I am sure there is much "tinkering" that could be done with our voting system, but I really have one change I would like to see implemented. It would be little cost to implement and have big changes to voters ability to express themselves in a more meaningful manner. It would be to use Approval Voting.
This would allow voters to fully express their desires and unlock each other from vote game playing and relying on how they feel others would vote. Its a more open and fair system for all.
Approval Voting has a few nice effects:
- No runoff (even fewer people deciding outcomes)
- True measure of peoples opinions on the ballot
- Positive campaigning (candidates earning votes instead of attacking opponents)
- Free to vote your conscious about who you approve of
- No lesser evil game / No vote splitting
- Greater voter satisfaction
- It can be implemented now with very minor change to existing voting mechanisms
You can learn a lot more by visiting Electology.org
Some other changes I would would be to remove straight ticket voting. We should be voting for people as our representatives. Not abstract ideas of parties. I would also remove party affiliation from ballots. I believe this allows people to mistakenly vote for their perceptions of what a candidate represents instead of what they actually do. Of course people cannot be forced to look into candidates. Even so the government doesn't need to feed into this bad behavior.