Slightly different system

[Norman]

We here in the US of A are once again facing that most terrible of choices, who is to lead our country for the next four years.

But we always have a problem, implicit in a recent chat post, our process selects candidates using a primary system in which only the extremes of a party are 'energized' to vote.

As a result, we have a system in which candidates make all these extreme pronouncements during the primary, and then run to the center in the general election. Usually this is OK, we have centrists running as extremists, then revealing their pragmatism during the election. But we also get the other side too, extremists who pretend to be centrists.

What if we had a two vote system, that permitted us to vote either for a candidate and against another, or for a first choice, and for a second choice, if the first choice candidate receives only a plurality of first votes, but the second gets a majority, the second choice candidate wins.

Aside from having more fun with our political system, what would the logical results be?

How could it work, what would the outcome on history be?

 

[Grey Wolf]

Didn't it originally work something like that ? No primaries, elections to an electoral college, final vote in the senate, states choosing senators etc, something like that ?

Grey Wolf

 

[Weapon M]

Originally, the candidate with the most votes for president became presisdent, then the candidate with the second most votes for president became vice-president. I think.

 

[Coriolanus]

Originally, the candidate with the most votes for president became presisdent, then the candidate with the second most votes for president became vice-president. I think.

Yep.....it was like that at first.

I've seen the argument for a two-choice ballot; many argue that if it had been that way in 2000, Gore would've won, probably being the second choice of Nader voters.

 

[Derek Jackson]

There is a system called "instant run off" or alternative vote. It involves people indicating not only their first but also later choices.


Direct election of the President would require a Constitutional Amendment. However it would be open to individual states to decide to use that system for their own electoral vote