1. Mitt Romney 24.6% 30,015 votes
Posted on 01/04/2012 2:35:10 PM PST by Amerisrael
Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party should adapt the "Majority Preferential", or also refered to as the Alternative Vote, for a fair and truly democratic outcome in presidential primaries and caucuses.
Under the Alternative Vote system, regardless of the number of candidates, if a candidate garners a true majority [50+%] of all votes cast, then they are declared the winner.
But if no candidate garners a true majority [50+%] of votes cast, then a voters 'alternative or 2nd preference' is counted:
["Elections under Alternative Vote are usually held in single-member districts, like FPTP elections. However, AV gives voters considerably more options than FPTP when marking their ballot paper. Rather than simply indicating their favoured candidate, under AV electors rank the candidates in the order of their choice, by marking a ‘1’ for their favourite, ‘2’ for their second choice, ‘3’ for their third choice and so on. The system thus enables voters to express their preferences between candidates rather than simply their first choice. For this reason, it is often known as ‘preferential voting’ in the countries which use it."]
Why this 'preferential voting' would be better:
Under the current presidential nominating process in this country, far too often a candidate can "win" a primary or caucus "without" garnering a true majority [50+%] of the votes cast.
That means a candidate can "win" even though they were not the choice or preference of a majority [50+%] of voters.
We saw that play out in Iowa last night
1. Mitt Romney 24.6% 30,015 votes 
2. Rick Santorum 24.5% 30,007 votes
3. Ron Paul 21.4% 26,219 votes
4. Newt Gingrich 13.3% 16,251 votes
5. Rick Perry 10.3% 12,604 votes
6. Michele Bachmann 5% 6,073 votes
7. Jon Huntsman 0.6% 745 votesIt is clear from the vote tally that Mitt Romney was not the preference of well over 50+% of all voters.
But because the vote was split between more than two candidates, and there was no 'alternative vote'or 2nd preference possible, Romney wins and takes Iowa's delegates even though a clear majority of voters wanted someone else other than Romney.
Under the current primary/caucus nominating process, a clear majority of Iowa's Republican voters were just disenfranchised.
The Alternative Vote system, which also included a 'write-in preference' in addition to the listed candidates, would rectify such an un-democratic result.
It would also not involve the extra financial cost that a run-off or 'second ballot' would entail.
Under our current nominating process it is possible to end up with a nominee that does not have true majority support of voters.
And this is how the establishment can stick us with someone like Romney.
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By the time super Tuesday comes around the establishment and the MSM has had their way with any conservative.
You’re absolutely right. I’ve argued this frequently. In a 3-way or more election, it is UNdemocratic to have a system where a candidate can win even though the MAJORITY of voters do not express a preference for them.
A system similar to the one you describe where you can rank your first and second or third choices is the only way to stop ideologically similar candidates from “splitting the vote” and handing the election to an “odd man out.” Technically a system where you could rate every candidate on a scale of 1 to 10 and then have those scores added up to determine the winner might be even better.
The best example is the Bush/Perot/Clinton election. We don’t know who Perot voters would have supported, but if the second choice of all of them was Bush, then Bush should have won. Maybe 58% of the country hated and never would’ve voted for Clinton.
In a real runoff election, which some states have, another election would have been held where Perot as the third place winner was removed from the ballot, and a new vote was taken between just Clinton and Bush. The idea is to never elect a candidate until 50% of the people approve of it. A whole new election isn’t practical or cheap, so simply asking people their second or third choice on the original ballot can accomplish the same thing.
You can take it to extremes to show the problem more clearly. What if we had an election with 19 candidates who were almost identical conservatives who each got 4.9% of the vote but a 20th candidate who was a Satanist and got 6.9% of the vote? Obviously the majority of the voters do not want a Satanist to represent them but he would be declared the winner with only a small minority of people expressing a preference for him.
Something like that happened in a primary election in France a couple of years ago, where a candidate “won” the primary with something like 20% of the vote, but he was considered basically the far-right “Ron Paul”-style candidate that the other 80% never would have voted for.
By not changing to a voting system like described here, we leave ourselves open to the opposition running “spoiler” candidates against us to “steal votes.” It actually leads to even less democracy because we discourage any 3rd party candidates from running for fear of this happening. It would be much better for our country to allow them to run but have a voting system that took into account all of a voter’s preferences and not just their first choice.
I really like a scoring system for voting because it lets voters indicate that although a candidate is their second choice, they may or may not be a CLOSE second. They can also rate everyone but their top choice a 0 if they want.
Let’s say we have three voters who rated their choices on a scale of 1-10 like so:
1 voter rates:
Ron Paul - 10
everyone else - 0
1 voter rates:
Mitt Romney - 10
John Huntsman - 7
Newt Gingrich - 5
Rick Perry - 4
Rick Santorum - 2
everyone else - 0
1 voter rates:
Newt Gingrich - 10
Rick Perry - 9
Rick Santorum - 8
Michelle Bachmann - 6
Mitt Romney - 2
Ron Paul - 1
everyone else - 0
The final score adds up to:
Newt Gingrich - 15
Rick Perry - 13
Mitt Romney - 12
Ron Paul - 11
Rick Santorum - 10
John Huntsman - 7
Michelle Bachmann - 6
So we can see what started out as a tie between Ron, Newt and Mitt based solely on people’s first choices is properly broken into a win for Newt, because the Mitt voter ranked Newt higher than the other voters ranked Ron and Mitt. This voting style makes people happiest because when their favorites don’t win, at least their runner-up choices are given additional weight.
Flawed smawed it is what it is. States have the right to do it however they please. This method was closer to those the Founders used than more current ones. Primaries are recent phenomenon. Conventions were used at other times.
No matter the method the real problem is too many dumbassed voters vote. Democracy used to be a dirty word. Now we are near the point where the majority has a interest in looting the Treasury. Why are those who pay no federal income tax voting in federal elections?
1 Yes it is ok with me that the majority got “marginalized”.
2 There is nothing to show that a clear majority would have emerged under your method;
3 There is nothing to show that Romney would not have received a clear majority under your method.
There isn’t a word of truth in your diatribe. Unless one fell in by accident.
There is no need to worry about what the “establishment” or the MSM might do to conservatives. Conservatives are their own worst enemy and destroy Republican candidates with great relish. No one is ever good enough for them if they are capable of getting over 2% of the vote. All the MSM has to do is print up some accusations of deviation from “conservative” principles and the nutcases do its work for it far better than it would do.
Look at our latest hero, Santorum, he was done in by “conservatives” because he made a political choice to back Specter in his Senate race. Depriving Rick of his seat has made it virtually impossible for his to win the presidency or the nomination because he now has no political base of strength. Real smart.
Sure, whatever you say.
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