@@jarl8815 I looked on Wikipedia and Sweden has a proportional election system (I live in Germany. We also have such a system). This way voters don't have problems to vote for a third party because every party thats get 4% is represented in the parliament. In Germany for example left-leaning voters can decide if they want to vote for the Social Democrats, the Democratic Socialist or The Greens (or they vote for the liberal FDP or other more right leaning parties). Let me explain the American problem. Let's say Joe Biden is running against Trump in the 2020 US election and would win (I think that's unlikely but that's not the point). Let's say he gets 55% of the vote and wins against Trump 45% (if we ignore the electorial college). Now let's do the same things again but Bernie Sanders is running this time as a third party candidate. Sanders gets 20% Biden this time only gets 25% (because the more progessive voters and the Democratic Socialists support Sanders over Biden). Trump would have won because he would still get 45% (unlikely because some Trump voters would have also voted for Bernie but just for this example). This has already happened in American history. In 1912 former republican president Theodore Roosevelt split from the republicans and run as the candidate of the Progressive Party. Roosevelt and Taft got 51% (+ there was a forth guy that run for the Socialist party and got 6%) of the vote but the democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson the election in a landslide (he got 41% of the vote). If the same election had happened in Sweden or Germany. Republicans and Progessives could have formed a coalition (the government) and the Democrats and Socialist would have been in the opposition. That's why Sweden or Germany have (far) more than 2 "big" parties.
@@hintofdwight possible solution President- Abolish electoral college and go to 2 round system. If candidate and running mate dosent get more than 50 percent plus one vote then cut it down to top 2 and have a runoff and let plurality take over. Already used in Louisiana for governors races and mississippi for senate races House- Mixed Member Proportional(MMP) . You get 2 votes. 1 for an individual candidate plus one for party vote. In this case it would increase the house from 435 to 485(current house make up plus one party vote per state)- Used in the lower house of the German and New Zealand parliments Senate- keep same in terms of election but overhaul opperational policy By doing this the house makeup would help break up the republicans strongholds in the rocky mountain great plains and southwest cd's and replace them with libertarians(john mccain would have been a libertarian if it was a major party) and alot of the west coast would put more labor party, socialist party and green party members in congress. Yes america would have a 5 party system but if the Republicans and Democrats would go from big tent to center left and right parties they would still be the 2 dominant parties, things would get done better and new ideas would be brought to congress.
We should immediately move voting from Tuesday, to a full weekend vote. That would increase voter turnout to the 90% range, and allow resolution of any problems with polling places before final tally on Sunday night.
Input from far away: In my country voting is always on a sunday because most people have the sunday off, and those who don't or are somewhere else can apply for "mailvoting" beforehand (Or are allowed to be absend from work for the short duration of casting their vote). And we don't need to register for voting. (You have to rgister in your new municipality everytime you move, so they know who lives where and where to send your voting papers). Still we don't have anywhere near 90% voter turnout. We also have plurality voting (but with more than 2 parties) and i agree with the video, that it is most of the time voting for the lesser evil. And this is what keeps people from voting. (I am sick of politicians who get voted as lesser evil claiming that every vote they get means full support for everything they think and do)
You like going out on the weekend? You know, shopping, dining, dancing, sports, etc.? Notice how there's people working in those places on the weekend? Weekend voting wouldn't increase turnout all that much. And the only way to get 90% turnout is to pay people to vote.
Australia has mandatory voting, getting their voter turnout to the 90+% range. However, you will notice that it doesn't actually increase the approval rating of the individual chosen, and many of those voters often write in some rather... colorful "candidates" when they show up to the polls. Higher voter turnout doesn't actually mean that your system is any better than one with a lower voter turnout. I do agree that moving the election day either to a weekend or making it a national holiday would increase the numbers, but we still need to actually provide good choices for those voters to vote on. Further, one of the GOOD things about the Electoral College is how it is a federal system that requires state input. By law, the official election day is held on the first Tuesday of November after Nov 1st. However, the states themselves can hold their elections whenever they want. It is their electors that are required to cast their vote after all, not the people. Thus it is up to each state to decide how best to handle their elections. Some states have election day as a state holiday. Some require companies to provide paid time off (varies on how much) for their workers to vote. Many states do early voting and mail-in votes. The big negatives of the EC can offset this of course, and the biggest problem with any electoral system is how it influences candidates and their campaigns. Right now, the going "justification" for the EC is that it protects smaller states from the bigger more populous states. However, it also encourages candidates to campaign in key swing states, and ignore safe states. This is why despite smaller states having an EC advantage thanks to getting at least 3 electors regardless of their population size, is why Democrats won't bother trying to entice those small states. They are safe, so there is no use in campaigning in them (though Trump proved that wrong in a few key states in 2016! You can't completely ignore the safe states either!). If you get rid of the EC, this forces the candidates to try and appeal more broadly... to the most polarizing issues. Once you remove the mask that is EC, all of a sudden, the entire country is now using Plurality voting. There are no safe states. You cannot "use the excuse" that you are voting for your preferred candidate in a safe state but voting for the main candidate in a swing state. Either you vote for the main candidate, or you are in effect voting for the enemy. When given that choice, not voting at all is typically preferable. So voter turnout drops even more. So I would require at least 3 things that would need to be worked on if you want voter turn out to be higher (voluntarily, not by force). 1) The states need to provide better voting systems and circumstances for their citizens - not the federal government who tends to be pretty useless when it comes to elections anyway. Some states have already shaken things up with how they award electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska?) while several others have signed a compact that would allow them to circumvent the EC altogether (pretty sure it will get struck down immediately though). The president is elected by the states, not the people, and you would think that would give states the incentive to come up with better systems to get more people to show up to the polls (you'd be wrong and I have no idea why you would think that). 2) The candidates that we get need to be better than two unappealing choices. This doesn't mean you need moderate or centrist choices. No! A choice that weakly appeals to everyone, strongly appeals to no one. Stand up for your principles! That will get voters to churn out. FDR didn't get elected 4 times by being meek. 3) Get rid of the EC but replace it with **something better!** Direct Vote is probably the *only* system that is objectively worse than the EC. It would remove states power completely, turn the entire country to plurality voting which is horrible, and ensure that only the smallest portions of the country are represented. Currently, about 25-30% of the electorate has chosen the last 20+ elections. Want to make that number drop? Institute National Popular Vote. See what happens. Get at least those three things, and voter turn out will rise through motivation - at least for a time. You are still going to lose those minority groups - Im not talking about race, religion, or ingroup either. I mean your fringe groups. Those people that use extreme ideologies unironically.
I didn't know there were great, potential alternatives to ranked choice/instant runoff voting! Ranked choice is the only one that I ever hear about-I wonder why it has sort of become the winning alternative choice. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Beat! I would love to see one of these alternatives on the national level, but now that I know there are multiple possibilities, there's pressure to pick the right one! Hahaha. Though, we'll see if it ever passes with Dem. & Rep. leadership support.
There are some studies of approval and range voting especially when the participants taking part of it are used to plurality voting in which they behave as though voting by plurality. For example one might check all the Republicans and not check anyone from another party, or score all Republicans a 9 or 10 and score all others a 1 or 2. When you have to provide a full ranked choice, you are forced to import some sort of opinion on every candidate and it doesn't have the problem of breaking down to plurality. As an example of this TH-cam videos used to have 5 star ranking system but the majority of users only ever chose the maximum or the minimum. Even if they thought the video was a 3 they would often choose the max or min in order to have the biggest effect on moving the aggregate towards the 3 if they knew what the current aggregate measure was. So now there's just thumbs up and down.
I used to defend the electoral college and the FPP [First Past the Post = Plurality Voting]. I thought it prevented weak governments like those in Italy and Israel. My opinion began to change with the unconstitutional resolution of the Bush-Gore election, and hardened when I realized that voters in small rural states are overrepresented in both congress and the electoral college. Here are the disgraceful figures. Wyoming, pop. 573,720 representatives 1, senators 2 EC votes 3 California, Pop.39,777,000 reps 53, senators 2 EC votes 55 If every 573, 721 CA voters had 1 representative CA would have 59 reps, not 39. CA is grossly underrepresented, in fact every state with more than 4 million voters is underrepresented, and every state with under 2 million voters is overrepresented. This means that the Electoral College is also grossly undemocratic. FPP [PV] is also undemocratic, as shown in this video. Thanks Mr. Beat. May I also suggest that you deal with the underrepresentation scam that I have shown?
@@iammrbeat Here is my table. The figures may be a year or so out of date. Not to mention nobody should let my math go by unchecked. Kansas is short 1, Massachusetts is short 3. Both Red and Blue States are shortchanged, this is disgraceful! This is shocking! Everyone viewing this whose state is underrepresented should contact their congress people!!!!!! STATE POPULATION Present Representation Fair no. of reps California 39,776,830 53 69.3 [-16] Texas 28,704,330 36 50 [-14] Florida 21,312,211 27 37 [-10] New York 19,862,512 27 34.6 [-8] Pennsylvania 12,823,989 18 22.4 Illinois 12,768,320 18 22.3 Ohio 11,694,664 16 20.4 Georgia 10,545,138 14 18.4 N. Carolina 10,390,149 13 18.1 Michigan 9,991,177 14 17.4 New Jersey 9,032,872 12 15.74 Virginia 8,525,660 11 14.9 Washington 7,530,552 10 13.13 Arizona 7,123,898 9 12.52 Massachusetts 6,895,917 9 12.0 Tennessee 6,782,564 9 11.8 Indiana 6,699,629 9 11.7 Missouri 6,135,888 8 10.7 Maryland 6,079,602 8 10.6 Wisconsin 5,818,049 8 10.14 Colorado 5,684,203 7 9.9 Minnesota 5,628,162 8 9.8 South Carolina 5,088,916 7 8.9 Alabama 4,888,949 7 8.5 Louisiana 4,682,509 6 8.16 This is undemocratic and must change. STATE POPULATION Reps now Fair Kentucky 4,472,265 6 7.8 Oregon 4,199,563 5 7.32 Oklahoma 3,940,521 5 6.87 Connecticut 3,588,683 5 6.25 Iowa 3,160,553 4 5.5 Utah 3,159,345 4 5.5 Nevada 3,056,824 4 5.3 Arkansas 3,020,327 4 5.3 Mississippi 2,982,785 4 5.2 Kansas 2,918,515 4 5.0 New Mexico 2,090,708 3 3.64 Nebraska 1,932,549 3 3.37 West Virginia 1,803,077 3 3.14 Idaho 1,753,860 2 3.0 Hawaii 1,426,393 2 2.5 New Hampshire 1,350,575 2 2.3 Maine 1,341,582 2 2.3 Montana 1,062,330 1 1.85 Rhode Island 1,061,712 2 1.9 Delaware 971,180 1 South Dakota 877,790 1 North Dakota 755,238 1 Alaska 738,068 1 District of Columbia 703,608 Vermont 623,960 1 Wyoming 573,720 1 Why should one voter in Wyoming have 60+ times the electoral or congressional power of one Californian‽
There are equally stuffed up Presidential, FFP systems in the world. Weak governments are not always minority or coalition governments, nor are minority or coalition governments always weak - look at New Zealand, Australia, UK under Cameron, Israel (a weak government - really!), it depends on the loyalty of the coalition partners.
@@quentenwalker1385 Israel's government depends on the power plays between self-interested factions, in this respect it resembles the Italian and French governments of the past. Ask secular Israelis about how well their government functions for them and you will get an earful of how the ultra-orthodox take advantage of the situation to maintain outrageous privileges. That is the weakness of representing every faction, and always having to make coalitions, often by corrupt deals. Do you remember that past French or italian governments only lasted a few months? The French haven't had this problem since the 4th Republic, but the Italians have had it in the last few decades. Parliamentary systems can have this weakness, look at the UK and Brexit! Making that momentous a decision on a very slim margin of victory and in a multi-party government has led to a very bad situation in which the public is so divided that the poles show the pro and con sentiments flipping constantly. The US FPP indirect system is no longer functioning as intended. It needs a major overhaul, and the electoral college must be scrapped. Our founders were opposed to political parties, but their wishes didn't survive into the second administration. The present format tends to force two party government. Our coalitions are pre-election rather than post-election as in most countries, that is, the two main parties are coalitions of factions. The problem with the Democratic Party is that it has more diversity and more factions, whereas the Republican Party is more like a Communist party with more central control and rigid adherence to dogma--these statements can be clearly seen in operation nowadays.
If you combined ranked choice with having multiple Representatives from a single district, you can offset gerrymandering without messing with maps. If you cant tell I really like ranked choice.
Unfortunately, the Constitution prevents this as states can't set up their own voting systems for Representatives, so 3/4 of the states would have to be on board in order to get ranked choice voting for them. For the Presidential elections, however, they CAN set up their own voting system for electors.
@@iammrbeat in other words what you're saying is we can never have representative democracy, without a constitutional amendment. Welp guess it's time to get to work.
That kind of system is called single transferrable vote, and it's used in Ireland, Malta and Australian upper house elections. It's a very good voting system and I highly recommend it if your biggest priority in an electoral system is choice and proportionality.
I thank you Mr. Beat for putting out this video to inform me and others on different methods of voting. There should be diversity in voting methods. Score voting is the best because it would result in higher voter turnout and get voters engaged based on how votes are tallied based in contests outside of voting.
@@iammrbeat you're welcome. Thank you for the enlightenment Mr. Beat. I'm a huge fan of your videos. I like your bold educated stances on voting instead of focusing on just the media hype surrounding it.
Not true. Bernie advocates ranked choice too. As a side note, the president can't do much about changing our electoral system, because it is under the control of state governments. www.fairvote.org/u_s_bernie_sanders
@@jacobluna305 because the two major parties know that their dominance would crumble if that was implemented everywhere. For example southern / urban NY is dominated by establishment democrats and the northern counties are dominated by "fuck the libs" republicans. i can already picture the arguments governor Cuomo would make against this
I only have experience with "ranked choice voting" as we call it here in Maine and I like it. I think it's a neat way to do it, it allows people to loosen up and pick who they really want, and it has, you know... math
@@GiffysChannel Instant Runoff guarantees a majority - it is the requirement actually as the lowest candidates are eliminated until a majority is achieved. What it doesn't do is promote more than 2 parties. IRV/AV are really just slightly better versions of Plurality and its biggest draw is that it - mostly - eliminates the spoiler effect (in theory, but practice is more complicated). They are the "gate way drug" of electoral systems.
I voted third party in 2016, for Gary Johnson. It was tough, but if you felt the way I did about Hillary and Trump, that was the only choice. And how exactly did I feel about them? I hated both of them. I hated both of them immensely, viscerally, and, most importantly, equally. Our system of voting does indeed suck, but it's not impossible to elect third party candidates. You just have to have courage. And it does help if you hate both major candidates equally. As soon as that hate becomes unequal, the lesser of two evils kicks in.
Definitely possible, its just unlikely. 1st you would need to convince most of the population that 3rd parties aren't a wasted vote. The problem is that the main 2 parties are like "A vote for 3rd party is a vote for Trump" or "A vote for 3rd party is a vote for socialism" and people will listen because historically no 3rd party candidate has won yet, unless you count Lincoln in 1864. Then you need 1 3rd party to become so well known and popular with a quality candidate to convince the population to vote for them. The hardest part is getting over 50% of the electoral college. If a 3rd party does not get that threshold, the vote goes to the house. Whoever controls it, will win the election, which will be a Democrat or Republican unless a 3rd party has control. While change in who the dominant parties are is inevitable, its still unlikely as it hasn't happened since prior to the civil war. Go you for sticking to your guns and voting 3rd party and a candidate you agree with most.
Thanks, Matt! I'm having 7th and 8th grade students look at informational texts on elections in the states this week, and I think this will be a perfect addition!
Haven't you watched the video? It just went over why OPOV/FPTP is a BAD system. In fact FPTP is why the EC works the way it does, unless you change the voting system a popular vote system won't fix anything
Yeah, I like ranked choice. My only concern about it right now is that it may be too "complex" for most people to understand, or too "complex" that it scares away voters.
Mr. Beat I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of people. The biggest hurtle is the fact the major two parties stand to lose from alternative voting system.
Funnily enough, Israeli voting reformers want to establish *some* form of geographic representation because the northern and southern periphery are overlooked. I'm working on a video about that right now! Thankfully, nobody is seriously touting first-past-the-post voting.
That is interesting. The israeli election system is actually the one thing I really like or respect about the country. I really admire how it is a singular election which treats the country as a single unit. Also love the Netherlands for doing that. To me it's absolutely the best way to structure a democracy, because it lives up to the promise of 'one person-one vote' and the majoritarian principle.
"It's way passed time to get rid of plurality voting." I agree, but how? Those who pass laws are strictly from the two parties, and passing any voting reform law will hurt their politically, so it will never happen. :(
Step 1: get elected president on a reformist platform, specifically emphasize Electoral and party reform Step 2: sign an executive order to force political parties to elect their Chairman and the Chairman of each state branch. Word the reform in specifically such a way as to allow these state Chairman to assign the party nomination for any state office (including congress sense the state is in charge of their election) if they choose. Step 3: run Chairman campaigns in every state Step 4: have your Chairman assign loyal reformers to be nominated in every race in that state Step 5: repeat until you can pass a constitutional amendment that Reforms the Electoral system
@@johnsphpaulin1162 Step one: get one house of Congress to pass a motion to adjourn the session early (not hard if you control one of the houses) Step two: have the other house vote against it Step three: because the Houses now disagree on when to adjourn the session, prorogue them for the rest of the year Step four: Now that Congress can't do anything for the rest of the year, call the national guard to seize their state houses and force them to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional convention. Step Five: amend the Constitution to abolish plurality voting without the consent of Congress through the convention. Problem solved, right?
I live in a county where I am in the vast minority for the party I have closer ideals to, but when it came time to vote in 2016, I voted for my party but not the party nominated candidate. I didn't like either choice. I knew that my vote wouldn't make a difference to the person I wanted to win, but I loved voting cause 1. it was my first presidential race to vote in 2. I think it is a huge duty to fulfill as a citizen to vote in our elections. Great video !
I really like this video. The first time I hear about different types of voting was from presidential candidate Andrew yang he wants "rank choice voting" when I heard him talk about I was shocked that we didn't have it yet because you know Americans love Choices lol we do!
Lifetime resident of Fargo, ND here. Me and my friends legit threw a party (Really just three guys with some beer, but hey. That counts, probably) when approval voting got set up around here. Public opinion has never felt more valued in my life.
Great video, Mr. Beat! I didn't know what plurality voting is until this, but it makes sense that it's flawed. I think Instant Runoff sounds like the best way to vote. The electoral college is absurd and broken. Therefore, I totally support voting reform. In the last presidential election I voted for who I thought was "the lesser of two evils" just like you said, and it definitely was NOT the way i would have preferred to vote. I really just voted to vote against the candidate i didn't want to win, but I didn't like the candidate I voted for either!
"Lesser of two evils" has confusion baked into it. "Let's see, i have to vote against the person i don't want the most... wait, did i say that right?" vs. "i like THAT candidate"
@@iammrbeat there's an excellent video on the topic by a channel called TheBurgerKreig. If you are interested here's the link: th-cam.com/video/5hN7lpIp6IQ/w-d-xo.html
Hey Yoo! Oh this one isn't as controversial. It's not demonetized. However, as random and frustrating as TH-cam can be, that could easily change in the future. :)
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 South Koreans both right and left have this tendency to import what ever is hot in America. So... Qanon and Direct Action now is a thing in South Korea. Fun.
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 to be honest I actually encourage it so when foreigners are looking in about our country they know what is true and what is false information
Here in British Columbia we've had two referenda on changing our elections to proportional representation (single transferrable vote). Both referenda failed. The opponents said it was too complicated, nobody could understand it, and it would lead to perpetual minority/coalition governments. I think the last is a positive, not a negative: find common ground, cooperate to get things done. If legislation doesn't have broad support, maybe we're better off without it. But what do I know?
1. Voting should extend across an entire week. 2. Voting should be done by the ranked method, and weighted accordingly. 3. Voting should be repeated until there is a clear winner via the ranked method. 4. Voting should never involve proxies. Abolish the Electoral College.
We adopted Instant Runoff Voting in Australia after the rise of the National party split the right-wing vote and resulted in a Labor win back in the 1920s. We use a generalised form of it called Single Transferable Vote to fill our Senate seats, where 6 seats (out of a total of 12) per state get filled at each federal election. In addition to the "eliminate the candidate in last place and redistribute" step, there's also "redistribute the excess from candidates who've got enough for a seat". The STV algorithm reduces to IRV when you only need to fill one seat.
@@jacksonday4323 Ranked Choice is de facto a clone of plurality. Despite all the pomp and circumstance they make about their tabulation rigamarole, it's still susceptible to all the pitfalls of plurality (hell, even plurality passes the Participation Criterion). It vote splits, narrows the Overton window to nothing, and is entirely antithetical to democracy, useful. Whereas plurality guarantees the crowning of one of the two most viable parties, apathetically tossing away all other votes, RCV merely sweeps those independent/new party/unorthodox candidates voters into, and corrals them towards either of the two most viable candidates. With a primary, being in the same political party implies that the candidates running are near-clones of each other, policy-wise. Particularly with Vote Splitting, primaries can break down a Voting Methods façade of logical consistency and sound mathematics, or test it's mettle. Approval Voting not only allows but encourages backing, equally, any candidate you endorse. Apparently here in Colorado both established parties are gonna test out Approval Voting next cycle. It is beginning
@@alanivar2752 In a more diverse political system in the US that statement would be true. But with only two parties each party has an extremely diverse field of politicians. Democrats have people like AOC and Bernie on the left and so called "blue dog Democrats" on the right. Republicans have people like Larry Hogan on the left and the Tea party for example on the right. Both sides in these parties have publicly announced that they would not vote for a member of the opposing inner party faction in a presidential election so I would say that the primary field diverse enough to make ranked choice voting a viable option.
@@Otto910 His second argument against RCV still stands. Much better to use approval voting in any case. After all, if citizens are dissatisfied with all candidates other than one of them, there's nothing stopping them from only voting for one candidate.
I live in Maine, and plurality voting has been a problem here before. Back 2010, the Governor election was a 4 way race between Paul LePage (R), Eliot Cutler (I), Libby Mitchell (D), and Shawn Moody (I). Incumbent Governor John Baldacci (D) was not able to run for re-election due to term limits. LePage won the election without even getting close to the majority of votes, he won with only 37.6% of the vote. Four years later in 2014, he won re-election against Mike Michaud (D) and Eliot Cutler again. This time, he got 48.2% of the vote, which wasn't as bad, but still didn't win the majority. Paul LePage was elected Governor twice, and never won the majority of the vote. We do have ranked choice voting up here now after referendum question 5 passed in the 2016 election, but it's only used for national elections (President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House), not statewide (Governor, State Legislature) or local elections. Hopefully that will change soon.
I prefer to call instant runoff voting "Tournament Voting" because it ends up looking like a tournament as you do the math, also a lot of people already make brackets for the NBA finals, why not politics?
@@iammrbeat : IMHO, that would depend on the the type of libertarianism. Most folks would love to see the "Government" butt out of our personal business & extend personal liberty as much as is possible, but I also believe that most of us want a strong regulatory system to curb the power of big "bidness".
@@iammrbeat The way to finesse instant runoff is to make it compusory to vote for at least one candidate for your vote to count, with the option to rank others in the order you want, and leave those you don't want unnumbered. In Australia we call that optional preferential voting - which the major parties hate, meaning it must be good.
Quick note: There is a misleading line in here that suggests the term "instant runoff" applies to the stage in the process when somebody wins by achieving a majority (a mathematical certainty by the 2-candidate stage but possible sooner). 6:09 This is incorrect. The term refers to the fact that the electorate ranks preferences in a single ballot, allowing for elimination, redistribution and recalculation without the need for a second or third ballot (as in France's two-round presidential election). Multiple ballots allow for runoff elections but they are expensive and take a long time. Instant runoff does the same thing quickly and cheaply using math. So the term refers to the process not the result.
Talking of voting, similar to the reaction to the Help America Vote Act, 2002, here in the UK, there's talk about implementing voter ID laws, even though the number of people who were prosecuted for voting fraud was just one person. Unsurprisingly, on the one hand supporters say that any fraud in voting is bad so having id is a way to ensure there's no chance of fraud. On the other hand, opponents say that the effect will be that people who can't afford the types of id the law intends, will actually amount to suppression of the vote
Yep, you hit the two major counter arguments. I tend to lean toward the side of no IDs as I even have friends that don't have a driver's license. Still, it's not terribly difficult to get one. (Although the DMV is a horrific place)
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 I watch videos about America, because I have always been fascinated by the nation, its complex history, its peaks, its valleys and generally want to experience the country at some point in my life. Besides, I've always been of the opinion that the world is bigger than the shores of my home country and home town, I want to experience adventure. Life is too short to do nothing exciting in life
@@iammrbeat At the very least here in the states we generally have options to get a non-drivers license ID very easily. I've been speaking with a friend in Scotland and because he is blind enough to where he can't drive he can't get a drivers license, so the only valid ID over there that he can utilize most of the time is a passport, which tends to be more expensive compared to other forms of ID.
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 My attitude is that USA ought to get its head out of its arse and look at the way other countries do it - successfully. i was very disappointed that Mr Beat didn't cover the way other countries vote. so i see it my mission to tell the Yanks how to run their country better than they do. They may be powerful, but boy, there democracy is so flawed.
Another benefit of other voting methods s candidates have to be civil to be each other because if they are too mean to the other candidates, they won’t be their voters’ second choices.
The best Voting system is the Alternative Runoff System for the President and a Proportional Representation in Congress! Like Australia and Ireland. The current system we have is trash😒 #Democracy #changethesystem
@@iammrbeat Ireland and Australia aren't the only places that have used interesting multi-winner district voting methods. Before Sweden switched to pure party list proportional representation, they used to use sequential proportional approval voting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approval_voting SPAV demonstrated with Canadian political parties: th-cam.com/video/Gnsgo3z8UIg/w-d-xo.html It's worth mentioning that the video is incorrectly titled "Proportional Approval Voting", not "Sequential Proportional Approval Voting" as it should be. Proportional approval voting actually refers to another method that is a refinement of sequential proportional approval voting. The actual proportional approval voting method (which is much harder to calculate because it requires comparing every possible election outcome): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_approval_voting (it's a special case of harmonic voting (rangevoting.org/QualityMulti.html) for when approval ballots are used and the Δ parameter equals 1).
The problem is not just how we vote, also it's how they are counted. "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." We cannot check our own votes.
I prefer the idea of instant runoff voting, because I don't fall comfortably into the Democrat or Republican camps. So having an instant runoff might help people pick someone who is genuinely smart and has great ideas instead of voting for a candidate on party lines. Not saying Democrats and Republicans don't have valid ideas, but they don't always represent the ideas that majority of Americans want. Having more voices and realistically winnable candidates might help keep the polarization down and make politicians compromise more.
Its sad knowing that this is a change that could solve alot of problems in the US but will never happen because the only people that can make it happen are the people most hurt by the change
What needs to change about voting is that you need to explain there stances and policies and pro and cons about them, were not picking prom king and queen
If there was no electoral college, wouldn't New York City and Los Angeles County pick every president and then it wouldn't be worth voting if you live in Michigan?
Yeah I don't like this system. I don't even get a say on who the two final candidates are. It just comes time to vote and it's "here are your two choices". Gee, thanks. I don't really want 15 choices either, but 4 or 5 equally promoted choices would be nice.
I prefer score voting (also called range voting), and while IRV isn't exactly terrible, I find it extremely overrated. In my mind, IRV is basically just a voting system jury-rigged to avoid the particular problem of "two and a half candidates". That is, two major candidates and one minor candidate who gets a significant number of votes (but not nearly enough to win). But people's preferences often don't work like that. We only think they do because we're used to the strategic effects of plurality voting. How does IRV react to an election with 3 or more competitive candidates? If the whole point of election reform is to give third party candidates more of a chance, then you have to ask this question. But no one ever seems to investigate this scenario, and I find that really annoying. The most glaring problem with IRV is that your second choice is *only* taken into account if your favorite candidate is eliminated before your second choice is. That's a rather strong condition, so a lot of information expressed on the ballots is effectively wasted and doesn't contribute to the result. (Sound familiar?) Score voting doesn't have this problem. What if a "consensus candidate" gets a ton of second place votes but very few first place votes? He might get eliminated very early in IRV despite being very well liked. However, doing this election with score voting would result in him getting a lot of high scores (perhaps a lot of voters give him an 8/10 and their favorite a 10/10), so he would have a better chance. Another problem with IRV (and any other voting system that uses ranked ballots) is that you can't express the intensity of your preferences. Suppose an election has 3 candidates: God, a human, and the devil. No matter how good or bad the human is, your ranking will still be God > human > devil. But your opinion on the election will still vary a lot depending on who that human is. Is he a saint, making this a "greater of two goods" situation? Is he a tyrant, making this a "lesser of two evils" situation? Or is he just your average Joe? Score voting actually allows you to express this kind of information in a way that can influence the election. The intensity of your preferences is a lot more important than we give it credit for, and it's a real shame that plurality and IRV don't allow you to express it.
@@gordybishop2375 I don’t think you realize that there is such a thing called early voting. I have not voted on Election Day itself in years, during early voting period.
@@kristinesharp6286 I live in a state that lets me bite by mail because they are not conspiracy MAGA idiots....but alas many live in Republican paranoid states
@@gordybishop2375 I live in Illinois and it’s blue. No need to name call. If you are planning on being out of the country for the election you could always vote by mail. I also used to register people to vote when I worked in the library. This is really not a hard thing to do.
You mean score voting? If you vote like that it’s just turned into approval voting. A system which is still far better than instant runoff, and especially plurality. Only a minority of people using score voting using only 10’s and 0’s as well.
I like score voting best, then ranked/instant runoff voting and finally approval voting in that order. Approval voting doesn't let you give as much influence in terms of allowing you to say the degree to which you like a candidate. Score and instant runoff voting allow for this statement of degree, but instant runoff only allows you to express this degree of your preference of candidates in relative terms, meaning comparing one candidate to another. Score voting allows you to express your opinion of each candidate in absolute terms, which is why it is best for the voter.
Approval voting and Score voting: solid choices. Instant run off voting: electoral Trojan horse. DON’T DO IT! When you can HURT your candidate’s chances by ranking then HIGHER ~4% of the time, something’s seriously wrong.
Fantastic video! Hopefully, someday, we'll progress to a better voting method, but I fear our 2 big parties in the U.S hold so much sway that it'll probably never happen.
As an Australian, I am happy with instant runoff voting (called here preferential voting) because it’s more representative of everyone’s preference. You can still vote for your favourite but if not the majority agree with you, your second choice may count.
Hello, Mr. Beat: Thank you for all your great content. In this particular case though, I m afraid all the solutions proposed would make a system that is already shady, a more complicated one. As a kind request, please consider making a video that answers the question : WHY SHOULD WE VOTE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
But what type of proportional representation? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Compliance_of_non-majoritarian_party_agnostic_multi-winner_methods www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-elected-bodies-5589?path=5589.0
@@parker_1543 When I think of the ideal proportional representation I would like in the US I think something like Germany's electoral system. Where you get 2 votes. One vote directly for the candidate and a second vote a party list and you vote for a party
@@HerbGamer0 That method is called mixed member proportional or MMP for short and many of it's advantages and disadvantages are listed in one of the two links I provided: www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-elected-bodies-5589?path=5589.0 I have also went into detail about some of the things I don't like about the system in comparison to other proportional methods in this thread: forum.electionscience.org/t/mmps-fatal-weakness/337 When it comes to proportional methods, I prefer methods that don't have any party list mechanic at all (MMP still uses party lists for some of the seats). These types of methods are sometimes referred to as party agnostic (meaning it is indifferent to parties) proportional methods. Here are just a few of the many proportional methods that don't have any party list mechanic: Re-weighted Range Voting: th-cam.com/video/kaZB84uipFk/w-d-xo.html Proportional Approval Voting: th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=proportional+approval+voting Harmonic Voting: rangevoting.org/QualityMulti.html
The sad thing is that because the federal government is controlled by the 2 parties who would stand to loose the most from this they will never change it
Just have preferential voting (rank choice voting to my understanding). Probably will not occur in the two party system given there is an inherent incentive for both major parties to retain first past the post.
I’m not american so my opinion should not be valued as much as other people in this thread, but I vastly prefer irv to score voting. Why? Because in score voting an angry polarizing figure may get a lot 10’s and 1’s averaging to a 5,5 while a moderate might get similar responses. However irv makes candidates appealing to a broad centrist base much stronger since they may lose the left or right but they’ll scoop up a lot of second choise votes
Note: I’m not centrist myself and while this will show the strength of partisanship in western countries I’d rather prefer a centre government rather than the wing I’m not a part of rule half the time
Sounds like that makes score voting better to me. Someone who is polarizing and only liked by half of people should get a middle score. Someone who is like more universally should gets a higher score than that. IRV is just as bad as plurality, it reinforces the two party system.
I've actually drawn maps of a world I thought of recently. And recently I gave my "home territory" it's government system. It is a Constitutional Monarchy with a bicameral parliament. For the lower house, I gave it RCV as they were covering fewer people. The upper house would use a nationwide popular vote and seated based on a proportional system. Example: Progressive party wins 36% of the national vote, they get 36% of the seats. The Senate candidates are determined by a Party List. Just imagine Germany's Bundestag but the methods are split in two. My idea behind the Senate having a nation wide popular vote is partly ceremonial. I feel like it will give a sense of unity to the process as there is no "state-by-state" vote but a true NATIONAL vote. On that note, I feel I should say that simply changing how we vote for president is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. The country has too many problems for a simple fix.
For a Repubic of 50 states, the Electoral College makes more sense than the popular vote. As for replacing plurality -- ranking voting is how mediocre films like "Green Book" win Best Picture.
Approval voting => the most middle of the road candidate wins Score voting => you give your candidate 10 points and everyone else 0 and we're back to plurality Runoff voting sounds good though
This is simply false. If you give all the people you like 10, and all the people you dislike 0 then it’s turned into approval voting which is still fine. There is no incentive to give someone you like a 0. Score is a better version of approval voting and is overall the best voting system. Runoff voting is bad and not much better than plurality.
Change Election Day to a weekend. We also need to do a much much better job at promoting people to vote. 2020 had the best voter turnout in a really long time and it was only 66% of registered voters which really isn’t good. We gotta start teaching more people that politics is important and that voting really is a big deal. That’s what I think
I strongly disagree with your observation that plurality voting causes polarizing candidates to be elected. Generally the politics of candidates of either party have a trend across presidencies in a certain direction, and for the last 30 years democrats have moved to the right quite substantially. If it weren't for plurality voting, the democrats would have been much more resembling of european politicians on the political spectrum.
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv illhan Omar and Alexandria ocasio Cortez are the beginning of the modernization of politics in america: politicians that actually represent policies that the people want. In reality, they're much more similar in politics to LBJ, FDR, and JFK than Obama or Clinton.
I think Democrats have moved to the right, though, because the entire country has shifted to the right. You can see now that the pendulum is swinging back to the left just in the last three years.
Yeah, even the more left leaning candidates aren't that far left. The left has actually slid more and more to the right over time. So there's more a devide of centre-maybe-a-bit-leftish vs right
Absolutely. The fear of polarizing because parties will embody the extremes on the political spectrum is incorrect. It relies on a flawed view of parties and how they behave. With a two party system, there is no reason to think you'd get a far left and a far right party. What history has shown is far more likely to happen is you get two centrist parties who have a monopoly on political power and thus act as a cartel, preventing other parties from getting into power. It enshrines a particular order into power. Why should the two parties ever switch ideologies to something more radical when the current system works so well for them, and lets them stay rich, powerful and influential, being elected back into office every other election or so? Also there is the problem of saying most voters are centrists or moderates and want candidates and policies that are in the middle of the left-right spectrum. That's also untrue. Most of the population in any country is not staunchly centrist, but apathetic and disconnected. They are less ideological or politically active, not equally ideological but for a centrist ideology. People who get engaged in politics and start to educate themselves and get informed almost always pick a side. The people in the middle are mostly folks who haven't made up their minds yet, or aren't interested enough to want to.
Voting will always be unsatisfactory. The people we vote for matter far less than the legislation enacted. The politicians won't always do what they say they will do, and the public will oftentimes vote against their self-interest.
I support instant runoff voting. I didn't know about approval voting but I like it too. But you know what really sucks? Party list proportional representation - basicly your party must have a certian score in whole country so you could become a member of parliament. Your personal score doesn't matter otherwise. That's the nonsense we have here in Poland and in many other countries.
Here's a similar system but where you can vote for individual candidates and the party a candidate is registered as is completely irrelevant to whether they win or not: th-cam.com/video/Gnsgo3z8UIg/w-d-xo.html
People who take more from the system than they pay in, shouldn't have a say in voting especially on decisions that affect the economy. ... Net tax payers get to vote. Anyone who wants to _earn_ voting rights, should either give up welfare assistance, or be honest about being dependent on those who actually work their a55 off to prop up the economy of the country.
You sound like the Founding Fathers. In the early days of the republic, only property-owning white dudes could vote. On a side note, every citizen gets welfare assistance either directly or indirectly. So no one should be able to vote then? :)
@@iammrbeat Well, the Founding Fathers created what other nations couldn't achieve until then: freedom and autonomy to rise up irrespective of what aristocracy a peasant was born in (compared to Europe where only the nobility could vote). In the early days of the U.S., property ownership as a criteria meant it was possible for anyone to earn voting rights. There were people of other races who could also vote, as long as they owned property. Later, (Civil War) voting rights were extended also to anyone who was willing to put their life on the line - soldiers - to keep the country alive. Unfortunately, now everyone votes, everyone has a say in picking the people who should pass laws. And the people who want to get elected to such positions have to appeal to the majority of the voters. Well, the majority of the voters do not have a skin in the game. Hence to yet them to vote for you, appeal to what they need, and that is _"We want the government to give us more this and that, even though we put nothing in."_ Within a generation and all the government is running into debt. Give the U.S until 2040 and they won't be able to provide welfare anymore. Then they'll wither dig into your pensions or keep raising taxes on existing workers. Bottom line is, if any one doesn't have a skin in propping up the economy, they are not responsible for deciding how it should be run. Exceptions are people who put their lives on the line for society, such as military vets, serving members, fire and safety rescue, highway maintenance engineers etc. Those people are actually responsible for keeping society alive everyday.
Sounds pretty disgusting, ngl. I would be more in favour of hindering the influence of wealth hoarders who want to rig the system even more in their favour, than that of the people who just want a basic level of equality for everyone in society.
@@vallraffs Equality and Freedom are two opposite ideals. One is always at the expense of the other. If you want freedom, then be prepared to accept there will be inequalities. If you want equality at any level, then some persons freedoms will be taken away. .... Now you may say one or the other doesn't affect, but if you were on the other side you'd say the same. Cos the average voter votes in their self interest (but will accuse _'The Wealthy'_ of also voting in their own self interests). To level the playing field, responsibility should be the qualifying card. Are you paying more than you take from the system? Well here is your voting rights. Are you taking more from the system than you pay into it? Well, you don't get to vote in how the system should allocate resources which you didn't contribute to. We can all ignore the above as long as we want. The system is already trillions in debt, yet the people are voting for more welfare programs to be established. Let _The Rich_ pay for them, right? Well, the rich know how to hide their money too, until there's no more money for others to leach off of. And that's where the economy and society's collapse begins.
@@oslonorway547 To confuse success in society with being actually productive is a serious, albeit common mistake. An individual attaining material wealth and influence is not in itself a clear indicator of being a producer in society. In fact more often than not the opposite is true; the people who have the most resources at their disposal are often the biggest parasites in society. Those who accrue and hoard wealth by exploiting the hard work of others and profiting off of their backs. Rewarding such behaviour with political influence would be quite counter-productive, as it would incentivise the worst forms of anti-social behaviour by suggesting to people that the preferred way of improving their lot in life is to make life worse for other people in turn. This is how you get higher rates of criminality and weaker social relations in civil society, not to mention it's impact on the private sector.
The problems with this video: 1.- It takes for granted that Plurality voting = Two candidates. The reason why the US has a bipartisan system isn't because of plurality voting, it's because the US Congress designed it that way after the 1860 elections (4 candidates got electoral college votes and a compromise was done so Abraham could win) and, technically, a third party could STILL be in the US, but most of the third parties in the US sucks. They don't know how to do politics and, considering they tend to do politics by attacking other candidates instead of making their own policies, it's better if they stay out. A good example, surprisingly enough, of a third party actually having a chance was the Reformation Party in the 90's, where the third candidate got many votes because the candidate was offering good policies while the other two weren't as good/lost the trust of many voters 3.- It thinks that plurality voting brings polarizing candidate and that people will not choose for the least bad. Latin America has plurality voting for centuries AND some countries (like México and Paraguay) having a Winner Takes All system while other countries (like Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Donimican Republic, etc) has Run-offs and, you should know, people DO vote for the candidates they think it's a better choice and, in the case of the run-off countries, more often than not, people who didn't get their candidate on the second round then chooses who they prefer. Heck, Colombia stopped being bipartisan since Uribe became a thing in 2002. All the problems you mentioned with plurality voting either doesn't exist in countries where plurality voting already exist or has been shown to be not true. Most of the problems you have with plurality voting or the electoral college (yes, I saw that video and I extremely disagree with it) are there because US lawmakers changed it that way. The US Constitution originally said nothing about voting rights because it was left to the states, the amendments where made to make an ultimatum about it but, still, nowhere in the OG Constitution says that women cannot vote, same with blacks. That was state law. The US Congress made the bipartisan system to avoid the scenario of 1860, which was a factor that lead to the US Civil War, and a simple run-off per state can fix that. Third Party candidates can still be a thing in the US but they must make GOOD policies and start small, on the ground, as practically all political parties do in the rest of the world. Next time you want to say that the US electoral system must change, PLEASE, look up other countries, their election systems, and how they work, and see how they dealt with the problems you tend to complain about. Having more than two parties isn't a big deal, in the end, all those parties work in coalition, so it's still bipartisan, and you can still have more than two parties with plurality voting and the US law can change that (if the two parties ever wanted that) and to say that the problem is in the Constitution implies that you didn't research the topic enough, same with CGP Grey. BTW, the voting system you and Grey support was tried this year in the New York primaries and it failed. If it cannot work on a small scale, it will be even worse in a national level.
What is the best voting method?
Approval voting
Direct democracy. Pick average, random people from the population to count the votes.
The candidates fight for the throne
Proportional but with Alternative Vote
Electoral College minus the winner-takes-all on the State level with approval/score/ranked voting on the Federal level.
Plurality voting is basically how the two party system stays alive
Definitely
exactly
@@jarl8815 I looked on Wikipedia and Sweden has a proportional election system (I live in Germany. We also have such a system). This way voters don't have problems to vote for a third party because every party thats get 4% is represented in the parliament. In Germany for example left-leaning voters can decide if they want to vote for the Social Democrats, the Democratic Socialist or The Greens (or they vote for the liberal FDP or other more right leaning parties).
Let me explain the American problem. Let's say Joe Biden is running against Trump in the 2020 US election and would win (I think that's unlikely but that's not the point).
Let's say he gets 55% of the vote and wins against Trump 45% (if we ignore the electorial college).
Now let's do the same things again but Bernie Sanders is running this time as a third party candidate. Sanders gets 20% Biden this time only gets 25% (because the more progessive voters and the Democratic Socialists support Sanders over Biden). Trump would have won because he would still get 45% (unlikely because some Trump voters would have also voted for Bernie but just for this example).
This has already happened in American history. In 1912 former republican president Theodore Roosevelt split from the republicans and run as the candidate of the Progressive Party. Roosevelt and Taft got 51% (+ there was a forth guy that run for the Socialist party and got 6%) of the vote but the democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson the election in a landslide (he got 41% of the vote).
If the same election had happened in Sweden or Germany. Republicans and Progessives could have formed a coalition (the government) and the Democrats and Socialist would have been in the opposition.
That's why Sweden or Germany have (far) more than 2 "big" parties.
@@sominboy2757 I don't know if that would necessarily be a good thing
@@hintofdwight possible solution
President- Abolish electoral college and go to 2 round system. If candidate and running mate dosent get more than 50 percent plus one vote then cut it down to top 2 and have a runoff and let plurality take over. Already used in Louisiana for governors races and mississippi for senate races
House- Mixed Member Proportional(MMP) . You get 2 votes. 1 for an individual candidate plus one for party vote. In this case it would increase the house from 435 to 485(current house make up plus one party vote per state)- Used in the lower house of the German and New Zealand parliments
Senate- keep same in terms of election but overhaul opperational policy
By doing this the house makeup would help break up the republicans strongholds in the rocky mountain great plains and southwest cd's and replace them with libertarians(john mccain would have been a libertarian if it was a major party) and alot of the west coast would put more labor party, socialist party and green party members in congress. Yes america would have a 5 party system but if the Republicans and Democrats would go from big tent to center left and right parties they would still be the 2 dominant parties, things would get done better and new ideas would be brought to congress.
We should immediately move voting from Tuesday, to a full weekend vote. That would increase voter turnout to the 90% range, and allow resolution of any problems with polling places before final tally on Sunday night.
I like that idea.
As long as it really is a full multi-day weekend. Otherwise it could exclude those with specific religious observances.
Input from far away: In my country voting is always on a sunday because most people have the sunday off, and those who don't or are somewhere else can apply for "mailvoting" beforehand (Or are allowed to be absend from work for the short duration of casting their vote). And we don't need to register for voting. (You have to rgister in your new municipality everytime you move, so they know who lives where and where to send your voting papers). Still we don't have anywhere near 90% voter turnout. We also have plurality voting (but with more than 2 parties) and i agree with the video, that it is most of the time voting for the lesser evil. And this is what keeps people from voting. (I am sick of politicians who get voted as lesser evil claiming that every vote they get means full support for everything they think and do)
You like going out on the weekend? You know, shopping, dining, dancing, sports, etc.? Notice how there's people working in those places on the weekend? Weekend voting wouldn't increase turnout all that much. And the only way to get 90% turnout is to pay people to vote.
Australia has mandatory voting, getting their voter turnout to the 90+% range. However, you will notice that it doesn't actually increase the approval rating of the individual chosen, and many of those voters often write in some rather... colorful "candidates" when they show up to the polls.
Higher voter turnout doesn't actually mean that your system is any better than one with a lower voter turnout. I do agree that moving the election day either to a weekend or making it a national holiday would increase the numbers, but we still need to actually provide good choices for those voters to vote on.
Further, one of the GOOD things about the Electoral College is how it is a federal system that requires state input. By law, the official election day is held on the first Tuesday of November after Nov 1st. However, the states themselves can hold their elections whenever they want. It is their electors that are required to cast their vote after all, not the people. Thus it is up to each state to decide how best to handle their elections. Some states have election day as a state holiday. Some require companies to provide paid time off (varies on how much) for their workers to vote. Many states do early voting and mail-in votes.
The big negatives of the EC can offset this of course, and the biggest problem with any electoral system is how it influences candidates and their campaigns. Right now, the going "justification" for the EC is that it protects smaller states from the bigger more populous states. However, it also encourages candidates to campaign in key swing states, and ignore safe states. This is why despite smaller states having an EC advantage thanks to getting at least 3 electors regardless of their population size, is why Democrats won't bother trying to entice those small states. They are safe, so there is no use in campaigning in them (though Trump proved that wrong in a few key states in 2016! You can't completely ignore the safe states either!).
If you get rid of the EC, this forces the candidates to try and appeal more broadly... to the most polarizing issues. Once you remove the mask that is EC, all of a sudden, the entire country is now using Plurality voting. There are no safe states. You cannot "use the excuse" that you are voting for your preferred candidate in a safe state but voting for the main candidate in a swing state. Either you vote for the main candidate, or you are in effect voting for the enemy. When given that choice, not voting at all is typically preferable. So voter turnout drops even more.
So I would require at least 3 things that would need to be worked on if you want voter turn out to be higher (voluntarily, not by force).
1) The states need to provide better voting systems and circumstances for their citizens - not the federal government who tends to be pretty useless when it comes to elections anyway. Some states have already shaken things up with how they award electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska?) while several others have signed a compact that would allow them to circumvent the EC altogether (pretty sure it will get struck down immediately though). The president is elected by the states, not the people, and you would think that would give states the incentive to come up with better systems to get more people to show up to the polls (you'd be wrong and I have no idea why you would think that).
2) The candidates that we get need to be better than two unappealing choices. This doesn't mean you need moderate or centrist choices. No! A choice that weakly appeals to everyone, strongly appeals to no one. Stand up for your principles! That will get voters to churn out. FDR didn't get elected 4 times by being meek.
3) Get rid of the EC but replace it with **something better!** Direct Vote is probably the *only* system that is objectively worse than the EC. It would remove states power completely, turn the entire country to plurality voting which is horrible, and ensure that only the smallest portions of the country are represented. Currently, about 25-30% of the electorate has chosen the last 20+ elections. Want to make that number drop? Institute National Popular Vote. See what happens.
Get at least those three things, and voter turn out will rise through motivation - at least for a time. You are still going to lose those minority groups - Im not talking about race, religion, or ingroup either. I mean your fringe groups. Those people that use extreme ideologies unironically.
make voting day a holiday
YAAS
It basically is
@@stacksamillion8510 no. It isn't.
@@robertcoulter2061 in some states its a public holiday. Dont know where you're from but do a little research before commenting :)
@@stacksamillion8510 the post was to imply a national holiday. But thanks for the patronizing remark. You win.
Rest easy, because I am exactly 28 days too young to run for president in 2020.
But 2024?
I feel bad for you. I can also empathize. I was exactly six days too young to vote in the 1980 election. And, boy, did I want to vote in that one.
T RP I was just a baby in 1980 so I couldn’t vote against Reagan, who I blame for starting most our problems that we have now.
dammit
I know that feeling. I was 15 days too young for the 2016 election... The next day at school was less than fun.
I didn't know there were great, potential alternatives to ranked choice/instant runoff voting! Ranked choice is the only one that I ever hear about-I wonder why it has sort of become the winning alternative choice. Thanks for sharing, Mr. Beat!
I would love to see one of these alternatives on the national level, but now that I know there are multiple possibilities, there's pressure to pick the right one! Hahaha. Though, we'll see if it ever passes with Dem. & Rep. leadership support.
Me either until very recently! I think I'm really digging approval voting since it is so simple. Hopefully it picks up momentum across the country. 😀
Nicholas Beck on Andrew Yangs website, it states that he would try to change America over to ranked choice voting
too complex
There are some studies of approval and range voting especially when the participants taking part of it are used to plurality voting in which they behave as though voting by plurality. For example one might check all the Republicans and not check anyone from another party, or score all Republicans a 9 or 10 and score all others a 1 or 2. When you have to provide a full ranked choice, you are forced to import some sort of opinion on every candidate and it doesn't have the problem of breaking down to plurality. As an example of this TH-cam videos used to have 5 star ranking system but the majority of users only ever chose the maximum or the minimum. Even if they thought the video was a 3 they would often choose the max or min in order to have the biggest effect on moving the aggregate towards the 3 if they knew what the current aggregate measure was. So now there's just thumbs up and down.
@@Nic1700 That is the problem with making the ranking visible. It makes people want to "balance it out" by over-grading it to one of the extremes.
I used to defend the electoral college and the FPP [First Past the Post = Plurality Voting].
I thought it prevented weak governments like those in Italy and Israel. My opinion began to change with the unconstitutional resolution of the Bush-Gore election, and hardened when I realized that voters in small rural states are overrepresented in both congress and the electoral college. Here are the disgraceful figures.
Wyoming, pop. 573,720 representatives 1, senators 2 EC votes 3
California, Pop.39,777,000 reps 53, senators 2 EC votes 55
If every 573, 721 CA voters had 1 representative CA would have 59 reps, not 39. CA is grossly underrepresented, in fact every state with more than 4 million voters is underrepresented, and every state with under 2 million voters is overrepresented. This means that the Electoral College is also grossly undemocratic. FPP [PV] is also undemocratic, as shown in this video. Thanks Mr. Beat. May I also suggest that you deal with the underrepresentation scam that I have shown?
Great comment....yeah I'd love to tackle underrepresentation some time. Were your CA numbers correct, though?
@@iammrbeat Here is my table. The figures may be a year or so out of date. Not to mention nobody should let my math go by unchecked.
Kansas is short 1, Massachusetts is short 3. Both Red and Blue States are shortchanged, this is disgraceful! This is shocking! Everyone viewing this
whose state is underrepresented should contact their congress people!!!!!!
STATE POPULATION Present Representation Fair no. of reps
California 39,776,830 53 69.3
[-16]
Texas 28,704,330 36 50
[-14]
Florida 21,312,211 27 37
[-10]
New York 19,862,512 27 34.6
[-8]
Pennsylvania 12,823,989 18 22.4
Illinois 12,768,320 18 22.3
Ohio 11,694,664 16 20.4
Georgia 10,545,138 14 18.4
N. Carolina 10,390,149 13 18.1
Michigan 9,991,177 14 17.4
New Jersey 9,032,872 12 15.74
Virginia 8,525,660 11 14.9
Washington 7,530,552 10 13.13
Arizona 7,123,898 9 12.52
Massachusetts 6,895,917 9 12.0
Tennessee 6,782,564 9 11.8
Indiana 6,699,629 9 11.7
Missouri 6,135,888 8 10.7
Maryland 6,079,602 8 10.6
Wisconsin 5,818,049 8 10.14
Colorado 5,684,203 7 9.9
Minnesota 5,628,162 8 9.8
South Carolina 5,088,916 7 8.9
Alabama 4,888,949 7 8.5
Louisiana 4,682,509 6 8.16
This is undemocratic and must change.
STATE POPULATION Reps now Fair
Kentucky 4,472,265 6 7.8
Oregon 4,199,563 5 7.32
Oklahoma 3,940,521 5 6.87
Connecticut 3,588,683 5 6.25
Iowa 3,160,553 4 5.5
Utah 3,159,345 4 5.5
Nevada 3,056,824 4 5.3
Arkansas 3,020,327 4 5.3
Mississippi 2,982,785 4 5.2
Kansas 2,918,515 4 5.0
New Mexico 2,090,708 3 3.64
Nebraska 1,932,549 3 3.37
West Virginia 1,803,077 3 3.14
Idaho 1,753,860 2 3.0
Hawaii 1,426,393 2 2.5
New Hampshire 1,350,575 2 2.3
Maine 1,341,582 2 2.3
Montana 1,062,330 1 1.85
Rhode Island 1,061,712 2 1.9
Delaware 971,180 1
South Dakota 877,790 1
North Dakota 755,238 1
Alaska 738,068 1
District of Columbia 703,608
Vermont 623,960 1
Wyoming 573,720 1
Why should one voter in Wyoming have 60+ times the electoral or congressional power of one Californian‽
We need a Proportional system like Spain's and Germany's! It's the best way to save the country!
There are equally stuffed up Presidential, FFP systems in the world. Weak governments are not always minority or coalition governments, nor are minority or coalition governments always weak - look at New Zealand, Australia, UK under Cameron, Israel (a weak government - really!), it depends on the loyalty of the coalition partners.
@@quentenwalker1385 Israel's government depends on the power plays between self-interested factions, in this respect it resembles the Italian and French governments of the past. Ask secular Israelis about how well their government functions for them and you will get an earful of how the ultra-orthodox take advantage of the situation to maintain outrageous privileges. That is the weakness of representing every faction, and always having to make coalitions, often by corrupt deals. Do you remember that past French or italian governments only lasted a few months? The French haven't had this problem since the 4th Republic, but the Italians have had it in the last few decades.
Parliamentary systems can have this weakness, look at the UK and Brexit! Making that momentous a decision on a very slim margin of victory and in a multi-party government has led to a very bad situation in which the public is so divided that the poles show the pro and con sentiments flipping constantly.
The US FPP indirect system is no longer functioning as intended. It needs a major overhaul, and the electoral college must be scrapped. Our founders were opposed to political parties, but their wishes didn't survive into the second administration. The present format tends to force two party government. Our coalitions are pre-election rather than post-election as in most countries, that is, the two main parties are coalitions of factions. The problem with the Democratic Party is that it has more diversity and more factions, whereas the Republican Party is more like a Communist party with more central control and rigid adherence to dogma--these statements can be clearly seen in operation nowadays.
If you combined ranked choice with having multiple Representatives from a single district, you can offset gerrymandering without messing with maps. If you cant tell I really like ranked choice.
Unfortunately, the Constitution prevents this as states can't set up their own voting systems for Representatives, so 3/4 of the states would have to be on board in order to get ranked choice voting for them. For the Presidential elections, however, they CAN set up their own voting system for electors.
@@iammrbeat in other words what you're saying is we can never have representative democracy, without a constitutional amendment. Welp guess it's time to get to work.
Oh I'm not denying this fact. It's just an interesting concept.
That kind of system is called single transferrable vote, and it's used in Ireland, Malta and Australian upper house elections. It's a very good voting system and I highly recommend it if your biggest priority in an electoral system is choice and proportionality.
Full proportional is better, trust me.
I thank you Mr. Beat for putting out this video to inform me and others on different methods of voting. There should be diversity in voting methods. Score voting is the best because it would result in higher voter turnout and get voters engaged based on how votes are tallied based in contests outside of voting.
The more I learn about score voting, the more I like it. Thanks for the kind words!
@@iammrbeat you're welcome. Thank you for the enlightenment Mr. Beat. I'm a huge fan of your videos. I like your bold educated stances on voting instead of focusing on just the media hype surrounding it.
Andrew yang is the only presidential candidate on the stage advocating for ranked choice 😤. Yang gang
Not true. Bernie advocates ranked choice too. As a side note, the president can't do much about changing our electoral system, because it is under the control of state governments.
www.fairvote.org/u_s_bernie_sanders
Irv is actually going to be used in Maine for the 2020 presidential election.
I saw that! That's amazing.
Why not every state?
@@jacobluna305 because the two major parties know that their dominance would crumble if that was implemented everywhere. For example southern / urban NY is dominated by establishment democrats and the northern counties are dominated by "fuck the libs" republicans. i can already picture the arguments governor Cuomo would make against this
Used for what in Maine?
@@geraldwalker7609 all national elections including the president.
I only have experience with "ranked choice voting" as we call it here in Maine and I like it. I think it's a neat way to do it, it allows people to loosen up and pick who they really want, and it has, you know... math
I just finished some research and Approval Voting actually seems like the best. The instant runoff voting system doesn't guarantee a majority.
You're from Maine? That explains why you're so awesome.
@@iammrbeatI'm going to rank choose vote this the 👏best👏compliment👏ever []-)
@@GiffysChannel Instant Runoff guarantees a majority - it is the requirement actually as the lowest candidates are eliminated until a majority is achieved. What it doesn't do is promote more than 2 parties. IRV/AV are really just slightly better versions of Plurality and its biggest draw is that it - mostly - eliminates the spoiler effect (in theory, but practice is more complicated). They are the "gate way drug" of electoral systems.
Elect electors through STV.
I voted third party in 2016, for Gary Johnson. It was tough, but if you felt the way I did about Hillary and Trump, that was the only choice. And how exactly did I feel about them? I hated both of them. I hated both of them immensely, viscerally, and, most importantly, equally.
Our system of voting does indeed suck, but it's not impossible to elect third party candidates. You just have to have courage. And it does help if you hate both major candidates equally. As soon as that hate becomes unequal, the lesser of two evils kicks in.
I voted for Gary, too. But I live in a solidly red state.
Definitely possible, its just unlikely. 1st you would need to convince most of the population that 3rd parties aren't a wasted vote. The problem is that the main 2 parties are like "A vote for 3rd party is a vote for Trump" or "A vote for 3rd party is a vote for socialism" and people will listen because historically no 3rd party candidate has won yet, unless you count Lincoln in 1864.
Then you need 1 3rd party to become so well known and popular with a quality candidate to convince the population to vote for them.
The hardest part is getting over 50% of the electoral college. If a 3rd party does not get that threshold, the vote goes to the house. Whoever controls it, will win the election, which will be a Democrat or Republican unless a 3rd party has control.
While change in who the dominant parties are is inevitable, its still unlikely as it hasn't happened since prior to the civil war.
Go you for sticking to your guns and voting 3rd party and a candidate you agree with most.
Agreed, though 3rd parties would have a better chance if we did away with plurality voting.
I took part in my first ranked choice election recently, it was a nice change.
Where at? Out of curiosity...
@@iammrbeat New Zealand, but it was just a local election, not national level.
Thanks, Matt! I'm having 7th and 8th grade students look at informational texts on elections in the states this week, and I think this will be a perfect addition!
BuT wE lIvE iN a RePuBlIc!
But seriously, ranked choice and/or one person one vote is a better way to go
Haven't you watched the video? It just went over why OPOV/FPTP is a BAD system. In fact FPTP is why the EC works the way it does, unless you change the voting system a popular vote system won't fix anything
Yeah, I like ranked choice. My only concern about it right now is that it may be too "complex" for most people to understand, or too "complex" that it scares away voters.
Out of curiosity, would you support dissolving the Senate and transferring its legislative power to the House of the Representatives?
BuT yOu LiVe In A dEmOcRaTiC uNiOn!
Mr. Beat I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of people. The biggest hurtle is the fact the major two parties stand to lose from alternative voting system.
Funnily enough, Israeli voting reformers want to establish *some* form of geographic representation because the northern and southern periphery are overlooked. I'm working on a video about that right now! Thankfully, nobody is seriously touting first-past-the-post voting.
I'd love to see that video when you finish it!
@@iammrbeat Thanks. I hope to have it out sometime in the next month or so. The research has required a lot more math than usual.
That is interesting. The israeli election system is actually the one thing I really like or respect about the country. I really admire how it is a singular election which treats the country as a single unit. Also love the Netherlands for doing that. To me it's absolutely the best way to structure a democracy, because it lives up to the promise of 'one person-one vote' and the majoritarian principle.
I'm with you - the electoral college and plurality voting are both lousy. The three alternatives sound much better.
"It's way passed time to get rid of plurality voting."
I agree, but how? Those who pass laws are strictly from the two parties, and passing any voting reform law will hurt their politically, so it will never happen. :(
Step 1: get elected president on a reformist platform, specifically emphasize Electoral and party reform
Step 2: sign an executive order to force political parties to elect their Chairman and the Chairman of each state branch. Word the reform in specifically such a way as to allow these state Chairman to assign the party nomination for any state office (including congress sense the state is in charge of their election) if they choose.
Step 3: run Chairman campaigns in every state
Step 4: have your Chairman assign loyal reformers to be nominated in every race in that state
Step 5: repeat until you can pass a constitutional amendment that Reforms the Electoral system
*way past
*hurt them
@@johnsphpaulin1162 Step one: get one house of Congress to pass a motion to adjourn the session early (not hard if you control one of the houses)
Step two: have the other house vote against it
Step three: because the Houses now disagree on when to adjourn the session, prorogue them for the rest of the year
Step four: Now that Congress can't do anything for the rest of the year, call the national guard to seize their state houses and force them to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional convention.
Step Five: amend the Constitution to abolish plurality voting without the consent of Congress through the convention.
Problem solved, right?
@@johnsphpaulin1162 That executive order would immediately be struck down by the courts.
I think you can feel a bit of optimism on the subject. I think there are more people than you might guess who are ready for a bettering of the process
I live in a county where I am in the vast minority for the party I have closer ideals to, but when it came time to vote in 2016, I voted for my party but not the party nominated candidate. I didn't like either choice. I knew that my vote wouldn't make a difference to the person I wanted to win, but I loved voting cause 1. it was my first presidential race to vote in 2. I think it is a huge duty to fulfill as a citizen to vote in our elections. Great video !
Thank you, and I'm glad you voted for the candidate you actually like.
I really like this video. The first time I hear about different types of voting was from presidential candidate Andrew yang he wants "rank choice voting" when I heard him talk about I was shocked that we didn't have it yet because you know Americans love Choices lol we do!
#yanggang Yeah I'm glad he's on board with it. Thanks for the nice comment!
I’m glad that alternative voting concepts are gaining traction in the states.
Lifetime resident of Fargo, ND here. Me and my friends legit threw a party (Really just three guys with some beer, but hey. That counts, probably) when approval voting got set up around here. Public opinion has never felt more valued in my life.
Awesome to hear this, fellow North Dakotan!
Great video, Mr. Beat! I didn't know what plurality voting is until this, but it makes sense that it's flawed. I think Instant Runoff sounds like the best way to vote. The electoral college is absurd and broken. Therefore, I totally support voting reform. In the last presidential election I voted for who I thought was "the lesser of two evils" just like you said, and it definitely was NOT the way i would have preferred to vote. I really just voted to vote against the candidate i didn't want to win, but I didn't like the candidate I voted for either!
Yeah, I usually end up voting for a third party candidate since I live in a red state.
"Lesser of two evils" has confusion baked into it. "Let's see, i have to vote against the person i don't want the most... wait, did i say that right?" vs. "i like THAT candidate"
Mr beat what do you think of liquid democracy. I think the Swiss system of semi direct democracy plus im à fan of stv which we have here in Ireland
Never heard of it, Mr. Prager, but thank you so much for bringing it to my attention! I shall Google it now.
Also, Liquid Democracy sounds like a great band name.
@@iammrbeat there's an excellent video on the topic by a channel called TheBurgerKreig. If you are interested here's the link: th-cam.com/video/5hN7lpIp6IQ/w-d-xo.html
@@carltonjordan4752 its true
0:17 "Your village is looking for you" LMAO
Oh. What a brave soul. Who doesn't fear for the demonetization. Love from South Korea.
Hey Yoo! Oh this one isn't as controversial. It's not demonetized. However, as random and frustrating as TH-cam can be, that could easily change in the future. :)
@@iammrbeat Well it is politics so fingers crossed!
Ho-Hyong Yoo why are you watching a video about American politics if you aren’t American
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 South Koreans both right and left have this tendency to import what ever is hot in America. So... Qanon and Direct Action now is a thing in South Korea. Fun.
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 to be honest I actually encourage it so when foreigners are looking in about our country they know what is true and what is false information
Here in British Columbia we've had two referenda on changing our elections to proportional representation (single transferrable vote). Both referenda failed. The opponents said it was too complicated, nobody could understand it, and it would lead to perpetual minority/coalition governments. I think the last is a positive, not a negative: find common ground, cooperate to get things done. If legislation doesn't have broad support, maybe we're better off without it. But what do I know?
I agree with you and I'm sad it didn't pass.
Poor Canadians - Australians have no difficulty at all.
1. Voting should extend across an entire week.
2. Voting should be done by the ranked method, and weighted accordingly.
3. Voting should be repeated until there is a clear winner via the ranked method.
4. Voting should never involve proxies. Abolish the Electoral College.
Thank you Mr. Beat!
If we can change elections in the US, it could solve a plethora of other issues as well.
We adopted Instant Runoff Voting in Australia after the rise of the National party split the right-wing vote and resulted in a Labor win back in the 1920s. We use a generalised form of it called Single Transferable Vote to fill our Senate seats, where 6 seats (out of a total of 12) per state get filled at each federal election. In addition to the "eliminate the candidate in last place and redistribute" step, there's also "redistribute the excess from candidates who've got enough for a seat". The STV algorithm reduces to IRV when you only need to fill one seat.
I think the whole ranked voting system would be great in the primaries.
Why? The point of a primary is that all the candidates are already so similar. Approval Voting would work better in primaries.
@@alanivar2752 why?
@@jacksonday4323 Ranked Choice is de facto a clone of plurality. Despite all the pomp and circumstance they make about their tabulation rigamarole, it's still susceptible to all the pitfalls of plurality (hell, even plurality passes the Participation Criterion). It vote splits, narrows the Overton window to nothing, and is entirely antithetical to democracy, useful.
Whereas plurality guarantees the crowning of one of the two most viable parties, apathetically tossing away all other votes, RCV merely sweeps those independent/new party/unorthodox candidates voters into, and corrals them towards either of the two most viable candidates.
With a primary, being in the same political party implies that the candidates running are near-clones of each other, policy-wise. Particularly with Vote Splitting, primaries can break down a Voting Methods façade of logical consistency and sound mathematics, or test it's mettle. Approval Voting not only allows but encourages backing, equally, any candidate you endorse. Apparently here in Colorado both established parties are gonna test out Approval Voting next cycle. It is beginning
@@alanivar2752 In a more diverse political system in the US that statement would be true. But with only two parties each party has an extremely diverse field of politicians. Democrats have people like AOC and Bernie on the left and so called "blue dog Democrats" on the right. Republicans have people like Larry Hogan on the left and the Tea party for example on the right. Both sides in these parties have publicly announced that they would not vote for a member of the opposing inner party faction in a presidential election so I would say that the primary field diverse enough to make ranked choice voting a viable option.
@@Otto910 His second argument against RCV still stands. Much better to use approval voting in any case. After all, if citizens are dissatisfied with all candidates other than one of them, there's nothing stopping them from only voting for one candidate.
Thanks for what you do Mr. Beat. Love ya buddy ❤
I'd be okay with either instant runoff or score voting
Yeah approval has its drawbacks, like approving mediocre candidates.
@@iammrbeat agreed. Voting for the BEST option sounds better than voting for the BETTER option
Maine has ranked choice voting AND proportional split of electoral college votes? Darn if it weren't so cold I would move to Maine!
Thanks Mr. Beat. I have been telling people how we vote and the two party system is ridiculous for a while. like the rank order voting the best.
Yeah I'm sick of the two-party system, too.
Ranged choice voting / instant runoff voting only makes the 2 party system a guarantee. If you want to avoid a two party system you want score voting.
I live in Maine, and plurality voting has been a problem here before. Back 2010, the Governor election was a 4 way race between Paul LePage (R), Eliot Cutler (I), Libby Mitchell (D), and Shawn Moody (I). Incumbent Governor John Baldacci (D) was not able to run for re-election due to term limits. LePage won the election without even getting close to the majority of votes, he won with only 37.6% of the vote. Four years later in 2014, he won re-election against Mike Michaud (D) and Eliot Cutler again. This time, he got 48.2% of the vote, which wasn't as bad, but still didn't win the majority. Paul LePage was elected Governor twice, and never won the majority of the vote. We do have ranked choice voting up here now after referendum question 5 passed in the 2016 election, but it's only used for national elections (President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House), not statewide (Governor, State Legislature) or local elections. Hopefully that will change soon.
I prefer to call instant runoff voting "Tournament Voting" because it ends up looking like a tournament as you do the math, also a lot of people already make brackets for the NBA finals, why not politics?
March Madness but it's important. If one receives a perfect bracket, they get a free trip to the White House
That's certainly a better way to market it.
@@iammrbeat thanks
The 225 dislikes are all the dems/republicans in congress
I like IRV for single winner races and MMP or STV for multi winner races.
As a libertarian it would be great if we actually had a chance for once
I would argue that most people lean libertarian in this country, yet they rarely get their voice heard.
@@iammrbeat : IMHO, that would depend on the the type of libertarianism. Most folks would love to see the "Government" butt out of our personal business & extend personal liberty as much as is possible, but I also believe that most of us want a strong regulatory system to curb the power of big "bidness".
Unfortunately the official libertarian party is a mess. At this point a libertarian-leaning independent would have a better shot in an election.
While I disagree with you about the electoral college, I fully agree with you about plurality voting.
Voting for everyone on the ballot makes you feel like you didn't lose when the candidate you really wanted doesn't win.
Well that's certainly one way to spin it. I know I wouldn't vote for every candidate on the ballot.
@@iammrbeat The way to finesse instant runoff is to make it compusory to vote for at least one candidate for your vote to count, with the option to rank others in the order you want, and leave those you don't want unnumbered. In Australia we call that optional preferential voting - which the major parties hate, meaning it must be good.
Quick note: There is a misleading line in here that suggests the term "instant runoff" applies to the stage in the process when somebody wins by achieving a majority (a mathematical certainty by the 2-candidate stage but possible sooner). 6:09
This is incorrect. The term refers to the fact that the electorate ranks preferences in a single ballot, allowing for elimination, redistribution and recalculation without the need for a second or third ballot (as in France's two-round presidential election).
Multiple ballots allow for runoff elections but they are expensive and take a long time. Instant runoff does the same thing quickly and cheaply using math. So the term refers to the process not the result.
Talking of voting, similar to the reaction to the Help America Vote Act, 2002, here in the UK, there's talk about implementing voter ID laws, even though the number of people who were prosecuted for voting fraud was just one person. Unsurprisingly, on the one hand supporters say that any fraud in voting is bad so having id is a way to ensure there's no chance of fraud. On the other hand, opponents say that the effect will be that people who can't afford the types of id the law intends, will actually amount to suppression of the vote
Yep, you hit the two major counter arguments. I tend to lean toward the side of no IDs as I even have friends that don't have a driver's license. Still, it's not terribly difficult to get one. (Although the DMV is a horrific place)
SiVlog why are you watching this video if you’re not American
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 I watch videos about America, because I have always been fascinated by the nation, its complex history, its peaks, its valleys and generally want to experience the country at some point in my life. Besides, I've always been of the opinion that the world is bigger than the shores of my home country and home town, I want to experience adventure. Life is too short to do nothing exciting in life
@@iammrbeat At the very least here in the states we generally have options to get a non-drivers license ID very easily. I've been speaking with a friend in Scotland and because he is blind enough to where he can't drive he can't get a drivers license, so the only valid ID over there that he can utilize most of the time is a passport, which tends to be more expensive compared to other forms of ID.
@@KanyeTheGayFish69 My attitude is that USA ought to get its head out of its arse and look at the way other countries do it - successfully. i was very disappointed that Mr Beat didn't cover the way other countries vote. so i see it my mission to tell the Yanks how to run their country better than they do. They may be powerful, but boy, there democracy is so flawed.
Another benefit of other voting methods s candidates have to be civil to be each other because if they are too mean to the other candidates, they won’t be their voters’ second choices.
Great point!
Great observation.
The best Voting system is the Alternative Runoff System for the President and a Proportional Representation in Congress! Like Australia and Ireland. The current system we have is trash😒
#Democracy
#changethesystem
Yeah Ireland and Australia get a lot of things right.
@@iammrbeat
Ireland and Australia aren't the only places that have used interesting multi-winner district voting methods.
Before Sweden switched to pure party list proportional representation, they used to use sequential proportional approval voting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approval_voting
SPAV demonstrated with Canadian political parties: th-cam.com/video/Gnsgo3z8UIg/w-d-xo.html
It's worth mentioning that the video is incorrectly titled "Proportional Approval Voting", not "Sequential Proportional Approval Voting" as it should be. Proportional approval voting actually refers to another method that is a refinement of sequential proportional approval voting. The actual proportional approval voting method (which is much harder to calculate because it requires comparing every possible election outcome): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_approval_voting (it's a special case of harmonic voting (rangevoting.org/QualityMulti.html) for when approval ballots are used and the Δ parameter equals 1).
The problem is not just how we vote, also it's how they are counted.
"It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes."
We cannot check our own votes.
Holy crap Mr. beat the video quality is amazing!!
Well thank you :)
2:27, Mr. Beat predicted that Biden would win!!
I prefer the idea of instant runoff voting, because I don't fall comfortably into the Democrat or Republican camps. So having an instant runoff might help people pick someone who is genuinely smart and has great ideas instead of voting for a candidate on party lines. Not saying Democrats and Republicans don't have valid ideas, but they don't always represent the ideas that majority of Americans want. Having more voices and realistically winnable candidates might help keep the polarization down and make politicians compromise more.
I agree. I think most Americans aren't that partisan.
IRV forces a two party system just as much as plurality
@Theodore Roosevelt rangevoting.org/TarrIrv.html
Completely agree with you Mr. Beat, wish we had the option of more than two candidates.
We do, its just that two parties are the most dominant.
Its sad knowing that this is a change that could solve alot of problems in the US but will never happen because the only people that can make it happen are the people most hurt by the change
What needs to change about voting is that you need to explain there stances and policies and pro and cons about them, were not picking prom king and queen
If there was no electoral college, wouldn't New York City and Los Angeles County pick every president and then it wouldn't be worth voting if you live in Michigan?
CGP Grey has entered the chat
Mr Beat, im grateful for what you do!
Let’s make it count everyone’s vote equally
The Supreme Court could even help make that happen. But I strongly agree with you.
So? Mob rule?
@@The_Yosh so minority rule
Fat Yoshi you mean democracy.
No
Yeah I don't like this system. I don't even get a say on who the two final candidates are. It just comes time to vote and it's "here are your two choices". Gee, thanks. I don't really want 15 choices either, but 4 or 5 equally promoted choices would be nice.
I like rank choice voting (instant runoff), majority rule, however score voting is pretty good tho is a bit weird. I think RCV is the way to go.
1:14 beautiful. I don’t know if you’ll see this comment, but that reference was solid
I’ve never heard about score voting or approve voting before, but they seem really interesting. Are there any countries where they’re used?
I prefer score voting (also called range voting), and while IRV isn't exactly terrible, I find it extremely overrated.
In my mind, IRV is basically just a voting system jury-rigged to avoid the particular problem of "two and a half candidates". That is, two major candidates and one minor candidate who gets a significant number of votes (but not nearly enough to win). But people's preferences often don't work like that. We only think they do because we're used to the strategic effects of plurality voting.
How does IRV react to an election with 3 or more competitive candidates? If the whole point of election reform is to give third party candidates more of a chance, then you have to ask this question. But no one ever seems to investigate this scenario, and I find that really annoying.
The most glaring problem with IRV is that your second choice is *only* taken into account if your favorite candidate is eliminated before your second choice is. That's a rather strong condition, so a lot of information expressed on the ballots is effectively wasted and doesn't contribute to the result. (Sound familiar?) Score voting doesn't have this problem.
What if a "consensus candidate" gets a ton of second place votes but very few first place votes? He might get eliminated very early in IRV despite being very well liked. However, doing this election with score voting would result in him getting a lot of high scores (perhaps a lot of voters give him an 8/10 and their favorite a 10/10), so he would have a better chance.
Another problem with IRV (and any other voting system that uses ranked ballots) is that you can't express the intensity of your preferences.
Suppose an election has 3 candidates: God, a human, and the devil. No matter how good or bad the human is, your ranking will still be God > human > devil. But your opinion on the election will still vary a lot depending on who that human is. Is he a saint, making this a "greater of two goods" situation? Is he a tyrant, making this a "lesser of two evils" situation? Or is he just your average Joe?
Score voting actually allows you to express this kind of information in a way that can influence the election. The intensity of your preferences is a lot more important than we give it credit for, and it's a real shame that plurality and IRV don't allow you to express it.
....and we are only given a small window of a few hours one day to vote....
Where on earth do you live? This is not the case.
@@kristinesharp6286 voting day....DAY
@@gordybishop2375 I don’t think you realize that there is such a thing called early voting. I have not voted on Election Day itself in years, during early voting period.
@@kristinesharp6286 I live in a state that lets me bite by mail because they are not conspiracy MAGA idiots....but alas many live in Republican paranoid states
@@gordybishop2375 I live in Illinois and it’s blue. No need to name call. If you are planning on being out of the country for the election you could always vote by mail. I also used to register people to vote when I worked in the library. This is really not a hard thing to do.
This video definitely changed my mind in a lot of ways, and I agree with a lot of points you brought up.
The ranking voting doesnt work. I can vote 0 for those i dislike and 10 for those i like, making a polar system
But you are just one voter. The odds of every voter doing that are slim to none.
@@iammrbeat your over estimating people. Most people I know when eating things eather go highest or lowest.
You mean score voting? If you vote like that it’s just turned into approval voting. A system which is still far better than instant runoff, and especially plurality. Only a minority of people using score voting using only 10’s and 0’s as well.
I like score voting best, then ranked/instant runoff voting and finally approval voting in that order.
Approval voting doesn't let you give as much influence in terms of allowing you to say the degree to which you like a candidate. Score and instant runoff voting allow for this statement of degree, but instant runoff only allows you to express this degree of your preference of candidates in relative terms, meaning comparing one candidate to another. Score voting allows you to express your opinion of each candidate in absolute terms, which is why it is best for the voter.
Approval voting and Score voting: solid choices.
Instant run off voting: electoral Trojan horse. DON’T DO IT! When you can HURT your candidate’s chances by ranking then HIGHER ~4% of the time, something’s seriously wrong.
How?
@@n484l3iehugtil Favorite Betrayal Criterion
Monotonicity Criterion
Participation Criterion
Fantastic video! Hopefully, someday, we'll progress to a better voting method, but I fear our 2 big parties in the U.S hold so much sway that it'll probably never happen.
I like score voting the most it's also in my opinion the simplest to understand
As an Australian, I am happy with instant runoff voting (called here preferential voting) because it’s more representative of everyone’s preference. You can still vote for your favourite but if not the majority agree with you, your second choice may count.
Better than China's voting system tho🤣
Lmao what voting system 🤣 😂 😅
@@alexiarai955 The voting system that allows them to elect Mayors, Governors and national reps
Hello, Mr. Beat: Thank you for all your great content. In this particular case though, I m afraid all the solutions proposed would make a system that is already shady, a more complicated one. As a kind request, please consider making a video that answers the question : WHY SHOULD WE VOTE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
You can't get shadyee than it already is
Because the alternative is an autocracy. In an autocracy, the leader's interest's do not align with the people's so they are worse places to live.
America should adopt Proportional representation!
But what type of proportional representation?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems#Compliance_of_non-majoritarian_party_agnostic_multi-winner_methods
www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-elected-bodies-5589?path=5589.0
@@parker_1543 When I think of the ideal proportional representation I would like in the US I think something like Germany's electoral system. Where you get 2 votes. One vote directly for the candidate and a second vote a party list and you vote for a party
@@HerbGamer0 That method is called mixed member proportional or MMP for short and many of it's advantages and disadvantages are listed in one of the two links I provided: www.kialo.com/the-us-should-adopt-a-better-voting-system-for-elected-bodies-5589?path=5589.0
I have also went into detail about some of the things I don't like about the system in comparison to other proportional methods in this thread: forum.electionscience.org/t/mmps-fatal-weakness/337
When it comes to proportional methods, I prefer methods that don't have any party list mechanic at all (MMP still uses party lists for some of the seats). These types of methods are sometimes referred to as party agnostic (meaning it is indifferent to parties) proportional methods.
Here are just a few of the many proportional methods that don't have any party list mechanic:
Re-weighted Range Voting: th-cam.com/video/kaZB84uipFk/w-d-xo.html
Proportional Approval Voting: th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=proportional+approval+voting
Harmonic Voting: rangevoting.org/QualityMulti.html
The sad thing is that because the federal government is controlled by the 2 parties who would stand to loose the most from this they will never change it
Just have preferential voting (rank choice voting to my understanding). Probably will not occur in the two party system given there is an inherent incentive for both major parties to retain first past the post.
What do you think about approval voting and score voting?
Plurality voting could be responsible for why electoral college flaws stick out more.
I’m not american so my opinion should not be valued as much as other people in this thread, but I vastly prefer irv to score voting. Why? Because in score voting an angry polarizing figure may get a lot 10’s and 1’s averaging to a 5,5 while a moderate might get similar responses. However irv makes candidates appealing to a broad centrist base much stronger since they may lose the left or right but they’ll scoop up a lot of second choise votes
Note: I’m not centrist myself and while this will show the strength of partisanship in western countries I’d rather prefer a centre government rather than the wing I’m not a part of rule half the time
That is a really good point.
Agreed - what country, as a matter of interest?
Norway
Sounds like that makes score voting better to me. Someone who is polarizing and only liked by half of people should get a middle score. Someone who is like more universally should gets a higher score than that.
IRV is just as bad as plurality, it reinforces the two party system.
I've actually drawn maps of a world I thought of recently. And recently I gave my "home territory" it's government system. It is a Constitutional Monarchy with a bicameral parliament. For the lower house, I gave it RCV as they were covering fewer people. The upper house would use a nationwide popular vote and seated based on a proportional system. Example: Progressive party wins 36% of the national vote, they get 36% of the seats. The Senate candidates are determined by a Party List. Just imagine Germany's Bundestag but the methods are split in two.
My idea behind the Senate having a nation wide popular vote is partly ceremonial. I feel like it will give a sense of unity to the process as there is no "state-by-state" vote but a true NATIONAL vote. On that note, I feel I should say that simply changing how we vote for president is the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. The country has too many problems for a simple fix.
I like IRV, but really we should use systems with multiple winners, like STV, at least for Congress
We'll need both of those! IRV for Presidential and Senate elections. And STV for elections in the United States House of Representatives.
For a Repubic of 50 states, the Electoral College makes more sense than the popular vote. As for replacing plurality -- ranking voting is how mediocre films like "Green Book" win Best Picture.
lol that movie was definitely overrated.
Not nearly as many dislikes on this one lol. I like these opinion videos.
Approval voting => the most middle of the road candidate wins
Score voting => you give your candidate 10 points and everyone else 0 and we're back to plurality
Runoff voting sounds good though
Your assumption about score voting is misguided. Most people aren't as partisan as you think and like more than one candidate.
@@iammrbeat Surely instant runoff and score voting do roughly the same thing.
This is simply false. If you give all the people you like 10, and all the people you dislike 0 then it’s turned into approval voting which is still fine. There is no incentive to give someone you like a 0. Score is a better version of approval voting and is overall the best voting system.
Runoff voting is bad and not much better than plurality.
Proportional representation!
Change Election Day to a weekend. We also need to do a much much better job at promoting people to vote. 2020 had the best voter turnout in a really long time and it was only 66% of registered voters which really isn’t good. We gotta start teaching more people that politics is important and that voting really is a big deal. That’s what I think
I strongly disagree with your observation that plurality voting causes polarizing candidates to be elected. Generally the politics of candidates of either party have a trend across presidencies in a certain direction, and for the last 30 years democrats have moved to the right quite substantially. If it weren't for plurality voting, the democrats would have been much more resembling of european politicians on the political spectrum.
Moved right? AOC and Ilhan Omar would not be representatives over 30 years ago. The Dems have moved of the wacky socialist deep end
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv illhan Omar and Alexandria ocasio Cortez are the beginning of the modernization of politics in america: politicians that actually represent policies that the people want. In reality, they're much more similar in politics to LBJ, FDR, and JFK than Obama or Clinton.
I think Democrats have moved to the right, though, because the entire country has shifted to the right. You can see now that the pendulum is swinging back to the left just in the last three years.
Yeah, even the more left leaning candidates aren't that far left. The left has actually slid more and more to the right over time. So there's more a devide of centre-maybe-a-bit-leftish vs right
Absolutely. The fear of polarizing because parties will embody the extremes on the political spectrum is incorrect. It relies on a flawed view of parties and how they behave. With a two party system, there is no reason to think you'd get a far left and a far right party. What history has shown is far more likely to happen is you get two centrist parties who have a monopoly on political power and thus act as a cartel, preventing other parties from getting into power. It enshrines a particular order into power. Why should the two parties ever switch ideologies to something more radical when the current system works so well for them, and lets them stay rich, powerful and influential, being elected back into office every other election or so?
Also there is the problem of saying most voters are centrists or moderates and want candidates and policies that are in the middle of the left-right spectrum. That's also untrue. Most of the population in any country is not staunchly centrist, but apathetic and disconnected. They are less ideological or politically active, not equally ideological but for a centrist ideology. People who get engaged in politics and start to educate themselves and get informed almost always pick a side. The people in the middle are mostly folks who haven't made up their minds yet, or aren't interested enough to want to.
2020 just proved it. We are still counting FFS.
It’s how we got stuck to choose between Hillary or trump
Voting will always be unsatisfactory. The people we vote for matter far less than the legislation enacted.
The politicians won't always do what they say they will do, and the public will oftentimes vote against their self-interest.
The french presidential election system is the best. Chance my mind.
I support instant runoff voting. I didn't know about approval voting but I like it too. But you know what really sucks? Party list proportional representation - basicly your party must have a certian score in whole country so you could become a member of parliament. Your personal score doesn't matter otherwise. That's the nonsense we have here in Poland and in many other countries.
Here's a similar system but where you can vote for individual candidates and the party a candidate is registered as is completely irrelevant to whether they win or not: th-cam.com/video/Gnsgo3z8UIg/w-d-xo.html
#ProLifeDemocrat
lol I know I always feel out of place, too, which is likely why I've never felt comfortable with any political party.
Literally never heard it called Instant Runoff Voting. We use it in Australia, but it's referred to as Preferential Voting.
We in Europe always wonder why your voting system is so terrible 😅😂
Why does this have upvotes?
@@spencergraham-thille9896 because it's true maybe
@@dennisschlager8947 How would you know how good our system is if you don't live here?
I think that democracy is a sham, but if you are going to have it, a two-party plurality system is pretty good.
@@spencergraham-thille9896 Because we know how to read.
I say f**k the plurality vote and chage it to proportional voting
People who take more from the system than they pay in, shouldn't have a say in voting especially on decisions that affect the economy. ... Net tax payers get to vote. Anyone who wants to _earn_ voting rights, should either give up welfare assistance, or be honest about being dependent on those who actually work their a55 off to prop up the economy of the country.
You sound like the Founding Fathers. In the early days of the republic, only property-owning white dudes could vote. On a side note, every citizen gets welfare assistance either directly or indirectly. So no one should be able to vote then? :)
@@iammrbeat Well, the Founding Fathers created what other nations couldn't achieve until then: freedom and autonomy to rise up irrespective of what aristocracy a peasant was born in (compared to Europe where only the nobility could vote).
In the early days of the U.S., property ownership as a criteria meant it was possible for anyone to earn voting rights. There were people of other races who could also vote, as long as they owned property. Later, (Civil War) voting rights were extended also to anyone who was willing to put their life on the line - soldiers - to keep the country alive.
Unfortunately, now everyone votes, everyone has a say in picking the people who should pass laws. And the people who want to get elected to such positions have to appeal to the majority of the voters. Well, the majority of the voters do not have a skin in the game. Hence to yet them to vote for you, appeal to what they need, and that is _"We want the government to give us more this and that, even though we put nothing in."_
Within a generation and all the government is running into debt. Give the U.S until 2040 and they won't be able to provide welfare anymore. Then they'll wither dig into your pensions or keep raising taxes on existing workers.
Bottom line is, if any one doesn't have a skin in propping up the economy, they are not responsible for deciding how it should be run. Exceptions are people who put their lives on the line for society, such as military vets, serving members, fire and safety rescue, highway maintenance engineers etc. Those people are actually responsible for keeping society alive everyday.
Sounds pretty disgusting, ngl. I would be more in favour of hindering the influence of wealth hoarders who want to rig the system even more in their favour, than that of the people who just want a basic level of equality for everyone in society.
@@vallraffs Equality and Freedom are two opposite ideals. One is always at the expense of the other. If you want freedom, then be prepared to accept there will be inequalities. If you want equality at any level, then some persons freedoms will be taken away. .... Now you may say one or the other doesn't affect, but if you were on the other side you'd say the same. Cos the average voter votes in their self interest (but will accuse _'The Wealthy'_ of also voting in their own self interests). To level the playing field, responsibility should be the qualifying card. Are you paying more than you take from the system? Well here is your voting rights. Are you taking more from the system than you pay into it? Well, you don't get to vote in how the system should allocate resources which you didn't contribute to.
We can all ignore the above as long as we want. The system is already trillions in debt, yet the people are voting for more welfare programs to be established. Let _The Rich_ pay for them, right? Well, the rich know how to hide their money too, until there's no more money for others to leach off of. And that's where the economy and society's collapse begins.
@@oslonorway547 To confuse success in society with being actually productive is a serious, albeit common mistake. An individual attaining material wealth and influence is not in itself a clear indicator of being a producer in society. In fact more often than not the opposite is true; the people who have the most resources at their disposal are often the biggest parasites in society. Those who accrue and hoard wealth by exploiting the hard work of others and profiting off of their backs. Rewarding such behaviour with political influence would be quite counter-productive, as it would incentivise the worst forms of anti-social behaviour by suggesting to people that the preferred way of improving their lot in life is to make life worse for other people in turn. This is how you get higher rates of criminality and weaker social relations in civil society, not to mention it's impact on the private sector.
bro Mr. Beat I love your videos my guy thanks for being the coolest history teacher keep it up my guy we love ur content
Woah hey Emma! Thanks! I hope you and the fam have been well. :)
we are all good !!! we are all amazed by your thriving channel :)))
WAIT, it has been a year since your electoral college video!?
Wow, time flies!
Almost! It certainly does fly.
A blanket or jungle primary is an option also. California, Louisiana and Washington has blanket and jungle primary.
The problems with this video:
1.- It takes for granted that Plurality voting = Two candidates. The reason why the US has a bipartisan system isn't because of plurality voting, it's because the US Congress designed it that way after the 1860 elections (4 candidates got electoral college votes and a compromise was done so Abraham could win) and, technically, a third party could STILL be in the US, but most of the third parties in the US sucks. They don't know how to do politics and, considering they tend to do politics by attacking other candidates instead of making their own policies, it's better if they stay out. A good example, surprisingly enough, of a third party actually having a chance was the Reformation Party in the 90's, where the third candidate got many votes because the candidate was offering good policies while the other two weren't as good/lost the trust of many voters
3.- It thinks that plurality voting brings polarizing candidate and that people will not choose for the least bad. Latin America has plurality voting for centuries AND some countries (like México and Paraguay) having a Winner Takes All system while other countries (like Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Donimican Republic, etc) has Run-offs and, you should know, people DO vote for the candidates they think it's a better choice and, in the case of the run-off countries, more often than not, people who didn't get their candidate on the second round then chooses who they prefer. Heck, Colombia stopped being bipartisan since Uribe became a thing in 2002.
All the problems you mentioned with plurality voting either doesn't exist in countries where plurality voting already exist or has been shown to be not true. Most of the problems you have with plurality voting or the electoral college (yes, I saw that video and I extremely disagree with it) are there because US lawmakers changed it that way.
The US Constitution originally said nothing about voting rights because it was left to the states, the amendments where made to make an ultimatum about it but, still, nowhere in the OG Constitution says that women cannot vote, same with blacks. That was state law.
The US Congress made the bipartisan system to avoid the scenario of 1860, which was a factor that lead to the US Civil War, and a simple run-off per state can fix that.
Third Party candidates can still be a thing in the US but they must make GOOD policies and start small, on the ground, as practically all political parties do in the rest of the world.
Next time you want to say that the US electoral system must change, PLEASE, look up other countries, their election systems, and how they work, and see how they dealt with the problems you tend to complain about.
Having more than two parties isn't a big deal, in the end, all those parties work in coalition, so it's still bipartisan, and you can still have more than two parties with plurality voting and the US law can change that (if the two parties ever wanted that) and to say that the problem is in the Constitution implies that you didn't research the topic enough, same with CGP Grey.
BTW, the voting system you and Grey support was tried this year in the New York primaries and it failed. If it cannot work on a small scale, it will be even worse in a national level.