Sunday Column, September 5, 2010

Question:

Many people don’t like the way a president can be elected with less than a majority of the popular vote. Yet even if we had a direct election (no Electoral College), third parties could still serve as spoilers. On the other hand, we don’t want to discourage additional parties.

Do you know any interesting alternatives?

—Adam Keefler, Maple Grove, Minn.

Response:

Numerous voting systems exist, but all have drawbacks depending on what you believe is fair. 

In fact, elections are often not won by majorities. The most common system is simple plurality voting. Say six candidates run for office. Voters choose one, and the candidate with the most votes wins. Due to the number of candidates, winners often don’t get a majority. We use this basic system to elect class presidents, city-council members, and others.

If a majority winner is your goal, a system known as “majority preferential voting” has merit. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference. They mark their top choice No. 1, their next choice No. 2, and so on. The votes are tallied, and if a candidate gets a majority of No. 1 votes, he or she is the winner.

If no one gets a majority, the candidate with the fewest No. 1 votes is eliminated, and the votes of the people who chose that candidate as No. 1 are then transferred to their various No. 2 choices. The votes are tallied again. If a candidate gets a majority of No. 1 votes, he or she wins. If not, the process is repeated until a candidate receives a winning majority.

Another way of understanding the process: If no one gets a majority, the candidate with the fewest No. 1 votes is eliminated from the ballot. The remaining candidates move up on all ballots accordingly. This is repeated until a candidate receives a majority of No. 1 votes.

Another possible choice, designed to bypass the Electoral College, is the National Popular Vote. In this system—passed by six state legislatures, most recently Massachusetts’—all of a state’s electoral votes would go to the candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of how state residents voted.

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Marilyn vos Savant's bio

Marilyn vos Savant is a national columnist and author. She is an executive at Jarvik Heart, Inc., which manufactures artificial hearts for permanent and temporary use in the treatment of heart failure. The company can be visited at www.jarvikheart.com.

Marilyn was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for five years under "Highest IQ" for both childhood and adult scores. She has since been inducted into the *Guinness Hall of Fame*. Marilyn was named by Toastmasters International as the #1 most popular communicator/speaker in the educational and social category.

She was named one of fifty “Women of the New Millennium” by the White House Vital Voices: Women in Democracy campaign. She was a winner of a “Women Making History” award from the National Women’s History Museum. Marilyn is the recipient of honorary Doctorates of Letters.

Since 1986, Marilyn has been writing the "Ask Marilyn" question-and-answer column for Parade, the Sunday magazine distributed by 379 newspapers, with a circulation of 34 million and a readership of 79 million, the largest periodical in the world. Questions from readers range from philosophical to mathematical to "just plain nuts," as Marilyn puts it. Her most recent books are Growing Up: A Classic American Childhood and The Art of Spelling, both published by W.W. Norton.

Marilyn was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Mary vos Savant and Joseph Mach. She was the granddaughter of Mary Savant and Joseph vos Savant, and of Anna Moravec and Anton Mach.

Marilyn is married to Robert Jarvik MD, the inventor of the Jarvik 7 and Jarvik 2000 artificial hearts. They have two children, Mary and Dennis, both of whom also work at Jarvik Heart. All reside in Manhattan within a few blocks of each other, along with Mary's husband David and their two young daughters Valerie and Michelle.