Newell-Fonda
High School
Newell,
Iowa
Teacher:
Connie Doonan
Instant
Runoff Voting
By Justin Jorgensen
12th grade
The
winner-take-all system has been the plan that the United States has used to elect the
President since the beginning of our country, and it has worked perfectly, most of the
time. There has been a lot of talk
about getting rid of the Electoral College because it doesn’t come up with a clear
winner and that there isn’t much of a need for the Electoral College anymore. Many alternate voting plans exist, but because the
plan would decide our leader, it has to be examined very closely to insure that it would
be fair and that it would be an improvement to the Electoral College system. Although the Electoral College has been working
well, many parts about it are outdated, and there may be a need to go to a system that
would improve the voting process.
The
Electoral College has been used to elect every President, and it worked fine for most of
the elections, but the Electoral College is outdated and is not needed anymore. many do agree that the United States needs to keep
the electoral votes for each state because they insure that the rural areas get a vote. We no longer need the Electoral College to decide
our President because the electors almost always vote how their state votes, and it
shouldn’t be up to the Electoral College who our next President is. The people can easily do the job of the Electoral
College. Also, with the two rounds, the
winner-take-all system takes too long, and it costs way too much money. There is one round to elect the party’s
candidate and a second round to elect the President.
Because of the length of the winner-take-all system, it costs a lot of money for
the candidates and taxpayers. The campaigning
process needs to have a limit, so that it would cut down on the price and time. The Electoral College needs to be replaced with a
plan that would speed the voting process up and give Americans a clear candidate that is
preferred by most voters.
Instant
runoff voting is rapidly growing in popularity around the world and the United States. Instant runoff voting is to appear on the 2002
ballot in Alaska unless the legislature passes it first.
It is already used to elect Australia’s parliament, Ireland’s president,
and London’s mayor. Instant runoff
voting is a form of the winner-take-all system, except that it ensures that a winning
candidate will receive a majority of votes. Instant
runoff voting is the same as the winner-take-all system in many ways. Each voter gets one vote, and the candidate has
to win the popular vote of a state to get the electoral votes of that state, and then they
have to get a majority of the electoral votes of the United States to win the election. One difference is that all of the candidates that
are running for President are listed on the ballo,t and the voter ranks the candidates in
order of their choice. The voter can rank as
many or as few candidates as they want. Their
first choice would be the candidate that they like the most and so on. When the voting is done the votes are counted and
if none of the candidates get a majority of the voters first choice votes for the state,
then the last place candidate, of the voters choices, is eliminated and the voters’
that had the eliminated candidate as their first choice are redistributed to their second
choice. This process is continued until one
of the candidates has fifty percent of the votes. Instant
runoff voting ensures that the candidate that is elected is the one that was preferred by
the most voters. It also eliminates the
problem of third party candidates taking votes away from the major candidates because if
they get the least amount of votes, they are eliminated.
Because instant runoff voting is only one round, election officials and taxpayers
don’t have to pay for a second round, and it also means that candidates may not have
to raise as much money as they would have to in the winner-take-all system. Instant runoff voting is very simple and easy
because all the voter has to do is rank the candidates in order of how they like them. Also, after comparing many other countries that
use instant runoff voting, it was seen that the voter turnout increased with the system
because the voters have a wider range of choices.
The
Electoral College has been working fine for many years, but this system is outdated, and
many parts of it need to be changed and a new voting system may be needed. Instant runoff voting would lower the cost of
campaigning and allow the campaign to go a lot quicker.
Also, because instant runoff voting may require second and third choices to win,
the candidates have to focus on lots of issues, and it will force them to take a side, and
it has been seen to raise voter turnout. Instant
runoff voting is a powerful reform in itself, but it may also pave the way for
proportional representation and many other reforms.
Required
Reading Questions
1.The
United States elected John Adams, which was of the Federalist Party, as President and
Thomas Jefferson, which is a republican, as Vice President. This occured in the 1796 election and it happened
because the United States said that the man with the most votes would be President and the
one with the second most votes would be Vice President.
2.One
of the ways that were suggested on how to elect our President between 1808 and 1846 were
to choose the President by lot. The second
way was a direct-vote plan and after that they proposed that four regions on a rotating
basis should choose the President. The last
way was the automatic plan, where all of a state’s electoral votes would
automatically be cast for the candidate who received the most.
3.Five
Presidents that received less then the popular vote are John Adams, J. Polk, Z Taylor, J
Buchanan , and A. Lincoln.
4.The
winner-take-all system is the present system that we use today and it says that the one
with the most popular votes in each state wins all of the electoral votes. Every state uses this system except for Maine.
5.Electors
cast their vote on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December and the results
are known in January.
6.
Substituting a direct popular vote for the Electoral College would allow the third party
candidates to steal more votes from the major candidates and it would hurt the two party
campaign system.
7.Four
arguments for a direct vote system would be that the United States already uses the
direct-vote system to elect governors, the one President that most people want would win,
someone would always have a majority of the vote, and the candidates would campaign the
same in all of the states.
Four
arguments against the direct vote system would be that it would take power away from the
states and give more power to the federal government, it would make actual voting more
important than population, it would destroy our two-party system and encourage minority
parties, and it would give less voice to the poor non-voters that represented by the urban
vote.
8.The
district plan is that the candidate gets an electoral vote with each district that he
wins, the proposal plan says by party vote by states, and the winner-take-all plan says
that the candidate with the most votes in a state gets the electoral votes.
9.The
four points that would be included in an ideal plan for electing U.S. Presidents would be
quick decisions and a clear-cut winner, the one that wins should be the one with the
popular vote, the president-elect should have a mandate to govern, and it should not
undermine the two-party system.
10.The
Shrinkage Phenomenon is when a candidate starts to run and right away their popularity
goes down. The Shrinkage Phenomenon happens
to just about everyone, but the reason for this is not certain. Many say it is because once a candidate is
elected, they find someone else to go for.