May The Best Man Lose

Americans love to vote. We vote for all-star teams, music awards, soft drinks, and hamburgers. Millions of us watch two television shows that involve a vote: Survivor and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The only time we don’t like to vote, it seems, is Election Day. Some would trace this strange reluctance to the corruption and inequality in campaign financing. But the more likely reason is that people don’t believe they’re getting a fair choice. Sometimes the most popular candidate, like John McCain this year or Buddy Roemer in Louisiana in 1991, can’t even make it onto the ballot. At other times, ballots list numerous candidates, but people hesitate to vote for their favorites because they’re only allowed one vote and they don’t want to “waste” it. Perhaps the best way out of our electoral malaise isn’t to reform campaign finances, as politicians so often say, but to reform the voting system itself— even if it means doing so one vote at a time.

interesting intro to voting systems that may be worth following up. borda count, voting theory, voting theorists