The nation wanted to spend the July 4 weekend paralyzed by “Hamilton,” dazzled by the 1800 presidential election, and imagining a time when politicians were arguing through pamphlets and long letters rather than 280 character tweets.
And then of course Twitter interrupted. They took us back to the 2020 race. Kanye West had declared his offer from the White House. Retweets and responses increased.
Skeptics noted that West had released a new album just a week earlier. Doubters with a deeper understanding of electoral law than the release dates noted how difficult it would be to qualify for ballot access in several major states. Bloomberg quickly noted that West had not filed any paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.
But that didn’t stop the hot shots. Some suggested that Kanye would hurt former Vice President Joe Biden by potentially misleading young black voters, even postulating that Trump and billionaire supporter Elon Musk fled him for exactly that reason. Others actually found polls that measure West’s approval rating among Democrats, just 17 percent, and others wondered if West could exhaust Trump’s appeal with a subset of black voters.
West has every right to run. But we could have spared all this instantaneous agitation and analysis. We could have enjoyed the holiday weekend and stayed focused on “Hamilton”. Voting on classified options would end the same grueling “spoiler candidate” debate that starts earlier than Ross Perot, Ralph Nader or Jill Stein can say. It would improve our choices, and would have made everyone’s 4th of July more relaxed.
After all, we just finished having this same argument in the spring when Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, a former Republican-turned-independent, flirted with his quest for the libertarian nomination, and politicians worried about whether his appeal to conservatives and disgruntled independents would help Trump or hurt him. .
Voting by classified election increases the power of voters when faced with more than two candidates in a race. Rather than picking just one, and having to do a mental math on whether that ballot could end up choosing the candidate the voter least likes, they all put their decisions in order. If no one wins 50 percent, RCV functions as an instant second round. Whoever gets the lowest vote falls and those supporters move on to their next option.
With RCV, no one has to worry about who is diverting votes from whom. Everyone can vote for the person they like best, be it Kanye West, Justin Amash, a Green Party candidate, or someone completely different. And we can shut down a certain segment of political Twitter forever.
Let’s toast the independents and third parties. Let’s toast to attention seekers. Let’s toast to all Democrats and Republicans who won’t have to worry about a spoiler. Let’s toast the end of plurality winners.
Let Kanye run. Let anyone run. But let’s all vote with RCV.
Now, can we talk about how classified election voting could have helped prevent 36 rounds of battles at the Electoral College in 1800?
