A preferred way to elect our leaders

Peter LePage could not convince the majority of his neighbors in Waterville to elect him governor of Maine.

The Republican candidate who suggested he would tell President Obama to “go to hell” received 2,306 votes in Waterville while his main rivals - independent Eliot Cutler and Democrat Libby Mitchell - received 1,521 and 1,484 votes, respectively, overtaking LePage with more than 3,000 votes.

Statewide, Cutler, Mitchell and two other independent candidates shared 62 percent of the vote. LePage, who is mayor of Waterville, received 38 percent; Cutler, 37 percent; and Mitchell, 19 percent.

The Maine election was among at least five three-way or more state races - also, Florida, Alaska, Rhode Island and South Dakota - that were vulnerable to a gloomy outcome because two alike candidates might cancel each other out.

This kind of outcome is nothing new. A check of presidential election results - reaching back more than two centuries - produces some amazing nuggets of information. George Washington, who probably made enemies during his first term, was re-elected to his second term in 1792 with 50 percent of the electoral college votes. John Adams took 25.7 percent of the electoral vote in 1796 to win his only term as president, and was turned out of office in 1800 by his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, who received 26.4 percent of the electoral vote.

Only electoral college vote totals were available for the early presidential elections.

Abraham Lincoln received 39.6 percent of the popular vote in 1860. Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was elected in 1912 with 41.8 percent as incumbent Republican president William Taft and Progressive Party ex-president Theodore Roosevelt split most of the remainder of the vote, respectively 27 percent and 23 percent.

Harry Truman’s election was threatened in 1948, leading to the infamous “Dewey defeats Truman” headline, but it is rarely if ever mentioned that two liberals and a conservative shaved votes from both Truman, the Democrat, and Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman presumably lost more votes to the independent candidates. Truman won 49.5 percent of the votes to Dewey’s 45 percent. Strom Thurmond, the longtime Republican senator, won 2.4 percent while Socialist candidate Norman Thomas took 4.7 percent and Progressive hopeful Henry Wallace, who preceded Truman as vice president, won 2.3 percent.

Whether anyone is pleased or furious with the results on Nov. 2, all five elections scream for a new system of electing the people who could make life-or-death decisions affecting our fates.

Political reform organizations have been promoting a system called Instant Runoff Voting that allows the election of a candidate to receive the majority vote in a race with multiple rivals.

Under this system, roughly, a voter casts a ballot for his preferred candidate (Candidate A) and then votes for other candidates in order of preference. Let’s say his second preference is Candidate B.

The first result leaves no candidate with a majority, but Candidate C has the top spot with a plurality of 40 percent. The voter’s first preference, Candidate A, has 20 percent and Candidate B has 33 percent. His vote for A is transferred to B and, if most voters think this way then B will win with 53 percent of the vote.

Because Maine employs the winner-take-all system, its next governor can now follow through with his intent to tell the president to “go to hell.” Paul LePage, the Republican, was elected with 38 percent of the vote while his two closest opponents shared 56 percent.

“Three is a crowd in our current voting system,” reads a description posted by the Center for Voting and Democracy. “Plurality voting, in which the candidate with the most votes win, is dysfunctional when more than two candidates run.

“It promotes zero-sum politics that discourage new candidates, suppress new ideas and encourage negative campaigns rather than inclusive efforts to build consensus.”

The Center for Voting and Democracy further clarifies how IRV works: “IRV allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish, but can vote without fear that ranking less favored candidates will harm the chances of their most preferred candidates.

“First choices are then tabulated, and if a candidate receives a majority of first choices, he or she is elected. If nobody has a clear majority of votes on the first count, a series of runoffs are simulated, using each voter’s preferences indicated on the ballot.

“The weakest candidates are successively eliminated and their voters’ ballots are redistributed to next choices until a candidate earns a majority of votes.”

Instant Runoff Voting is currently employed to elect mayors and other officials in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Aspen, Colo., Takoma Park, Md., and London, England, according to the Center for Voting and Democracy.

Australians have elected its House of Representatives this way since 1949 and Ireland has elected its president since 1922 with IRV.

Instant Runoff Voting offers voters many advantages that genuinely makes democracy come alive. Most importantly, IRV precludes the election of the least-desired major candidate. Of course, determining who is least desirable is a subjective matter.

This concern played out in Maine. It is safe to speculate that Cutler would have left LePage in the dust if the state employed Instant Runoff Voting. There were media reports of voters saying they did not want LePage as governor, but nonetheless he is now governor-elect.

IRV would also eliminate petty maneuvering among the candidates, as occurred in Florida’s three-way tug-of-war between Marco Rubio, Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek.

Rubio, a tea-party candidate who won the Republican nomination, ultimately won with 49 percent of the vote while Crist, running as an independent, took 30 percent and Meek, the Democrat, received 20 percent. To give Rubio credit, he came awfully close to a majority vote while Crist and Meek eked out a combination of the majority.

However, Crist probably would have clobbered either Rubio or Meek in a head-to-head contest. He has emerged as a popular governor whose politics has been vague. Between the three candidates, he came as close to representing the center while Meek would support the liberal Democratic agenda. Of course, Rubio represented the far right.

Meek, a little-known congressman representing Broward and Miami-Dade counties, had never caught fire as a candidate and it was questionable if an African-American could win statewide office in Florida even if he ran one-on-one against Rubio.

The choice was a dilemma for moderates and liberals. Progressives who preferred Meek considered voting for Crist because a split vote would leave Rubio with the job. As the election progressed, even some black Democrats wanted Meek to drop out. Bill Clinton had some talks with Meek, though both denied that Clinton asked him to or demanded that he quit the race and endorse Crist.

The polls were less favorable for Rubio than the end result. His polls never exceeded 45 percent. However, it is likely that the ongoing conflict over Crist and Meek’s chances overshadowed the entire election. Maybe independents who might have voted for Crist were turned off by this sideshow and decided to vote for Rubio.

This system affords voters a greater opportunity to elect independent candidates to office. Lincoln Chafee was elected governor of Rhode Island under the traditional system four years after voters unceremoniously dumped him as senator.

Chafee was a Republican in the Senate, where he seemed to fear that Dick Cheney would spank him if he misbehaved. As a northeastern state, Rhode Island was trending away from the Republican Party in part because of President Bush’s policies, so Chafee’s defeat appeared to be inevitable. Chafee, a decent guy who clearly found his situation during the Bush years distasteful, subsequently quit the Republican Party and ran as an independent this year.

However, Chafee only took 36 percent of the vote this time. The Republican won 34 percent and the Democrat 23 percent. Chafee probably would have received a majority vote if IRV kicked in, but there was no IRV to kick in. He barely rose above the one-third point.

Independents have won elsewhere, but they were usually prominent and/or wealthy people who managed to win overcome the existing system. IRV would have opened up elections to candidates who are less known and have limited treasuries.

Alaska - hardly Sarah Palin’s Alaska - ultimately dumped Joe Miller, who ousted incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. She returned as a write-in candidate, running against both Miller and the obscure Democrat, Scott McAdams. Democrats hoped that Murkowski and Miller would split the Republican and/or conservative vote, leaving McAdams with a winning plurality. Even without IRV, Murkowski won handily. If IRV was in place, it is a safe bet that Murkowski would have been elected by a majority vote.

The South Dakota outcome should leave us wondering what would have happened had IRV been employed. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sandlin was ousted by Republican Kristi Noem, 48 to 46 percent. Independent Thomas Marking received 6 percent of the vote.

No question that Marking’s voters wanted neither major-party candidate representing them in Congress. If they had a choice to list a second preference, would they have viewed the Democrat or the Republican as the lesser of the evils? IRV might have altered the course of the South Dakota House election.