John Anderson promotes Instant Runoff Voting

[oberliner]

Ross Perot. Ralph Nader. Like theirs, my face is pinned up on the dart boards of angry partisans everywhere. I was bitterly accused of spoiling the 1980 election and helping Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter.

But the real culprit is America's practice of plurality voting, by which candidates win without an absolute majority. In this system, third-party hopefuls can rarely aspire to be more than "spoilers." Worse, the one-third of all voters who are not registered as Republican or Democrat feel pressured to vote against their worst nightmare rather than their best hope.

A simple reform would correct this problem. Instant runoff voting (IRV), which lets voters rank their choices, would allow America to achieve the basic goal of its electoral system – electing the candidate with the most support.

Plurality voting, used by all states in presidential elections, allows candidates to win all of a state's electoral votes without getting an absolute majority of the popular vote. In recent elections, this system has hurt Democrats and Republicans alike. In 1992, Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote. That support, observers speculate, sapped George H.W. Bush's support, giving himjust 37 percent of the vote and helping Bill Clinton to win with 43 percent. In 2000, Al Gore lost Florida and the presidency by 537 votes to George W. Bush, even as Ralph Nader won 97,488 votes in Florida – more than 181 times Bush's victory margin.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070928/cm_csm/yanderson28;_ylt=Aljv56l5zf5rKirD4z7O1pn9wxIF

[Mme. Defarge]

1. It's got my vote!

[Disturbed]

2. Yes, indeed.

The Electoral System

Repeal the 12th amendment, reforming the electoral college, standardizing party qualifications in the states, qualified and free access to public airwaves.

1.Uniform Ballot Access
2.Loosen Third Party Ballot Restrictions
3.Universal Voter Registration
4.Election Day Holiday
5.Equal Media Access/Debate Inclusion
6.Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
7.Secure Voting Machines
8.Public Campaign Financing
9.Direct Popular Vote Election of the President
10.Congressional Representation


But the Commission on Presidential Debates -- set up 13 years ago by the two major parties and amply funded by large corporations -- knows what's best for its backers. The commission is insisting on a strict 15-percent-in-the-polls threshold for participation, a requirement that seems sure to limit the debates to Bush and Gore.

Despite its civic-minded pose, the commission has always been looking out for the interests of the Democratic and Republican parties. It arrived on the political scene in 1987 to hijack the nation's presidential debates -- while ousting the nonpartisan League of Women Voters, a group viewed by the major parties' hierarchies as insufficiently subservient to their desires. At the outset, a New York Times headline got it right: "Democrats and Republicans Form Panel to Hold Presidential Debates."

[gateley]

3. Is this the system Ron Paul advocates (I think it was Ron Paul)?

This sounds much better than what we have now, which has always felt stacked to me. It's discouraging for those of us who want to cast a vote knowing that it may be worthless due to the electoral votes.