Our current plurality voting system (vote for only one and then shut up) is very subject to the spoiler candidate problem—most voters won’t vote for a third party if they think the candidate can’t win, so they will vote for one of the two major party candidates so they won’t be “wasting” their vote.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a ranked voting system also subject to Arrow’s Impossibility theorem (no ranked voting system is perfect) and being implemented and considered in many localities and states, including Colorado, largely eliminates the spoiler problem if there are only two major parties but still leads to two-party domination. Many alternative parties in Australia are opposed to the continued use of IRV. See Duverger’s Law, linked at my name.

Range Voting, or score or rate all candidates with the highest average winning, is the only voting system which will not reduce the impact of third parties, and is projected to even help them when they are small. It is the most expressive voting system and also happens to be the best voting system using computer simulation to determine “Bayesian Regret” or statistical divergence from optimal voting.

Incidentally, I was an election judge (and supply judge, the chief election judge at a precinct) for a decade and a half, before becoming a candidate, as a registered Libertarian in Colorado. This was with punched ballots and before recent implementation of electronic voting machines and paper ballots with optical scan counting.

“Maryland needs to end one-party rule, open up its democracy, remove prejudice against alternative parties and allow more participation and new ideas.”

No, Maryland needs a fucking enema.

http://www.democracyisnotfreedom.com/