I just thought of this a tweeted it, but it’s such a great idea I have to elaborate a tiny bit.
We’ve been voting all wrong. We should run our elections in reverse. You get the huge pile of candidates, and then we vote them off one at a time. Last man standing gets the office.
This would solve a lot of problems for third party candidates. Right now when it’s a race between 3 candidates, people are loath to vote for a third party candidate they think will lose, as it seems like wasting their vote, making it less likely their second choice will win. With the survivor system, they could just vote out their least favorite, and then a week later or so they could make the final decision, knowing that at the very least their second choice is getting in. Well, that’s assuming the election went their way.
It would also be a good way of changing the debate. Instead of always arguing over the same issues throughout the election, the issues would get whittled away as the choices for candidates showed what the public cared about. Some people might be able to stop going to the polls as the election progresses, either happy or unhappy with all the remaining candidates and figuring they’re all equal.
Does anyone know why we don’t do it this way? I mean, obviously there are details that would have to be figured out, but in general, is there some major flaw with this I’m not seeing right now? Do any other countries operate in this manner? I wish it worked like this.
The commercials might get pretty dirty, but really, how much lower can they go?