The Voting System That Could Rescue U.S. Politics

The U.S. probably will never be a European-style, multiparty parliamentary democracy. It’s not inconceivable, however, that someday it could switch to a system that might have prevented the aberrations of this harrowing election year -- ranked-choice voting.

Here’s how it works. Imagine a presidential race with four candidates -- let’s call them Hillary, Donald, Gary and Jill. Voters get a ballot on which they rank the candidates in order of preference. On the initial count, only the first preference matters. Let’s say Hillary wins 45 percent of the vote, Donald gets 40 percent, Gary, 10 percent, and Jill, 5 percent. Jill is eliminated as the worst performer, and her votes are distributed among the second choices of her supporters. After the recount, Hillary has 47 percent, Donald gets 41 percent and Gary, 12 percent. Gary is eliminated, and his votes go to the second choices of his backers. Either Hillary or Donald necessarily receives more than 50 percent of the vote and wins.