That is your version of democracy. It is not the commonly accepted one. Clinton never got 50% of the popular vote. Should we have had a runoff? Is the electoral college democratic? We have a republic not a democracy.
This is not pro or anti-third party. A run-off could benefit the third party just as easily as the Republican or Democrat. Run-offs arguably help the third party more, because all they have to do is come in second in order to get a chance to go head-to-head against just one of the major candidates. But the real issue is to require a majority of the voters to vote for the winner, not merely a plurality.
They have runoffs where the top two vote getters are members of the same party. What happens if the top two vote recipients receive 20% and 15% of the primary vote? When we have low turnout elections, does that represent democracy to you when just a small percentage of the eligible voters show up to the polls?
I have no problem with multiple parties nominating their candidates and the winner decided on the number of votes received even if it is a plurality. And then there is the practical aspect of it that relates to the costs of holding multiple elections to both the taxpayers and the candidates.
And then there is the real world where the vast majority of elections in this country don't have run-offs. That is not going to change because the two major parties don't want it to change nor do their supporters. You can argue about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, but it will have no impact on our electoral system. Maybe you should form a third party and make that your main objective.
The other alternative is to go to a parliamentary form of government and have proportional representation that gives smaller parties some political relevance.
I’m not talking about changing popular vs. electoral vote. I’m saying the 50% rule should apply anywhere the popular vote is counted. So in a presidential election, that would occur on the state level in most cases to determine who is awarded the electoral votes. I would have to check in how many states Clinton got the electoral votes without winning 50% of the vote in those states. But absolutely he should not have been the automatic winner in a state if he didn’t get 50% of the vote.
I don’t care what’s commonly accepted. I can point to examples where run-off elections are held. It’s not a fringe idea. And it’s not just my idea of democracy. It is done more in primaries probably because those are often multi-candidate races, where the example I cited is more likely to happen, with a candidate potentially being the winner with a small portion of the vote.
If you want to let the left continue to be two steps ahead on the chess board, you can wait to worry about runoffs until they have firmly planted right-leaning third party candidates in all important races, and they wipe out the Republicans that way. Run-offs protect against this kind of manipulation.
The costs can be handled with a different kind of ballot, an instant runoff or ranked choice ballot. If the ballots asked who your second choice is if the first doesn’t win, those can be counted as an instant run-off without needing to have the voters return to the polls.
A low turnout election is perfectly democratic. That means a lot of voters said they don’t care which one is elected, which is fine. They express their non-preference for either by not showing up.
I like our form of government the way it is. But the voters have to be allowed to express their true intention at the polls. I don’t care if it’s easily going to be done or not. I have no doubt what the most accurate way of voting is and I’ll ask everyone else to get on board. We can either prevent the dishonest Dems figuring out how to game the system ahead of time, or wait until it might be too late.