The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

Enact ranked choice voting. Anyone who endorses democracy and understands our voting process can tell you our system is flawed. The two-party system is clearly dysfunctional: Party tribalism divides and distracts us, and who wouldn’t want more options in political representation? I doubt anyone is satisfied with what’s currently available at the voting booth.

The problem: The way we vote now, you cast one vote and the candidate with most votes wins. This fails to represent us proportionally and encourages you not to vote for the candidate you think is best, but for the candidate you dislike the least who has the best chance of winning. Afraid to “throw away your vote on an unlikely candidate” you are incentivised to choose the lesser of two likely evils.

The solution: Ranked choice voting is an alternative system we can adopt to fix this. By ranking the candidates in order, we aren’t afraid to put the unlikely candidate at the top, because should they lose, our vote goes to the second choice on our list, then third and so on. This incentivises the voter to elect candidates based on ideas and not on financial resources. There are several variations of this system that can be introduced to improve our electoral process.

Out of ignorance or opposition to representative democracy, our blatantly flawed election system has continued unchecked. Hopefully this letter expels that ignorance, or at the very least discredits the excuse. I’m calling on our national leaders to adopt ranked choice voting or publicly rebut these points in their defense of our current system. I hope others join me in a movement for better representation.

In solidarity,

SEAN WRINKLE

Nassau,

March 5, 2019