Fair elections are also a key factor in having the third necessary aspect of political accountability. This third aspect is fire-ability, the ability to not reelect incumbents who are not effectively representing their constituents.

This is the sixth post in a series of articles on how PeopleCount will deliver accountability. The first posts talked about creating the relationship of accountability between voters and politicians. The next covered creating answerability. The previous three posts are about two aspects of fire-ability: supporting an informed electorate, having free elections. This and the next one are about fair elections.

Fair elections means no monopolies

Currently, American politics is monopolized by the two parties. It’s completely unfair to voters who want to state their preference for a third party.

Many want Bernie Sanders to run as a third-party candidate. Most people who support Bernie favor Clinton over Trump. But a vote for Bernie means their preference between the Hillary and Trump won’t be voiced. If Trump were getting 40% of the vote, if Bernie runs, he might pull 25% of the vote to him, leaving Hillary with 35%, so Trump wins.

Our voting system is called “plurality voting”, or “first past the post”. It only looks at who has the most votes rather than people’s real preferences. This voting system perpetuates the two-party monopoly. Because of this voting system, Bernie won’t run and voters will be denied this choice. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Other voting systems exist

There are other voting systems that give third-parties a chance, like instant-runoff elections which are used in Australia. An more-simple one is approval voting, where each voter can check-off all of the candidates they’d like to see in office.

Our voting system keeps third-parties from having a chance. Both Congress and state legislatures are monopolized by the two parties. They will never vote to change the election system. Parties want to hold onto their power. By keeping this issue away from American voters, the parties preserve their monopoly. You won’t even find “voting systems” mentioned in party platforms.

And it’s not just in the main election that it can make a difference. This article concluded that Republican voters in Florida preferred Cruz narrowly over Trump. If instant-runoff elections had been used, Cruz would have beaten Trump in the primary. The bottom line: our voting system is very bad for any race in which there are more than two candidates.

But if the American people want it changed, that could be an issue on PeopleCount. Voters could pressure candidates, and challengers could differentiate themselves. After all, almost half of Americans want a third party. So we probably want an election system that makes voting for a third party possible. If citizens use PeopleCount to champion this cause, we can easily get it passed. It could take just a few months. Or at most, by the next election, as challengers take up this cause to gain support.

In the next article, we’ll present the other major affront to fair elections, gerrymandering.