Every two years we begin the circus known as elections. The process is long (often 18+ months) and twisted:
- Every detail of your life is publicly scrutinized and judged.
- You spend 12ish months tearing members of your own party down to try and prove you are the most committed to your party’s agenda.
- You then spend the next 6ish months attacking your opponent while trying to claw your way back to the middle so as you can capture as many of the opposing party’s votes as possible.
The intense and ridiculous process likely drives many qualified candidates to “opt out” before the race even starts. Individuals who remain, frequently forego their unique ideas and identity in support of “the party line” in order to secure critical party support/resources necessary to win in the general election.
While occasionally, a third choice emerges with some unique or unwavering perspectives, they almost never capture material votes and their candidacy is usually tainted as a “throw away” vote.
Worse yet, once a candidate is elected, they are still largely prevented from having a substantial impact due to a series of partisan appointments, committees, and rules designed to maintain party power. As discussed in Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter incredible book The Politics industry, “Just as today’s duopoly has cemented its market power in elections, it has also cemented its grip over lawmaking by capturing Congress and devising rules in its favor—particularly in leadership’s favor—and often at the expense of effective problem solving in the public interest. As a result of these corruptions of electoral and lawmaking rules, there is virtually no intersection between an elected official acting in the public interest and the likelihood of getting reelected.” (TedX video summarizing the principles in The Politics Industry if you prefer video)
This ridiculousness happens for a simple reason: parties have entirely too much control and influence across the election and legislative processes.
The good news is that there is a simple solution defined by Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter called Final-five voting. In their own words, “Final-Five Voting consists of two parts—open, single-ballot, nonpartisan primaries in which the top-five candidates qualify for the general elections (top-five primaries) and ranked-choice voting (RCV) in general elections. The video below does a phenomenal job of explaining the mechanics of RCV, but in short, RCV requires a winner to receive over 50% of the overall vote (vs. just a majority) by letting voters rank the candidates in order of their preference. The net result of final-five voting is a better, more diverse, more empowered group of candidates.
Final-five voting works and I am not alone in this belief. As of May 2021, there are 4+ states that have instituted top-two primaries (a step in the right direction but as Gehl and Porter note, five candidates is preferred as it “Makes it highly unlikely that a single party will capture all five spots, ensure more voters are likely to have a choice they support come November, and [increase]competition for candidates, ideas, and [results]”). Additionally, there are 21 jurisdictions already using RCV who are already seeing the seeing the expected results of less negative campaigns, a better/more diverse slate of candidates and overwhelming public support (77% overall approval for RCV).
Fueling democracy through final-five voting is the single most important thing we can do to empower politicians to act in the best interest of the country and drive progress – Voice your desire for final-five voting to your politicians and start a movement in your state.
Want to read more: ranked-choice voting explained
