Are you hinting at someone in particular, Tolstoy?

i think he does not have someone specific in mind, but what he is asking, would the real people in charge, allow an intrusion on their system.

It's not about who is in charge. The system itself makes a third party candidate unviable. Our system of requires you get past the 50% mark in an election, or at least a plurality. In that system, your best bet is to build a large coalition, that will give you that majority, and not to put your energy into smaller parties. It just doesn't make sense to vote third party, when by definition a third party gets the third largest share, and thus has no chance of getting 50%.

Shame Gary Johnson can't get any traction. But it mimics his performance in the Republican primaries, he has no ability to fill a room.

I'd venture to say he has received more attention now that he is a Libertarian candidate as opposed to when he was running for the GOP nomination.

He got more attention with the Libertarian Party than with the GOP because Ron Paul took all the libertarians-in-GOP attention and has had it for decades. The Paul supporters are probably ultimately going to defect from the GOP to support him anyway, at the rate things are going with the Republican National Convention, since the GOP has threatened not to seat any Paul delegates.

Seriously? Paul is playing nice and by the rules and they're going to snub him?

@Dipplayer - You do *not* have to get 50% of the vote. No majority is required. A candidate just needs the largest share of all the votes. With enough candidates, one could wimp with a very small percentage if it was larger than the other small percentages.

There have been a few times historically when the vote was split up enough that a person won with less than 50% (but still the majority) like Rutherford Hayes, and twice that a person didn't get the majority of the votes but still got elected due to the vagaries of the Electoral college.

'Our system of requires you get past the 50% mark in an election, or at least a plurality.'

except in state competitions in louisianna, right? cause they have the left over french system (not the british one that the rest of you inherited) So they simply have two rounds of voting and each party can field as many candidates as the like... then the two top pollers go for a second round....

So you can get two democrats or two republicans in a head to head contest for the seat...

In ireland we have a much better system, you essentially carry out all the possible votes at once, and then count multiple times. Each person vote for their first preference, and then lists who else they like in order.

The candidates with the least vote are eliminated (so in the first round if i only have 10 votes i'm eliminated, then if then next worst candidate has 20 votes, and the possible transfer of the 10 votes which went to me will only add up to 30 votes - which still can't get them elected they are also elimintated... then in the second round of counting, you transfer each vote to the highest preference still in the race. Simples. You often see two candidates from one party neck and neck in 3rd and 4th, and when one is eliminated the transfers push the other into first...)

Great for minor parties, also useful if there are multiple seats in a district, so you only need ~25% + 1 vote to win a seat in a three seat district...

And simple for the voters, you just decide your preference, you can vote for ron paul assuming he will be eliminated immediately and know you vote will go straight to your second preference.

Oy! That would make for real confusing election night coverage. I can see 2016 now.

Hillary Clinton has 12% of the vote and is being eliminated. Her second choice votes have 4% to Al Gore and 8% to Mickey Mouse. But Gore has already been eliminated having only received 1% of the vote and all of Clinton's 3rd choice votes go to Mickey Mouse, who already holds 22% from first round write in and another 20% from secondary and tertiary write ins giving Mickey 54%. Mickey wins!

yep, the calculation is a little complicated... you should watch election coverage in ireland. The count is the interesting bit (cause it's done by hand, what with the public here not trusting the electronic system they tried to bring in)

So you can be going for hours and hours as election counts come in over the day...

of course we also have a parliamentary system, so the government which can be made up depends on how many seat each party gets overall... and what coalition agreements they can make with other parties... it's been a while since one single party has had enough seats to rule alone.

Oh, and that system is stupid in that the first round counting may eliminate someone who is *everyone's* first or second choice, thereby negating the will of the people. Say 10% only want candidate A as their first choice, but 45% want candidate B and 45% want Candidate C, but that same 90% would rather have Candidate A as their second choice. Candidate A is eliminated in round one when he should have won.with the overwhelming support of the people.

but the complexity of the count doesn't mean your vote is complicated... just a personal 1,2,3... well you can keep voting, but at the point where it becomes the lesser of two evils i generally don't care which one of them my vote goes to...

Draug, I think you do need above 50%, otherwise the decision goes to the House. Maybe it has changed, but thats how it was in the past. That requires change to start in Congress first, but I don't know why third party candidates don't work in Congress either, although there probably is a good reason besides the vast differences in resources. Money wins elections

But the compexity of the count is the problem in hearing the will of the collective. You need to count all the votes by rank and weight them accordingly. Maybe limit the number of choices to 5 and make a 5th position vote worth 1 while a first position vote is worth either 5 or 16 (2^4) or mqaybe 11 (1,2,4,7,11 by position) and then atlly the entire thing and top scorer wins.

And no, the American people wouldn't know about it. I don't know which governors are popular and which aren't, that would require learning about 49 new people

Also think about the fact that many people will have their second choice invalidated and the thrid choice may not be taken into consideration if a clear majority winner comes out of round 2, so you are disenfranchising the voters if you don't give them a chance to select from the remaining candidates as their entire field may be eliminated at each step along the way and they had no say in who of the remaining candidates got elected.

This isn't a single elimination torunament or even roudn robin torunament. This sin't sports. It's electing the people who may well influence the direction your life takes at a meta level for the next several years and beyond.

Draug, with the best chance of winning going to the party or candidate that gets over 50%, the system encourages people to coalesce into large coalitions--hence the two parties. It doesn't make sense to splinter if your best bet is having the biggest percentage possible.

@Alex - The electoral college *is* the house and senate, essentially (538 EC votes, 538 seats in the two houses of congress). No, you can win with less than half. Only in the case of a tie does the decision go to Congress.

@Draug, No, it is a single transferable vote.

Everyone gets one vote, and upon transfer it is still worth one vote. The system should provide a fair balance as if you had looked at the choices when whittled down to two or three and whichever is the highest in your preference list is the one your vote will be counted for...

Does that make sense? That way, even if the entire electorate likes candidate B but only as a second preference, he gets no votes in the first count and is eliminated.

So your first prefrence is important, but if your favourite is eliminated you still have an influence... it's good for allowing extreme candidates put forward their position, get some votes and then see those transfered to the less extreme moderate (or if their position is soo popular that they don't get elected the moderate is eliminated the those people who choose the moderate as their first preference get their transfers split based on which of the evils they like more... I think moderates tend to do better, while the extremists can run and push public opinion in their direction without compromising their allied moderate....)

By weighting them it's like having multiple elections where in the second round cause your favourite candidate didn't win your vote is now worth less.

I think the way you are looking at it is some kinda of split/multi-voting system... Let's say, you have 100 votes for each citizen and you can split it between candidates if you like... I think this kind of system leads to the same problems as the US system currently have.

So in the sense that everyone gets one vote, and everyone gets their preference heard, i think you always end up with the 'will of the people' - given the choices other people made - on who gets elected.... I know there are some attempt to design mathematical proofs that given a set of preferences, a perfect voting system would elect the best candidates and the system of counting or weighting of votes shouldn't matter... but i also think such a 'perfect' system doesn't exist...

@dip - I agree. And some of the best elections I've seen are local city elections where the city council has say 4 seats up for grabs and so you get to pick four people. Not four individual seat reaces, but your favorite four. Then the totals are tallied and the top 4 get the seats. Mayoral elections are also interesting in these years when all the candidates for the council seats are on the list plus all those who aren't up are included, giving a huge list for mayor. Top vote gets it.

@ora - No you don't. As you just pointed out, if your follow up preferences are eliminated, your vote doesn't get heard. Maybe your #2 is eliminated in round 1 and #3 in round 2 and so on... It dienfranchises the people.

'the thrid choice may not be taken into consideration if a clear majority winner comes out of round 2'

it is not one choice per round, your vote is transferred to the highest preference still i nthe race. So if you sort ALL candidates in order of preference, and the last round is Romney versus Palin, you last two preferences will decide which you hate less, and thus affect the outcome. I just usually don't want to support either of the right wing nutjobs in my district...

@ora - You *must* hold each round separately so *every* persons second choice is from amongst the list of *remaining* candidates and *noone's* second choice is for a previously eliminated candidate.

But Ora, what if my last round choice were Bush Senior (he still has a term) but the only available choices were Gore or Palin. Youy have disenfranchised my choice in that round. See?

@Draug, yes, in a four seat constituency it makes for more interesting results...

but you can still go for a single transferable vote instead of four votes per person. If your four candidates get knocked out you have no say, whereas if everyone has a preference list the votes needed to elect someone are 1/5 of the total plus 1 vote ( cause with 4 seats you need to make sure you are at least better than 5th place, one vote more that 1/5 of the electorate is enough)

Oh wait... I think I see what your saying.

So If I voted say:

Huckabee
Bush Sr
McCain
Romney

And in round 1 both Bush Sr and Huckabee were eliminated, then in Round2, my vote would go to McCain. So unless all of your picks after that pick are eliminated when it goes into future rounds, you still have your prioritized vote counted. OK, that only disenfranchises in the case of it going many many rounds and peoples entire lists being eliminated. A very unlikely scenario.

Draug, you failing to understand the system.

If bush senior is no longer in the running your vote is transfered to the next viable candidate, your highest preference. the ROUND of counting and the place in your preference list doesn't matter.

If Bush if you 4th preference and eliminated in the first round, then but the 9th round of counting if Palin of Gore are the only ones left on your list, your vote will be for whichever you ranked higher.

If you didn't rank them your vote isn't counted (or indeed if you vote has already been counted toward electing someone who got a seat in multi-seat elections) BUT in any election where your favourites are all eliminated, you are less likely to go out and vote for either of two people you hate.... which is the same as not listing them on your ballot.