to protect Democracy
This is for reference. I would like the various kinds of election systems to be more common knowledge.
I am not advocating for changing our system. It's true that I would personally like to see us adopt ranked choice voting, but I won't push for it unless I see broad support for it across Kansas. Because it's an elected official's duty to represent the will of the people, I won't instigate change that only my friends and a few people on the far Left seem to want.
Variations on voting systems are myriad; these are just the basics. Some of the alternative systems have already been adopted by other states, in specific elections.
PLURALITY / FIRST PAST THE POST
This is the way most of our elections work. Every voter gets one vote in each race. Count the votes, the person with the most wins. It's very in line with what the Founding Fathers intended, but then, the Founding Fathers seem to have not anticipated the huge role political parties would have in our system.
Advantage: it's very straightforward. Whomever gets the most votes wins.
Disadvantage: It's very susceptible to splitting the vote. Thus, it works best in one or two party governments.
Splitting the vote
This happens when there are at least three parties, and two agree on some issues. For example, the American Libertarian Party, which leans Right-Libertarian, tends to overlap with the Republican Party. (That's as opposed to a Left-Libertarian, which is more my own personal political orientation.) Conservative voters choose between the Republican and Libertarian candidate. Each voter who chooses Libertarian is probably one less Republican vote. Ironically, that means fewer Republican votes, and makes the Democrat more likely to win. In states the recognize a Green Party, they tend to split the Liberal vote in exactly the same way, to the advantage of Republicans. It's been speculated that Ralph Nader (Green) cost Al Gore (Dem) the 2000 election.
This reinforces the two-party system by pressuring minor parties to keep quiet, less they draw votes away from the nearer major party and thus enabling a victory by the "worse" major party. This is such a persistent problem that there have been a plethora of alternative election systems proposed to give minor parties a chance and break the 2-party duopoly. I myself am running as a Democrat because I don't want to split the Liberal vote, rather like Bernie Sanders did in 2016.
Alternative Systems
RANKED CHOICE VOTING
In Ranked Choice, you mark your ballot with your first choice in a given race, then second choice, then third, et cetera until you get to your last choice. When they count the votes, they count the number of 1st choice votes. If no candidate gets a majority, they eliminate whomever is in last place, and the ballots with that person as their first gets instead counted as though their second choice was first. Still no one gets a majority? Eliminate the new last place candidate and count again. Keep going until someone gets more than half the votes.
Advantage: It's not nearly as vulnerable to splitting the vote. You can vote for whomever you actually like first, and the major party candidate you only kind of like second.
Disadvantage: It's complicated to count.
MAJORITY RUNOFF
A Majority Runoff system starts the same as our conventional plurality system, but if, in the initial election, no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, another round of elections is called, in which you only have the option of choosing between the top two candidates from the first round election. You can vote for your favorite in the first round, and pick the "lesser evil" in the second round. I would consider this to be the next best thing to ranked choice voting.
Advantage: It's simpler to count than ranked choice, and also not very vulnerable to splitting the vote.
Disadvantage: Most of the time, you'll need to have a whole follow-up election. What a pain.
FUSION VOTING
In Fusion Voting, two or more parties can claim the same candidate. Instead of worrying about the Libertarian candidate luring votes away from the Republican, the Libertarians just adopt the Republican. You can vote for Joe Republican or Joe Libertarian, but you're voting for the same guy, and the votes are counted the same.
Advantage: It puts more focus on minor parties because they become voting blocks that can add to a candidate's support base, rather than distracting from it.
Disadvantages: There are a few.
1. It feels like the illusion of choice; you're voting for the same guy, whether you're calling him a Republican or a Libertarian.
2. I think it's going to encourage corruption and backroom deals. Candidates will be incentivized to run around collecting minor party endorsements like they're Pokémon. That means more time negotiating with Libertarian, Reform, and Green party leaders, and less time talking to actual Libertarian, Reform, and Green voters.
I've heard from a supporter that the United Kansas Party wants to implement fusion voting. It makes sense for them, being a moderate party. Actually, I think it's a rather clever power play. United Kansas, even if they have only a small base of loyal voters, could easily decide a close race by choosing which major party candidate to adopt. That would force both the Democrats and the Republicans to deal with them.
If you really want to give minor parties a chance, I say supporting Ranked Choice or Majority Runoff is a better way to do it.