Ranked choice voting should replace Electoral College

Abolish the Electoral College and elect the president by popular vote using ranked choice voting.

The Electoral College violates the two most important principles of democracy: one person, one vote (votes in small states count two to three times votes in large population states) and the principle of whoever gets the most votes should win. Five times the person with the most popular votes did not win: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016. The Electoral College makes political campaigns focus on just a few swing states, discouraging voting in the three-quarters of the country that live in non-swing states. We should encourage more voting, not less.

If no candidate has 50 percent of the Electoral College votes, politicians using backroom political deals in the U.S. House can select the president with as little as 31 percent of the popular vote, as in 1824. With ranked choice voting, a.k.a. instant runoff voting, if no candidate has 50 percent of the votes in the first round of voting, the voters’ second or third choices makes the winner have at least 50 percent of the votes. Ranked choice voting allows people to vote for third-party candidates without “throwing away their vote.” If their candidate doesn’t win in the first round of voting, and no one has at least 50 percent of the votes, their second or third choices could still help decide the winner. It’s just plain common sense that the winner of a presidential election should have the most votes, because that’s how democracy should work.

Note: With ranked choice voting in 2000, Gore would have won Florida — and no war in Iraq.

This story was originally published May 24, 2017 at 11:02 AM with the headline "Ranked choice voting should replace Electoral College."