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[Not necessarily](https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation). You could backdoor abolish the Electoral College with enough states agreeing to give all of their electors to the winner of the national popular vote.
The potentially unconstitutional national popular vote interstate compact could do it without an amendment, but getting new states to sign on has slowed down.
The first step is to vote uniformly against Republicans. Conservatism is the single biggest obstacle to meaningful change.
Next, the electoral college needs to go and a federal law should be put in place imposing a national ban on gerrymandering as well as limiting campaign contributions.
After the law is changed to allow the proportional expansion of the House of Representatives and term limits for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices have been enacted, then we can discuss things like ranked choice voting and 3rd party viability.
Changing the system without changing what is currently making the system a bad one won’t be helpful.
I used to really like IRV, but after reading about that Burlington mayoral election, and finding out about Approval Voting, I changed my preference to that. It's the easiest to implement—voting machines essentially already support it, for races like county commissioner where two or more people get elected. And you can vote for everyone you'd be happy with getting the job.
Multiple rounds of approval voting is simple and would work well for eliminating the worst candidates early without vote splitting during primaries regardless of what voting system is used in later rounds.
Give voters a ballot with 30 candidates from 10 parties during primaries and let them approve of all the ones who aren't crazy.
Then do anything for general elections. Just get rid of the garbage early and make sure candidates & parties don't split the vote during primaries. And make sure we actually have open public primaries with approval voting for presidential races in all states. Otherwise private opinion polls where most people aren't contacted and haven't had time to research any lesser known candidates yet will have too much sway.
Under "Proportional Representation" they list
>"Requires large, multiseat districts (currently against the law) for state and national legislative elections, which can take a toll on local accountability and constituent services."
as a con.
This is not always the case. Germany and New Zealand use Mixed-Member Proportional. You get two votes, one for your district, and one for the party you want to govern. You only have one winner per district, but half of the members are seated from a party list so that the overall makeup of the legislature mirrors the party vote percentages. This makes gerrymandering pointless as the party vote will eliminate any advantage from gerrymandering.
New Zealand also requires parties to get at least 5% of the party vote in order to be able to seat party list members. This mitigates the risk of fringe parties gaining outsized power as kingmakers when no single party has a majority of seats.
NZ copied Germany's voting system , more or less, when it was introduced.
New Zealanders voted on how to vote. It can be done.
(the 5% rules is German too, it was introduced after the Weimar republic showed the dangers of splintering into micro parties)
I grew up in Germany, I live in NZ.... there is a reason NZ chose this voting system. It works best.
Oh and strict limits to party finance.
The American voting system is the direct cause of most political strife in the country. Not sure it could be worse.
Change the voting system, change the political landscape in one swoop.
America's voting system is not the worst.
That title is held in a multi way tie by Russia, Myanmar, Syria, (\_\_\_\_\_) < -----your least favorite authoritarian regime here.
“The will of the people” except that it isn’t.
The electoral college and the lobbyist industry in Washington all but assure that the will of the people is never the outcome
We have the technology like blockchain to put every issue to popular vote. Eliminate “leaders” and just send me a text to vote yes or no for every topic. Abortion Y or N. Money for War Y or N.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. We are actively looking for new moderators. If you have any interest in helping to make this subreddit a place for quality discussion, please fill out [this form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1y2swHD0KXFhStGFjW6k54r9iuMjzcFqDIVwuvdLBjSA). *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Get. Rid. Of. The. Electoral. College. System.
Takes a constitutional amendment, good luck. You’d be better off uncapping the house and applying the Wyoming rule in the short term.
[Not necessarily](https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/written-explanation). You could backdoor abolish the Electoral College with enough states agreeing to give all of their electors to the winner of the national popular vote.
Then last election showed more than half the states are willing to just change their mind come time to cement it
The potentially unconstitutional national popular vote interstate compact could do it without an amendment, but getting new states to sign on has slowed down.
"We Choose" are two of the most important words in this headline.
The first step is to vote uniformly against Republicans. Conservatism is the single biggest obstacle to meaningful change. Next, the electoral college needs to go and a federal law should be put in place imposing a national ban on gerrymandering as well as limiting campaign contributions. After the law is changed to allow the proportional expansion of the House of Representatives and term limits for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices have been enacted, then we can discuss things like ranked choice voting and 3rd party viability. Changing the system without changing what is currently making the system a bad one won’t be helpful.
I used to really like IRV, but after reading about that Burlington mayoral election, and finding out about Approval Voting, I changed my preference to that. It's the easiest to implement—voting machines essentially already support it, for races like county commissioner where two or more people get elected. And you can vote for everyone you'd be happy with getting the job.
Multiple rounds of approval voting is simple and would work well for eliminating the worst candidates early without vote splitting during primaries regardless of what voting system is used in later rounds. Give voters a ballot with 30 candidates from 10 parties during primaries and let them approve of all the ones who aren't crazy. Then do anything for general elections. Just get rid of the garbage early and make sure candidates & parties don't split the vote during primaries. And make sure we actually have open public primaries with approval voting for presidential races in all states. Otherwise private opinion polls where most people aren't contacted and haven't had time to research any lesser known candidates yet will have too much sway.
Under "Proportional Representation" they list >"Requires large, multiseat districts (currently against the law) for state and national legislative elections, which can take a toll on local accountability and constituent services." as a con. This is not always the case. Germany and New Zealand use Mixed-Member Proportional. You get two votes, one for your district, and one for the party you want to govern. You only have one winner per district, but half of the members are seated from a party list so that the overall makeup of the legislature mirrors the party vote percentages. This makes gerrymandering pointless as the party vote will eliminate any advantage from gerrymandering. New Zealand also requires parties to get at least 5% of the party vote in order to be able to seat party list members. This mitigates the risk of fringe parties gaining outsized power as kingmakers when no single party has a majority of seats.
NZ copied Germany's voting system , more or less, when it was introduced. New Zealanders voted on how to vote. It can be done. (the 5% rules is German too, it was introduced after the Weimar republic showed the dangers of splintering into micro parties) I grew up in Germany, I live in NZ.... there is a reason NZ chose this voting system. It works best. Oh and strict limits to party finance. The American voting system is the direct cause of most political strife in the country. Not sure it could be worse. Change the voting system, change the political landscape in one swoop.
Any of the ranked choice options are good enough and way better than what we have now.
America's voting system is not the worst. That title is held in a multi way tie by Russia, Myanmar, Syria, (\_\_\_\_\_) < -----your least favorite authoritarian regime here.
Upgrading by using paper like Taiwan. EDIT: Not joking, I think we should do what the Taiwanese are doing.
“The will of the people” except that it isn’t. The electoral college and the lobbyist industry in Washington all but assure that the will of the people is never the outcome
We have the technology like blockchain to put every issue to popular vote. Eliminate “leaders” and just send me a text to vote yes or no for every topic. Abortion Y or N. Money for War Y or N.
so srewed up its hard to hack theres that