Will Majority Voting Fail (Again) in 2012?

 Today's Election Tuesday post is by Michel Balinski and Rida Laraki, the authors of Majority Judgment: Measuring, Ranking, and Electing. It explains why “majority judgment” may be a more effective election method than “majority voting.”

Five of the U.S.A’s 55 presidential elections were won by a candidate other than the wish of the electorate—and almost equally damning, in at least twelve the winner was doubtful—three of them within the last century. Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912 with 42 percent of the votes, but Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft received together over 50 percent: had Wilson run against either one alone, he would most likely have lost. Bill Clinton was the winner with 43 percent in 1992, yet together George Bush and Ross Perot polled 56 percent: pitted alone against Clinton the evidence shows Bush would have won. In 2000 George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, but had Ralph Nader not been a candidate in Florida most of his 97 thousand votes would have gone to Gore, giving him the state, so the election with 291 Electoral votes to Bush’s 246.

Why can the electorate’s will be denied? Because of majority voting: Picking one single candidate among many denies a voter the right to express even the simplest opinion concerning the worth of any candidate.  She votes for one—he is, in her estimation, excellent, very good or merely acceptable, though she is unable to say so—and she can express absolutely nothing about whether any other is good, poor or simply to reject.

Early prognoses promise a close election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in 2012, some twenty-two other candidates are on the ballots of one or more states, with the Libertarian Gary Johnson on those of at least 44 states with 493 Electoral votes and the Green Jill Stein on those of at least 32 states with 403 votes. The errors of 1912, 1992, 2000 and before may well occur again. Even if this year’s election was a two-man race the “wrong” man could win since majority voting bars any evaluation whatsoever.

What can be done? The remedy is simple. Elect presidents by “majority judgment.” A voter evaluates every candidate as either excellent, very good, good, acceptable, poor or to reject. The majority opinion determines which of these grades to assign each candidate. The grades rank the candidates, the one with the highest grade wins. Why this is the best known method of election is explained in the book, Majority Judgment: Measuring, Ranking and Electing, where the many theoretical reasons for using this system of election are developed and confirmed by extensive descriptions of uses and experiments.

Comments

[Oldgulph]

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).

Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in more than 3/4ths of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.

When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.

The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%,, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.

The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions possessing 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.

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