[halg]

A discussion about ranked choice voting. If this is the wrong forum, then moderator please move to appropriate place.

[halg]

The question before us: Can it be shown that our current "first-past-the-post" system of voting is actually unconstitutional? Mind you, we are not speaking of "constitutionality" in general terms. Rather, we are talking about what the US Constitution means with regard to voting methodology, period. Commentaries by Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, etc are welcome as inspirational input, but please keep the proof and the arguments restricted to what the Constitution actually lays out.

Thanks! I am looking forward to this debate.

[haus]

I'd be astonished if the assertion could be proven.

The U.S. constitution itself discusses the electoral college, but nothing about how individual states choose their electors, i.e. nothing about the actual method of voting.

I'm no lawyer, but I'd guess that the "first-past-the-post" method is not against federal law either. Here's the reason: if you look at a bill providing for IRV voting, it's very small -- about a page long. It doesn't change lots of existing law. This suggests -- it doesn't prove, but it suggests -- that there's not a lot of federal law about how states should count their votes. I glanced through the contents of Title 11 of the CFR (http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=%2Findex.tpl) and nothing jumped out at me.

At this point, I'm curious what problems could be found in state constitutions...

[halg]

Good! This is a start.

I rather suspected what you just said. I have read through the text of the US Constitution and found nothing about voting methodology either.

As to state constitutions, I know that AZ requires some mods to enable RCV/IRV. This bill has been introduced into the AZ legislature 3 times now to no avail. The current version AZ HR2287 is about 9 pages, 7 of which are almost entirely additions to the state Constitution.

At this point, it looks like we better concentrate on limitations imposed by the states, as you said Haus. But I'd also like to figure out an attack from the point of view of (idealized) US public policy. Maybe we can look at what the Supreme Court has said on this subject.

I will take a look at Title 11 also.

I am certain that a system of voting that allows someone as little as 34% of the popular vote to be declared a winner cannot seriously be argued to be rule by the majority.