hey hey hey important read this thread and start spreading it. i made this thread very comprehensive and easy to read:

ranked choice voting is how we can fix america and twitter NEEDS to start talking about it

current system: trump has 57 votes, biden has 56. you cast your vote for bernie because you hate biden. now trump has 57, biden 56, and bernie 1. trump won the election. in americas voting system, voting for a third party that is not dem or rep is a wasted or "throwaway" vote

its long and complicated, but america was never "supposed" to be a two-party system, but it has become that way and was always set up to become that way because of pluarity voting (1), and this is what created negative partisanship (2).

(1). "plurarity voting" (or first past the post/winner take all) is a fancy term that means you can cast your vote for only one canidate, and the canidate with the highest number of votes will win, but NOT the canidate with the majority of votes. (1/3)

so for example in the pluarity voting system, even though trump only recieved 1/3rd of the total votes, meaning less than 50% agreed with him, he still won the election because he had one more vote than the second choice, even though 2/3rds of overall voters were dem. (2/3)

so because of pluarity voting, to make sure that the party you like least (dem or rep) does not take office, you have to vote for the other party's most popular canidate. so anyone who hates trump is forced to vote for biden, even though they don't agree with biden either (3/3).

(2). "negative partisanship" is a fancy term that means all of the political action taken by both politicans and voters done simply to keep the other party out of office. (1/5)

negative partisanship is what fuels and controls american politics. it's why we're already seeing historically higher voter turn-out right now than we ever have before, because right now the people showing up to vote are doing it just to keep trump out. (2/5)

but the problem with negative partisanship is that it makes politians create and run their platform as either democratic or republican as possible so that they can appeal to the majority of voters. they do this just to keep the other party out of office (3/5)

to secure votes from their party, trump's platform became "guns! god! pro-life! wall!" and biden's became "well. i'm not trump." to involve more progressive/agressive policies would not appeal to the majority, so they won't do it. (4/5)

there is no room for progress in a pluarity system because the two dominating parties are at war with each other, and they snuff out any move to progress because it wouldn't appeal to their party majority. (5/5)

if we break down the pluarity voting system, politicans are forced to evolve their platforms because they aren't the only option anymore.

trump secured the republican vote in 2016 by screaming "guns! god! pro-life! wall!" the loudest. it gained the attention of the public, and republicans didn't want the democrat party to win, and so they voted for trump because there was no other choice (1/2)

but if a republican canidate with more evolved and complex policies was able to run without becoming a throwaway vote, trump could not rely on "i'm your only option unless you want a democrat". he would be forced to move past a caricature of the far right if he wants votes. (2/2)

without a two party system forcing people to vote one party or the other (that does everything it can to either be moderate or extreme right), politicans are pushed to evolve. they have to do more because they aren't the only option anymore. america is allowed to progress.

so negative partisanship in a pluarity voting system (which is what america has) means that every voter and politican alike is forced to compromise or give up entirely on what they believe in, and either become or vote for a caricature of their party beliefs

so what if we took away the pluarity voting system and instead used a true majority vote?

we have a way to do that right now and it already exists. ranked choice voting.

in the example i used earlier, in our current system (the pluarity vote) trump won the election because he had one more vote than the second choice did, even though he did not have the vote of the majority of people (only 1/3rd of voters voted for him)

in ranked choice voting, i can now vote on my ballot bernie as my first choice, and biden as my second choice.

how it works:

whoever gets over 50% of the vote (the majority) wins.

each canidate has 33% of the vote, so nobody won first choice.

so now the lowest ranking canidate is dropped from the race, and the votes for them are now transferred over to those voters second choice.

so say every person who voted for bernie casted their second choice as biden. bernie still lost, but voting for "anybody but trump" did not become a wasted vote.

biden has over 50% of the vote, and now has won the election.

ranked choice voting allows 3rd party votes. it allows expression of genuine preference without becoming a wasted vote. it breaks the pluarity system which breaks negative partisanship which forces politicans to evolve and progress. it forces america to progress.

this is the first legitimate and long-term solution we have to fix america. fighting gerrymandering, the electoral college, and voter suppression are just band-aids.

the fundamental process of how we vote has been a fatal wound that won't stop bleeding.

ranked choice voting allows progressive ideas to become a legitimate choice, which means "stop racism" "free education" "global warming real" are no longer radical positions. they can make it to office.

there is a future where we can have this. fight for it

and know that this isn't some radical leftist change that's hopeless to fight for. maine already uses ranked choice voting, they did use it for this presidential election. it's possible to switch to ranked choice voting in america in all states now.

ranked choice voting isn't a common idea to the general public, almost everyone i follow is politically active adults, yet not one person i follow has ever even mentioned it before. we need to start spreading the idea and popularizing it.