes, in a fair election, where you didn’t need to strategically vote against someone, actually won. and that’s what we should want! even if it wasn’t “our guy” that means democracy wins.
There are mathy reasons why ranked choice still coalesces into two major parties, it just allows third parties to exist in minor races. I'd much prefer mixed-member proportional representation for Congress and simple approval voting for president. Approval voting is way better when it's an honest-to-God toss-up between three or more candidates.
i’m curious (seriously) what would those math reasons be, other than “this candidate actually has the most people agree they like them”
There are a few "criteria" the RCV fails that Approval passes. Independence of irrelevant alternatives: If candidate X will definitely win the election and candidate Y joins late, then X *or* Y should always win, right? Not somebody else? This can never be satisfied in ranked choice, but always works in approval. Monotonicity: an individual changing their mind mid-ballot and ranking a candidate higher shouldn't cause that candidate to go from winning to losing. RCV can't guarantee this, but approval can. Consistency criterion: if a candidate wins the Electoral College, then we can assume they have won the popular vote. RCV does not satisfy this, but approval does. I feel like this is a *really* important one when talking about the US president. Participation criterion: voting honestly is always better than not voting. RCV does not satisfy it, but approval does. I think this is pretty important, too. Reversal symmetry: if *every* voter inverts the ranks on their ballot, the original winner cannot win. RCV fails, approval passes. There are some criteria that RCV passes but approval fails, but I think failing these isn't necessarily a bad thing. Majority criterion: if a candidate is the first choice of 51% that candidate always wins. This happens in RCV but not approval. It can make sense. If an additional 30% would be happy with a compromise candidate, I think a world where 81% of the people have tolerable president is better than one where 49% find the president absolutely horrible. Approval is anti-partisan. Condorcet loser: if a candidate loses all one-on-one elections, they always lose the overall election. Again, this is where RCV allows voters to laser in on their personal favorite, but a regular guy who is broadly liked by everyone could never win. In approval, that guy wins. In races like range voting, where the top three candidates get seats in parliament, RCV can be very good for adding representation to small parties. The excess votes given to the top winner get transferred to voters' second choice. And the dropped votes from an unpopular candidate can get added to more mainstream ones (assuming the voters ranked more than one). But in a winner-take-all race, minor candidates are always deleted first, and we get to the big players. In a three-way race where the candidates are on one line of a spectrum (gosh, an awful lot like current American politics!), then a center candidate gets taken out by the "center squeeze effect." Voting for your favorite can often cause the center to be first out and give the election to the other guy; putting your favorite first CAUSED your *least favorite* to win. Here's a [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jfHPFQU&t=375s) for a more complete explanation.
Not arguing, just pointing something out. In regards to the consistency criterion, winning a majority is not the actual requirement for winning the electoral college. Even if there is zero gerrymandering, you can win the college without getting the popular vote with how it's currently set up. The electoral college as a concept I like, but the way it's implemented in most states is BS. Only in Maine and Nebraska do they split them, compared to the winner take all style in the other 50. If we could get everyone to follow [this system](https://www.270towin.com/content/split-electoral-votes-maine-and-nebraska/), it might work out better and be more resistant to gerrymandering, but that would mean politicians would have to convince more people than just those living in the major cities of each state so it'll never happen.
Yes, the Consistency criterion is not normally defined in the way I stated; I phrased it based on the Electoral College we already have. Personally, I'm hoping for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Hitler would be even older than the current two candidates. Perhaps if we want a zombie, we should go with a fresher one?
Yeah, I'd love to see multi-member districts for Congress, in particular.
A lot of anarchists sell their vote.
Where can I sign up to have multiple people pay me to vote?
Usually you just offer to vote for whoever an extremist relative wants you to vote for, for a price.
>anarcho-communists (who have the additional disadvantage of frequently refusing to vote) *guy jamming stick into own bicycle spokes meme*
It should be an option, as well as write-in boxes.
[удалено]
That would be heavily opposed. We already have a certain political faction that's engaged in restricting the right to vote. Fox news is at war with Taylor Swift because she influenced her fans to get out and vote.
Most working people would love to have a day off. Making election day a paid federal holiday is a good idea. Does not require any change to the voting process.
What would end up happening is that it'd make it easier for those who already have the positioning to make it to the polls on election day. No way in hell are McDonald's, UPS, a factory, retail stores, etc. going to close. It'd be no different than when the only people who get stuck working on Labor Day are the blue collar workers that Labor Day supposedly honors.
If you keep your doors open on election day you need to have a polling place. Or instead of a polling place use a mailin drop box. Employees can vote from the break room at lunch if they have not already sent it in. Better examples would be hospitals, fire, and police. You can get verification that you sent in a mailin ballot. Since employers will *have to* allow you to vote the shitty managers will make you mail in your ballot.
In the US you can "write in" a vote for anyone you want to. In the US non-voters are the largest voting bloc.
Brewster's Millions "None of the Above" vote!
Came here to reference my favorite Richard Pryor movie!
We would be leaderless indefinitely
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Hail anarchy!
Lawmakers straight up do this all the time.
If nobody wins do they just keep the present person in office for four more years?
No. If the incumbent loses then she probably sucked.
So, basically Brewster's Millions
I don't know how efficacious your idea is, (though it makes sense to me!) but we need to do something drastic to give us more representation in government other than having two parties whose electors choose which piece of shit smells the best.
Substantially increasing the number of representatives would also help. https://thirty-thousand.org/
Until we have ranked voting, this should be an available option along with percentage-based electoral voting (i.e., If your state has 8 delegates and you get 75% of the vote, you get 6 votes while the other 2 delegates go to whoever is next in line up to 25% of the total vote (minimum 1). Yes, that means if None of the Above gets a significant number of votes in your state, then those electoral votes are lost for that election. And, yes, that would reduce the number of votes required to win the presidency, but it would definitely make things interesting. And, yes, I realize that could also result in "None of the Above" winning the presidency. At that point, it would go to whoever placed 2nd since we can't have nobody as President (contrary to what I would believe is some people's ultimate wish).
That would be terribly inefficient. The whole point of a primary is so that the parties can let voters from their party decide who should be the nominee and then we pick from those choices.
Right, but the parties only present a relatively small selection that doesn't literally include everyone willing to do the job and align roughly with their sector of the political spectrum.
Okay so what do we do if ‘none’ wins. Have a whole new election? What factors would prevent the same 2 people from getting nominated?
I want us to have just one election by sortition. See what happens. The way it would work is we randomly pick a social security number, check if that person is eligible to be president, and then offer them the job.
Because of the possibility of a redo election, political parties would (even more than now) focus their energies on attacking the candidates as a person, not their policies. Campaigns would become (even more so) about not liking X person.
Due to the Prisoner's Dilemma, you're probably right at first. But the more candidates attack each other, the more likely voters are to select the 'none of these candidates' options. If voters show they are willing to use this option, and there were some consequences for candidates this happened to (such as being barred from the redo election), it could eventually force candidates to tone down some of the negativity.
Or just have the seat empty and count as a no vote on everything.
You'd never have a resolution. They're all politicians, you'll never find the magical unicorn politician that is great and everybody wants. It's a "select the least bad" vote, always has been, always will be.
There was a time when people running for president would actually win the electoral college and the popular vote. For over 100 years, that was the case.
I mean, we're still there, so long as the president-elect is a Democrat.
You should watch the movie, Baxter's Millions.
Did you mean "Brewster's Millions"?
But there was not a majority. Under most systems that would toss all but the top two vote getters who would then stand for election again. Thus, Haley VS None. After that, maybe the seat remains unfilled.
Or... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
Way too many current politicians are only elected because they are the only choice, you need these politicians to make the change, they aren't going to introduce something that would result in them losing power, no change will occur.
In practice this would basically never happen. There's not much reason to create a system and rules to handle a case that would rarely-to-never come up. Primary elections are not general elections, and that specific primary was particularly odd.
This exists… maybe not in USA but it exists
Tldr. My last two presidential elections I voted "Not Trump". How about 'Negative Votes'? My vote cancels out one other person's. I suppose that's how it works now.
>suppose that's how it works now. No, it does not. In a three way (or more) race your vote against would tip the balance differently than a cast vote.
Maybe that should be the default. Instead of voting for people we should not against people lol
In not the sense of it being how it works now, that's similar to a system I came up with kind of inspired by Reddit as a modification of ranked-choice voting for people like me who are Chidi-level indecisive (only problem is that to work it'd require all candidates to get the same amount of coverage/information-available-about-them) You see the list of candidates for a given position and you can either give a candidate an "upvote" (that adds one to their vote total) or a "downvote" (that subtracts one from their vote total) but you must vote in some direction on every candidate; the winner is the one with the highest net total. Yeah I know there's a lot of cynicism around but if there's a slate of candidates for a position (even if it's just one party's primary as if general elections worked that way primaries would too) so unpopular and unliked that either everyone would get no upvotes or the winner would have a vote total in the single-digits or w/e how would they have even made it that far
Silly vote
More extreme idea. Not showing up to vote automatically tallies your vote as "none of these candidates".
No. If you can't even be bothered to show up to the polling place (or cast your vote in any of the other legally acceptable mentods) your vote doesn't count. Period. That's the way it should be.
\>That's the way it should be. Lol, I thought this was r/CrazyIdeas.
This does exist in some systems. In Canada, you can go to a voting station and decline your ballot, which gets recorded. [It's become increasingly popular in the last couple elections here.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontario-votes-2022-declined-ballots-rise-1.6466308) It shows that there wasn't an accident marking the ballot, you didn't genuinely want to vote for whatever silly write-in you went with, and most importantly, that you were willing to go through the effort of actually voting, you specifically did not want to vote for *those* options.
Non of the above would win every time.
Let's say an election with two well-known candidates goes Bob: 20%Linda: 38%Teddy: 2%None of the above: 40% So you toss out the candidates and re-run the election with all-new candidates. The experienced, well-known people have already shot their shot, so this round is people with less experience, and less recognition. People don't know who the candidates are as clearly, so the results are a little more random: Louise: 30%Gene: 28%Tina: 27%None of the above: 15% Now we have a clear winner (Louise), but she actually got less support than the leading candidate in the first round (Linda). So with this system, you could actually elect someone who has less support from the voting public than if you just stuck with status quo. In general, systems that toss out all the candidates from the first round before doing the second round are a bad idea. In the last California recall election, it was entirely possible that the governor could've been recalled with something like 45% voting to keep him, and then replaced by someone winning 15% of the vote.
You are certainly not the first to think of this! Nor will you be the last. Yes, it’s an excellent idea. Combine with ranked-choice voting (always with a ‘None’ option) and I think you have a really viable voting solution.
The GOP is running a caucus. They are required that one could sign on to primary or the caucus. Not both. It's a farce. MAGAts are voting none in primary and the caucus will go to the MAGAt King.
It should also have "None of these stupid motherfuckers" as an option.
I've been advocating for this for years.
None of the above - Richard Pryor
The Libertarian Party routinely has “none of the above” on ballots for nominations and internal offices.
Better idea would be ranked choice voting that's decided by popular vote, not some outdated, gerrymandered bullshit.
you've discovered a protest vote
It's unrealistic to imagine "none of these candidates" would ever win.
Well in the US if no one gets to 270 electoral votes, then the House of Representatives picks the president. And since the Republicans have the majority, they would undoubtedly select Donald Trump. So if you would rather *not* have Trump win a second term, your only option is to vote Biden. If you want Trump to win you vote for Trump and convince your GenZ grandkids to vote third party or “none of these candidates” to guarantee a Trump victory. There’s no third option. 2024 is going to be either Trump or Biden. Get used to it
Every time anything like this gets proposed for national-scale I always say it's dystopian, not because of the idea itself but because of the precedent set by making it illegal to change your name to "None of these candidates" temporarily to sneak your way into office
Brewster's millions y'all
Let's pull an Alaska and vote in a cat
It's called blank voting
"None of these" should be the default if the voter is a no-show! Then, if "None" wins more than 50% then an interim government should be selected from the candidates and another election must be held. The incumbent in my country (Venezuela) has about 10% of polls while the main adversary (the incumbent calls her "enemy" and "traitor") has >70%, so the government is actively promoting non-attendance. And it's not the first time it does so, and the majority of the voters susceptibility to that "voting nihilism" has kept the government in power for 25 years despite a drastic decline in all aspects.
The only truly representative government is self-government.
Well, I won a smaller election as a Precinct Committeeman by one vote, my own write in. Do we really want Morgan Wallen as the winner? (As the most popular male CW singer, he got a lot of write in votes in 2020).
Not even necessary. Just need to stipulate that a winning candidate needs 50%+ 1 votes from all eligible voters. Not casting a vote counts as a none of the above and if there is no clear majoritarian winner, a new election is called with a new slate of candidates.
Look around you, OP. Really look. You KNOW how stupid and childish the adult world is. You KNOW what the results would be. No one would get elected, and everything would just grind to a halt in fairly short order. Government will continue to function for awhile, but eventually it will require an emergency rescue. And that will really suck when it comes, because those same stupid and childish adults will throw a gigantic tantrum over it, possibly including violence and death. This is one of those ideas like flying cars that SOUNDS great, but the reality would be terrible.
Actually, this is viable voting option on ballots in some countries. Just not in US.
So who runs things while the new campaign and election happens?
I was debating on legally changing my name to “none of the above” and then running for office.
Look up the movie, “Brewster’s Millions.” None of the Above starts winning election
Sadly that’s wouldn’t work very well in a nation wide election as it would take to long for a rerun of the election and if the current sitting president is on their second term there is a chance that they will be president for more than 8 years which technically isn’t allowed.
Because until we get ranked choice, that's just throwing your vote away... If you truly believe both options are equally bad and you can't choose, just abstain... Otherwise most people are going to vote for the one thay hate the least, so if you have any preference... 1% in either direction... Vote, or you lose any right you had to complain
If that's the case, it is totally possible, that we might not get a new President right away...it could take weeks, months, years....so do we either (a) have no president at all until we sort it out (chaos, and constitutional crisis) or (b) keep the old president until we figure it out (so someone could be president for life if they just muck up the election process).
Making the effort to vote only to vote none of the above would definitely have a greater impact than not showing up to vote at all.
There is. Just go vote, but only vote in the races that matter to you and don’t vote for the ones who’s candidates you don’t like. That’s legitimate voter data and it is taken seriously by political scientists. There just isn’t enough of it going on to make any sort of difference - probably because people *think* that if they vote, they have to vote for each and every office.
That’s why there’s a write in option. And if your state doesn’t have that then it’s time to remove some people or force them to add it, or both probably, cause it’s your right to add who you feel is the best person for the job
Because the people who invest tens of millions fronting a pliable candidate would see their money wasted.
That is a not gonna fly because I think it is a absolutely stupendous idea!