August 5 | James Shull, Norfolk
I know I’m not the only one repulsed by watching our democracy crumble in slow motion as partisan ideologues champion strong-man leaders who would “fix things” by executive action and erode democratic processes. The political structural problem lies heartily within the process of the primaries. As an alternative to this, a structurally superior and constitutionally legal voting method: ranked choice voting. It does much to eliminate the self-perpetuating bipartisan rancor.
Ranked-choice voting promises to reduce the need for both far-right and far-left ideologue candidates to appeal to just the party purists, and instead to build a broader message to a wider span of voters. That’s the rapidly growing quantity of us who feel that both parties have left us behind as they both grow more ideologically unhinged. Further, ranked-choice voting promises not to leave the many, many military voters as basically uncounted when they have to vote early absentee for certain ballot candidates. It makes for more positive campaigning, as candidates will be motivated to pick up secondary votes from resulting runoffs. You can see it working already at state and/or municipal levels in Alaska, Maine, Hawaii, Utah and others.
No matter what political flavor you subscribe to, if you truly are frustrated with the bipartisan wasteland, join us in organizations, such as FairVote and Veterans for Political Innovation, working to make ranked-choice voting the reality at local, state and national elections. Fixing the primaries is within reach. I, for one, am fed up with watching it all come apart.