Why the Way We Vote Is Terrible

Mr. Beat explains why plurality voting is one of the worst ways to determine the winner of elections.

Produced by Matt Beat. All images/video by Matt Beat, found in the public domain, or used under fair use guidelines. Music: "Mizuki" by Bad Snacks.

Sources:
Herrade Igersheim, François Durand, Aaron Hamlin, Jean-François Laslier. Comparing Voting Methods: 2016 US Presidential Election. 2018. Ffhalshs-01972097f

Photo credits/Creative Commons:
Gabriel Vanslette

First of all, what is plurality voting? It’s when a citizen only gets to vote for one candidate, and the candidate who gets the most votes, aka a plurality, wins the election.

Ok, so why is plurality voting terrible?

It only allows you to share your opinion about one candidate.
You have opinions about everything. Think about it. You probably have strong opinions about types of music, or coffee chains, or even different toothpastes. And your opinion gets to be heard about those things due to participating in the economy. You choose what songs to listen to on Spotify, what coffee chain to satisfy your caffeine addiction, and what toothpaste will help you keep your breath so fresh and so clean clean. And just because you like one toothpaste, doesn’t mean you hate all the others. You may like all these coffee chains, so you buy coffee from all of them.

But what about voting for those running for public office?
Well, lots of people run for President. At the time of this video’s release, 880 Americans have officially filed to run for President in 2020. One of them is a friend from college, Ryan Von Bevern. Ryan has some great ideas, but chances are, you’ve never heard of him. As a matter of fact, you likely would think that many of those 880 candidates are terrific leaders who have terrific platforms.

Even if you don’t follow politics closely, you likely already have opinions about more than just two of the 880 candidates running for President in 2020. Like, I’m sure you not only have an opinion about this candidate (DT) and this candidate (JB), but you also already have opinions on this one (BS) and this one (EW). Once the election is closer, you’ll likely have opinions on other candidates. And you may very well share that opinion with friends and family or online, but with plurality voting, only your opinion about one candidate gets heard.

It forces voters to pick the “lesser of the two evils.”
In my Electoral College video, I implied that having two crappy choices for President was like getting to choose only between a Chrysler PT Cruiser and a Geo Metro. So let’s consider that example. Plurality voting makes it so that we often only have two crappy choices when we go to the voting booth. Ok, so we can vote for a third party, or we can even write in our own name, but because we are often indoctrinated into thinking third parties or write-in candidates have no chance at all to win, we feel pressured to pick between two choices that we are often not that excited about. And so, we vote out of fear. Sure, we WANT to vote for the candidate we really like, but instead we compromise by choosing the less bad frontrunner because we’re scared the more bad frontrunner will win.

Voter turnout for the American presidential election hasn’t been over 60% since the 1960s. In the 2016 election, despite many Americans fearing BOTH of the frontrunner candidates, just 56% of Americans showed up to vote. More than 111 million Americans did not show up to vote, and I’d argue that most of them were not motivated to. They simply didn’t care. One big reason why they didn’t care? They didn’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils.

#voting #presidentialelections #apgov

[ranelgallardo]

Plurality voting is basically how the two party system stays alive

[oscartango]

We should immediately move voting from Tuesday, to a full weekend vote. That would increase voter turnout to the 90% range, and allow resolution of any problems with polling places before final tally on Sunday night.

[bonecanoe]

Rest easy, because I am exactly 28 days too young to run for president in 2020.

[JMMRanMA]

I used to defend the electoral college and the FPP [First Past the Post = Plurality Voting].
I thought it prevented weak governments like those in Italy and Israel. My opinion began to change with the unconstitutional resolution of the Bush-Gore election, and hardened when I realized that voters in small rural states are overrepresented in both congress and the electoral college. Here are the disgraceful figures.
Wyoming, pop. 573, 720 representatives 1, senators 2 EC votes 3
California, Pop.39, 777, 000 reps 53, senators 2 EC votes 55

If every 573, 721 CA voters had 1 representative CA would have 59 reps, not 39. CA is grossly underrepresented, in fact every state with more than 4 million voters is underrepresented, and every state with under 2 million voters is overrepresented. This means that the Electoral College is also grossly undemocratic. FPP [PV] is also undemocratic, as shown in this video. Thanks Mr. Beat. May I also suggest that you deal with the underrepresentation scam that I have shown?

[jasonl]

If you combined ranked choice with having multiple Representatives from a single district, you can offset gerrymandering without messing with maps. If you cant tell I really like ranked choice.

[nicholasbeck]

I didn't know there were great, potential alternatives to ranked choice/instant runoff voting! Ranked choice is the only one that I ever hear about—I wonder why it has sort of become the winning alternative choice. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Beat!

I would love to see one of these alternatives on the national level, but now that I know there are multiple possibilities, there's pressure to pick the right one! Hahaha. Though, we'll see if it ever passes with Dem. & Rep. leadership support.

[krazykris]

Irv is actually going to be used in Maine for the 2020 presidential election.

[journalism]

I thank you Mr. Beat for putting out this video to inform me and others on different methods of voting. There should be diversity in voting methods. Score voting is the best because it would result in higher voter turnout and get voters engaged based on how votes are tallied based in contests outside of voting.

[GiffysChannel]

I only have experience with "ranked choice voting" as we call it here in Maine and I like it. I think it's a neat way to do it, it allows people to loosen up and pick who they really want, and it has, you know... math

[rangermike]

Andrew yang is the only presidential candidate on the stage advocating for ranked choice 😤. Yang gang

[NateTheGreat]

BuT wE lIvE iN a RePuBlIc!




But seriously, ranked choice and/or one person one vote is a better way to go

[jeremiahakin]

Thanks, Matt! I'm having 7th and 8th grade students look at informational texts on elections in the states this week, and I think this will be a perfect addition!

[SamAronow]

Funnily enough, Israeli voting reformers want to establish *some* form of geographic representation because the northern and southern periphery are overlooked. I'm working on a video about that right now! Thankfully, nobody is seriously touting first-past-the-post voting.

[Pokelova]

I took part in my first ranked choice election recently, it was a nice change.

[professorhattar]

I live in a county where I am in the vast minority for the party I have closer ideals to, but when it came time to vote in 2016, I voted for my party but not the party nominated candidate. I didn't like either choice. I knew that my vote wouldn't make a difference to the person I wanted to win, but I loved voting cause 1. it was my first presidential race to vote in 2. I think it is a huge duty to fulfill as a citizen to vote in our elections. Great video !

[Idontwantyourcookie]

"It's way passed time to get rid of plurality voting."

I agree, but how? Those who pass laws are strictly from the two parties, and passing any voting reform law will hurt their politically, so it will never happen. :(

[caryrodda]

I'm with you - the electoral college and plurality voting are both lousy. The three alternatives sound much better.

[trp]

I voted third party in 2016, for Gary Johnson. It was tough, but if you felt the way I did about Hillary and Trump, that was the only choice. And how exactly did I feel about them? I hated both of them. I hated both of them immensely, viscerally, and, most importantly, equally.

Our system of voting does indeed suck, but it's not impossible to elect third party candidates. You just have to have courage. And it does help if you hate both major candidates equally. As soon as that hate becomes unequal, the lesser of two evils kicks in.

[marsgal]

Here in British Columbia we've had two referenda on changing our elections to proportional representation (single transferrable vote). Both referenda failed. The opponents said it was too complicated, nobody could understand it, and it would lead to perpetual minority/coalition governments. I think the last is a positive, not a negative: find common ground, cooperate to get things done. If legislation doesn't have broad support, maybe we're better off without it. But what do I know?

[Roxor]

We adopted Instant Runoff Voting in Australia after the rise of the National party split the right-wing vote and resulted in a Labor win back in the 1920s. We use a generalised form of it called Single Transferable Vote to fill our Senate seats, where 6 seats (out of a total of 12) per state get filled at each federal election. In addition to the "eliminate the candidate in last place and redistribute" step, there's also "redistribute the excess from candidates who've got enough for a seat". The STV algorithm reduces to IRV when you only need to fill one seat.