The United States of America is a country that has stood proudly for centuries and done much more than many others to do right by its people. The home of the brave and the land of the free, this is a country that will do the very best that it can to serve the best interests of its people.
But over the years, there have been complaints. More and more, people are beginning to identify various factors and elements at play in the system that they are at serious odds with. In truth, despite the best interests of the leaders of the country and the individuals in government, there remain various policies that need to be improved on, adjusted, or downright repealed from the constitution and workings of the country if it is to properly reflect the diversity and individuality of the myriad of people who call America home.
As is common with the problems of a country, most problems are sourced from the same root issue. While different people have voiced out a host of critical issues they feel are responsible for why the nation as a whole isn't working as well as it should, more than a few of these problems share a common, underlying theme. More and more people in America believe that the reason that the country is experiencing difficulty in meeting the needs of the American people is that the people in government appear incapable of truly listening and attending to their requests.
Presently, people believe that if they could get the right people in office, then the forward movement of the nation as a whole would be guaranteed. This mindset is most visibly displayed in the unique electoral voting that Maine employed back in 2016.
Before offering more detail on this, it bears pointing out that the operating idea behind this new voting mechanism is that if the way individuals are brought into leadership positions in the government is revised and upgraded, then there is certain to be a significant improvement in the policies, procedures, and conditions that the masses want to see. In essence, it is on this pedestal that Ranked Choice Voting or RCV, as it is more popularly known made its entry into the voting scene as we know it.
RCV differs significantly from the current voting process in that the voting system currently in use provides the choice of a single candidate out of the various options afforded. Ranked Choice Voting offers the opportunity to choose up to five candidates and rank them in order of preference.
The idea of switching to the RCV process of voting is that having more options present, the voter is put in a better position to exert greater influence over the final outcome of the voting, giving the citizen a greater say. Another reason that more people are promoting RCV is that it promises to severely mitigate negative campaigning which is something that is beginning to pose a real problem in the country.
Sadly, in the quest for a greater America, the masses might be unwittingly making matters worse. While the current voting system has its flaws without a doubt, RCV is almost guaranteed to be even worse, and here's why.
Apart from turning our electioneering process into a glorified popularity campaign, it can fulfill any of the promises people are buying into it. To start with, the first and most direct downside to employing this tactic is election exhaustion. Take for example, if 10 candidates are vying for an office and the ballot prompts the voter to use RCV to pick their favorite three. Under this system, the candidates with the least votes are disqualified and their votes are repurposed to the next name selected on the ballot. However, if none of the three names chosen make it to the final round, then the ballot would essentially not be tallied or even counted. Although this may be considered a minor concern, in some situations it may be more serious, such as the San Francisco election in 2011, where 27 percent of ballots were exhausted before the final election. Additionally, massive numbers of votes would be voided outright due to the manner of ticking if RCV is implemented.
A change in the voting process will bring confusion to voters. A study conducted into voters showed that even hard-core party members do not know all the candidates in an election that represent their party. How are they supposed to get to know other candidates as well?
What's more, the loopholes with this system were displayed in 2013 in North Carolina when a mayor was clearly not the choice of the people who won reelection based solely on the technicalities of RCV. It can also be argued that since negative campaigning is not generally originated by the candidates themselves, this voting system isn't likely to have any real effect on it.
With all this, when asked the question, should the US adopt Ranked Choice Voting? It is without a doubt that it will only delay the growth of the country.
