Tell me if I am wrong, but I read your post differently than others who thought you were suggesting replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote. I thought you were saying that, in a given state, the winner of the electors should have to have 50% of the popular vote; otherwise you would have a runoff. I think that is a great idea. Plus, there is nothing in the Constitution about how the electors from a state are selected, so any State could implement this if they wanted. The runoff would have to be quick, since the electors are slated to vote in late December (I think). This way, ABO voters could truly vote for ANYONE but Obama, and it would be fine, as long as it kept Obama from that 50% mark. Then, in the runoff, you could vote for the person other than Obama. The only danger in this is that, if someone like Goode could actually win a state, it could help Obama nationally by keeping those electoral votes from Romney. Of course, it will never happen because it would hurt the two national parties and that is who makes the rules.
You are correct, tnlibertarian. This would be done at the state level since states determine how the electors are selected. That’s why this doesn’t have anything to do with the founding fathers, the Constitution or the electoral college.
Bottom line, if presidential election runoffs aren’t implemented, it’s only a matter of time before the Democrats realize all they have to do is fund a third party conservative candidate, even if they’re a total fake, and they can probably guarantee the Republicans will lose the election every time in many states. I believe they already got caught trying to do this in a NJ election a couple years ago. So I predict presidential runoff elections will happen eventually, but probably not until it’s too late and much damage has been done by not simply asking voters all the necessary questions on the ballot.
And the idea of spending time fighting to keep people off the ballot is just plain stupid, when all you need to do is reform the ballot to ask voters the right questions and a third party would be no threat. You don’t even need to hold an actual runoff election, and I think it’s better if you don’t, since you don’t have to worry about who would show up again. You just have to have a properly formed ballot that asks voters who their second choice pick is if their first choice doesn’t win.
None of these are new ideas. Many smaller elections already implement regular runoffs and instant ballot runoffs. The reasoning behind it has nothing to do with politics, just with the most basic, simple logic. If 55% of the voters would prefer Bush or Perot to Clinton, then it’s pure stupidity to think that Clinton won any kind of election with only 45% of the vote. The concept of voting itself should hinge on the fact that over 50% of the people must agree on something before it moves forward.