Disclaimer: Although some of this article is fact, most of it is my personal opinion. I'm in no way saying that people who like the government and/or the current candidates are bad people. I'm only suggesting ways to improve it. Now, on with the show.
So this is part two of my series on how to better the election. The election is coming up in just a few weeks and if there one thing everyone can agree on, it's that a lot of people would rather the two candidates...well...not be candidates. That being said, this article is going to cover the second way I believe the government and the country as a whole could benefit from.
2. Letting people use approval voting instead of favor voting
You might be wondering, what is approval and favor voting? Well, don't look it up, because I just created the terms, but they do indeed mean something.
Let me start by giving you a situation. You are going out to eat with five other friends, and you try to decide on where to go to eat. Two of your friends loves to eat meat and hates salads; three of your friends are vegetarians; and you don't have much of a preference. There are three places to eat:
-Steak Shack: all meat all of the time
-Burger Barn: every burger ever (including veggie burgers)
-Veggie Villa: hope you like lettuce.
Basically, one serves only meat, one serves only salad, and one serves burgers of all kinds. Now before moving on, which would you choose to go to if you didn't have a preference and were put in power to select the candidate restaurant? If you pick Steak Shack, the three vegetarians aren't going to eat, but if you pick Veggie Villa, the two carnivores are going to starve, and none of your friends prefer Burger Barn. So which would you pick? Tough decision, right?
So perhaps you set it to a vote. You ask who'd prefer Steak shack, two people raised their hands; you ask who'd prefer Burger Barn, no one raises their hand but you count yourself because you don't care that much; you ask who'd prefer Veggie Villa and three people raise their hands. So, technically, the popular vote is Veggie Villa. Or as I like to call it, the favor vote is Veggie Villa.
Favor voting is when each person can only vote once. As mentioned in this explanation, it can lead to some problems.
Let's take this same scenario and put it to an approval vote. With approval voting, anyone can vote as many times as they wish. So you ask who wants to go to Steak Shack: two people raise their hands, and you count yourself. You ask who wants to go to Veggie Villa: three people raise their hand, and you count yourself. Finally, you ask who wants to go to Burger Barn: everyone raises their hands, and you count yourself. So you go to Burger Barn because that was the approval or approved vote. Although it's nobody's first choice, it's nobody's last choice. So everyone is happy.
Now, this system may be good in terms of a small and informal group. But how does this apply to the government and the election? Well, aside from the obvious that people should vote more than once. Approval voting specifically has one flaw that favor voting lacks: there is a higher chance of there being a tie.
So, how do we fix this? Well, I have a solution to this. It's called the Single Transferable Vote. This system allows a large majority of people to be happy and the entire country to be better represented. But this system is a bit more complicated than that. So you'll need to check back next week to find out what this is all about!
So, to recap, the first two ways to better the election is:
1. Get rid of the electoral college
2. Use approval voting instead of favor voting
Check back next week as I show you the third way on how to benefit the election: apply the Single Transferable Vote process
If you can't wait until next week, check out this video on this concept that I will be directly referencing in next weeks work. Also, credit to the channel CGP Grey because I have gotten most, if not all, my ideas from him, so please go check him out. He makes really intelligent videos and I highly recommend him.
Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2C_jShtL725hvbm1...
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