Voting is a right every American over the age of 18 possesses.
Who or what you vote for is a personal
choice everyone has to make. However, the voting method and how the vote is
tallied is another issue. There are
several voting options; in class we reviewed four of those methods: majority rule, plurality, preference ballot,
and Borda Count.
Majority rule is when the winner has greater than fifty
percent of the votes. Plurality voting
is when all voters chose their favorite option; the winner is the option with
the most votes. When there are only two
choices, majority and plurality are the same; however, when there are more than
two options, majority and plurality might not be the same.
With a preference ballot, also known as instant runoff voting,
the voter doesn’t choose one option, but rather ranks their choices from
favorite to least favorite. Instead of picking the option with the most votes,
the option with the least votes is eliminated from the ranking. When you have an election, this allows the
winner to be who the majority wants, not necessarily who has the most first
place votes.
The last form of voting discussed in class was Borda Count,
which assigns points to each placement ranking.
For example, if you have three options you would assign three points for
first place, two points for second place, and one point for third. Each option would have the points tallied
based on how many first, second, and third place vote were cast.
It is true that you assign points when using the Borda Count; however, if you had 3 candidates you wouldn't necessarily rank them using 3 points, 2 points, and 1 point. You would give the first place candidate 'n' number of points. The second place would have n-1, and third place would have n-2.
ReplyDeleteIt only seems like anytime we vote someone into a position there are only 2-3 choices. I wish would more people would run to make it more competitive and to show our "old way" system doesn't really produce a clear winner.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that voting is very important to us as Americans. Although I like the plurality way to vote better because I think that who ever is more favored should win. I do not like the majority rule as much. Winning over 50% should mean nothing, it should be who ever is more popular.
I agree that there should be more candidates to choose from when voting. It gives variety to accomadate the many different life styles of society. I do not like the plurality method of voting because I feel a lot of people like to "jump on the bandwagon" and vote for the more 'popluar' candidate without knowing the facts first.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the point about having more options as far as candidates are concerned because I feel that some elections only give you a choice between one candidate you don’t like and another candidate you don’t like. Having more options increases the chances of finding a candidate that you actually like. As for the point on plurality voting, I agree with Marybeth that under this system “people like to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ and vote for the more ‘popluar’ candidate without knowing the facts first.” I fear that under the current system, and with Marybeth’s statement in mind, a candidate who has no idea what she or he is talking about, but wears the latest fashions or is on TV a lot could be elected. Such a thing could be disastrous to the nation. Popular support is important, but if much of the electorate is uninformed about the candidates, a scenario like the one I mentioned could happen.
ReplyDeleteI think there should be more candidates for the election but it should not begin to make a huge waist of time and energy for people. I am not saying that other parties are a joke but since the the big picture is always Republican vs. Democrat, we shouldn't put too much focus into parties such as the Peace and Freedom party, Green party, the Constitutional party etc. It is hard now to change America's routine. But the plurality vote is what I am still in favor of.
ReplyDeleteThe US has unfortunately done what George Washington and several of the other founding fathers warned us against: we have split up our politics between factions (what we now call political parties). Because of this, over time the electoral system has become a two-party system, since both parties (at the moment Republicans and Democrats) tend to try to be catch-all parties. With this plus massive organizations behind them, unless the electoral system is either removed or has a major overhaul on it, popular support is not going to be shown very well through political elections.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts, everyone. We will discuss more voting methods, and problems with them, in class today.
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