godofthunder9010
Active member
Here's the idea. What if there were an Automatic Runoff in all situations where no candidate received a majority of the vote?
Here's how that would work. Lets take the 1992 election as an example. Because there were a lot of votes for Ross Perot (11% of them), neither Clinton nor Bush were able to achieve a majority of the vote. So rather than just taking the person with the most votes (Clinton) and declaring him the winner, we throw out all but the top 2 and have a runoff vote to determine the winner. So in that case, America votes again with only two choices: Either Clinton or Bush. With such a system in place, nobody can claim that they wasted their vote by voting for Perot, nor does it potentially steal away the victory from the "rightful winner". Most importantly, you can vote for the Green Party if the Green Party is something that you believe in, but you aren't handing victory to the Republicans in the process.
Bear in mind, a candidate who captures majority vote would not be subject to a runoff because there would be no point in doing so.
The example isn't the best because of the Electoral College and all, but it is a pretty familiar example to everyone. What does everyone think? It can easily be instituted in elections for Govenors, Senators and Congressmen. Would this be an effective means of allowing other Political Parties to grow into something, rather than just dying on the vine like they do under our current system?
Here's how that would work. Lets take the 1992 election as an example. Because there were a lot of votes for Ross Perot (11% of them), neither Clinton nor Bush were able to achieve a majority of the vote. So rather than just taking the person with the most votes (Clinton) and declaring him the winner, we throw out all but the top 2 and have a runoff vote to determine the winner. So in that case, America votes again with only two choices: Either Clinton or Bush. With such a system in place, nobody can claim that they wasted their vote by voting for Perot, nor does it potentially steal away the victory from the "rightful winner". Most importantly, you can vote for the Green Party if the Green Party is something that you believe in, but you aren't handing victory to the Republicans in the process.
Bear in mind, a candidate who captures majority vote would not be subject to a runoff because there would be no point in doing so.
The example isn't the best because of the Electoral College and all, but it is a pretty familiar example to everyone. What does everyone think? It can easily be instituted in elections for Govenors, Senators and Congressmen. Would this be an effective means of allowing other Political Parties to grow into something, rather than just dying on the vine like they do under our current system?