As we watch the 2020 electoral farce continue to unfold, this seems like a good time to point out one of the major flaws with plurality voting in a system dominated by two parties. Namely, it doesn’t allow people to express what they actually want, and more importantly, what they don’t want.
For example, suppose we end up with a result that looks like this:
| For Stupid candidate: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |
| For Evil candidate | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |
This would encourage the Stupid candidate to say: ‘Look at all the people who voted for me! They must be in favor of the policies I’ve been promoting, and want me to act on the promises I’ve been making!’
But suppose that voters were allowed to directly vote against one candidate, instead of being force to express that by voting for the other candidate. Then we might end up with a result like this:
| For Stupid candidate: | || |
| Against Evil candidate | |||||||||||||||||||||||||| |
| For Evil candidate | ||||| |
| Against Stupid candidate | |||||||||||||||||||||| |
If we count Against X as For Y, we end up with the same winner. But the winning candidate gets a very different message: ‘Look, hardly anyone supports your policies, or wants you to try to keep your promises. We just think you’re somewhat less terrible than the other guy. All we really want from you is for you to not be him.’
But as long as we are forced to cram two bits of information into one bit of voting, we’re going to be stuck with ‘mandates’ claimed by candidates who were victorious only because they were marginally less odious than their opponents.
They say that you should be careful about asking for the wrong thing, because you just might get it. But how much worse is it to be prevented from asking for the right thing in the first place?