Currently, in the United States, we use plurality voting where each voter can vote for a single candidate for each office.

Combined with party primaries, we end up with elected officials that don't necessarily represent but a small fraction of the population.

In fact, we end up with this:

(please note that if Clinton had won I'd have just substituded her name into the title... as I don't think she is any better)

Range voting would potentially do away with the need for primaries (saving everyone time and money), let 3rd parties and independents vote for the candidate they favor without worry about throwing away their vote, and show clearly in the media the real public support for various candidates.

The Problem With Plurality Voting

Currently, we hold primaries. Assuming a good number of candidates for recognized parties, the primaries might look like the following:

R = Republican, D = Democrat, L = Libertarian, G = Green, I = Independent
.c = centrist
.m = moderate
.h = far (left, right, etc.)

At the left side are those running and across the top are those voting. This table assumes that each party has a primary and can only vote in their own primary, which is common.

Republican Primary

Runner	R.c	R.m	R.h	R.h	Total
Centrist	X				1
Moderate		X			1
Far Right			X	X	2

The far right republican candidate wins with 50% of the republican vote and he goes on to the final vote.

Democratic Primary

Runner	D.c	D.m	D.h	D.h	Total
Centrist	X				1
Moderate		X			1
Far Left			X	X	2

The far right democratic candidate wins with 50% of the democrat vote and he goes on to the final vote.

Libertarian Primary

Runner	L.c	L.m	L.h	L.h	Total
Centrist	X				1
Moderate		X			1
Far Right			X	X	2

The far right libertarian candidate wins with 50% of the democrat vote and he goes on to the final vote.

Green Primary

Runner	G.c	G.m	G.h	G.h	Total
Centrist	X				1
Moderate		X			1
Radical			X	X	2

The radical green candidate wins with 50% of the democrat vote and he goes on to the final vote.

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Note that at this point, each parties candidate is the most radical of the group. This could just as well be a centrist or moderate... but centrist is pretty unlikely in a contested run.

Also notice that NO candidate is preferred by more than 1/8th of those voting at this point.(2 out of 16 votes)

So, let's look at the final vote.

Final Vote using one table for voters in each party

Republican Voters:

Runner	R.c	R.m	R.h	R.h	Total
R(h)	x	x	x	x	4
D(h)					0
L(h)					0
G(h)					0
I					0

Democrat Voters:

Runner	D.c	D.m	D.h	D.h	Total
R(h)					0
D(h)	x	x	x	x	4
L(h)					0
G(h)					0
I					0

3rd Parties...

Notice that 3rd party voters are likely to vote for the republican or democrat ... whichever they like best. Doing otherwise is voting against the major party candidate they would prefer to see elected.

• indicates who they would have preferred to vote for if they felt that they would be throwing away their vote by doing so.

Libertarian Voters:

Runner	L.c	L.m	L.h	L.h	Total
R(h)	X	X	X		3
D(h)					0
L(h)	*	*	*	x	1
G(h)					0
I					0

Green Voters:

Runner	G.c	G.m	G.h	G.h	Total
R(h)					0
D(h)	X	X	X		3
L(h)					0
G(h)	*	*	*	x	1
I					0

Independent Voters:

Runner	I	Total
R(h)	X	1
D(h)		0
L(h)		0
G(h)		0
I	*	0

Final tally:

• Republican: 8 (4R, 3L, I)
• Democrat: 7 (4D, 3G)
• Libertarian: 1 (1*L)
• Green: 1 (1*G)
• Independent: 0

The republicans win with 8 out of 17 votes: 47%
The democrats come in with 7/17 votes: 41%
The libertarians and greens: 5.9% or so each
The independent: 0%

The libertarians, greens, and independents appear to have no support... and the media completely ignores them and howls foul!

The fact is that only 2 out of the 4 republicans preferred the winner, meaning 2 out of 17 people... his real support should have been closer to 12% of people.

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Changing the game

What if range voting were used instead?

[Range voting](http://www.rangevoting.org/) is a system like they use in the olympics where each voter can give each candidate a rating. Votes are added together and divided by the number of non-X votes (see below) that they receive. The highest number wins.

A voter can choose X instead of 0 to 99 to denote they don't know anything about that candidate and don't want to vote for or against them. What happens is their total is divided by the number of non X votes they receive.

So, let's go with new primaries:

Republican Primary

Runner	R.c	R.m	R.h	R.h	Total
Centrist	99	50	0	0	(149/4) 37.25
Moderate	60	99	40	40	(239/4) 59.75
Far Right	0	30	99	99	(228/4) 57

The moderate candidate wins now because both the far right and centrists prefer the moderate as a second choice.

This past election that might well have been the loss for Trump. Hard to say but you never know.

Democratic Primary

Runner	D.c	D.m	D.h	D.h	Total
Centrist	99	60	0	0	(159/4) 39.75
Moderate	60	99	50	60	(269/4) 67.25
Far Left	0	0	99	99	(198/4) 49.5

The moderate democrat wins here as well as most of those voting prefer the moderate as a 2nd choice.

This past election that might well have been the loss for Hillary.

Libertarian Primary

Runner	L.c	L.m	L.h	L.h	Total
Centrist	99	60	0	0	(159/4) 39.75
Moderate	30	99	60	0	(198/4) 49.5
Radical	0	60	99	99	(258/4) 64.5

The libertarians end up with a radical candidate.

Green Primary

Runner	G.c	G.m	G.h	G.h	Total
Centrist	99	60	0	0	(159/4) 39.75
Moderate	60	99	60	60	(279/4) 69.75
Radical	0	0	99	99	(198/4): 49.5

The moderate green member takes the primary as most people preferred him as their second favorite.

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Two things you might notice:

• The races seem to be a bit closer
• The final results more closely reflect what the majority of the party might agree on if losers votes weren't simply discounted.

So, moving on to the final voting...

Range Voting Final Election

Republican Voters:

Runner	R.c	R.m	R.h	R.h	Total
R(m)	99	99	99	99	396
D(m)	60	0	0	0	60
L(r)	0	20	40	60	120
G(m)	40	40	20	20	120
I	20	60	60	40	180

Same overall winner among republicans.

Democrat Voters:

Runner	D.c	D.m	D.h	D.h	Total
R(m)	40	0	0	0	40
D(m)	99	99	99	99	396
L(r)	0	20	20	0	40
G(m)	60	60	60	60	240
I	20	40	40	40	140

Same overall winner among democrats

3rd Parties...

3rd party voters can giver the same score to their preferred candidate as to the main party candidate closes to their positions... no more throwing away votes.

Libertarian Voters:

Runner	L.c	L.m	L.h	L.h	Total
R(m)	99	99	99	99	396
D(m)	0	0	0	0	0
L(r)	80	99	99	99	377
G(m)	20	40	40	60	160
I	40	60	60	40	200

Winner still republican... but only barely and only because some libertarians prefer the moderate republican to the radical libertarian.

Green Voters:

Runner	G.c	G.m	G.h	G.h	Total
R(m)	0	0	0	40	40
D(m)	99	99	99	99	396
L(r)	40	40	60	0	140
G(m)	99	99	99	99	396
I	60	60	40	60	220

Green now has both democrats and green party members as being tied

Independent Voters:

Runner	I	Total
R(m)	99	99
D(m)	0	0
L(r)	60	60
G(m)	40	40
I	99	99

Independents now have independents and republicans tied

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Now let's add these all up and see if anything changes:

Party	R	D	L	G	I	Totals
Republican	396	40	396	40	99	971 (57.12) #1
Democrat	60	396	0	396	0	852 (50.12) #4
Libertarian	120	40	377	140	60	737 (43.35) #5
Green	120	240	160	396	40	956 (56.24) #2
Independent	180	140	200	220	99	893 (49.35) #3

Yes, the republicans still won, probably in good part because the primaries may well have kicked out a candidate that had better appeal to the majority of America.

That being said, it is worth noting a couple of things here:

• The contest was much closer than one would have thought from looking at the outcome using plurality voting (our current system)
• The numbers actually reflect peoples preference amongst the candidates rather than how people think they must vote in order to not throw their vote away.

Opinion...

This past election had the two worst candidates I've ever seen for the major parties.

A radical republican squared off against a radical democrat using a system where peoples preferences are discarded.

If we had used a better voting system such as Range Voting the chance of radical party members making past the primaries (well, excepting in the L party...) would have greatly decreased and, even if they had, giving the 3rd parties a real voice might have made all of the difference in who actually won. Who knows... we might have ended up with a mild Libertarian or Green... which would have been much better than either Trump or Clinton.

So what?

If you don't want to continue to be saddled with terrible choices in our elected offices you should:

• Find out who your state representatives are (if you don't know)
• Send them a link to this
• Suggest they look it over, consider it, and get back to you with any reasons that they believe this is worse than what we have now.

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Give the 3rd parties a fair shake and things like this past election might stop happening.

When I saw the finals from the primaries I just laughed. Who would want either major candidate? Probably not 80% of america.

Stop letting those who run things force us to choose the lesser of two evils.

Let's start choosing those that are closest to the majority of the country instead.

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This is a message from the (soon to be) upstart Voluntaryist Political Party.

If you want positive change (and not just change or loose change), here are our goals:

• Increase individual, political, and financial liberty for everyone
• Reduce corruption in government and corporations
• Empower the poor
• Improve our image in the eyes of foreigners everywhere
• Improve children's educational opportunities

Rather than fighting over issues that either don't matter or should be personal choice, we want to see if we can work together for real issues that will give us all a brighter future (yes, even the American Indians that have been oppressed and much worse since the first settlers arrived on this contentent).