Selling the Citizenry

The first hurdle in establishing a CondorcetThe general term for any election method that uses ranked ballots and has, as it's first princple, the Condorcet Criterion: any candidate which beats every other candidate individually must win the election. Any Condorcet method must come along with an ambiguity resolution procedure for cases in which there is no winner by this first criterion. system in large-scale elections, in particular the presidential election, it is necessary to convince nearly the entire citizenry that Condorcet is a good idea. There are several steps in this process.

Start Small: Regions and Primaries

The first step is to begin the trend where it does not require substantial upheaval. For example, individual cities might start implementing it for city-level positions, slowly working up to more significant races.

An excellent place to start are primary elections. There are two reasons that the primaries are particularly fertile to sow the seeds of Condorcet.

• Strong incentive for the Major Parties. In nearly no election would Condorcet be more beneficial than in the primary elections. In the primary election for the major parties, there are many candidates of very much overlapping traits, thus vote-splitting effects are extraordinary. Condorcet would allow the parties to select the strongest possible candidate in a hugely more effective way than plurality.
• Less red tape. Since the parties are essentially free to nominate whichever candidate they choose, it is very easy for them to change the way in which they will do this nomination. No constitutional amendments, laws, or campaigns are necessary, only a rational decision by an organization.

If You Build it, They Will Come

Once Condorcet begins to develop on a small scale, its merit will become obvious to the citizens, and especially to those high up in Government. In particular, one of the major parties can be convinced to implement it in their primary election, the other will likely soon follow, and once the citizens are convinced, it should only be a couple election cycles before elected officials take note and begin the political action necessary to implement Condorcet in more and more significant district, state, and eventually federal elections.

The Status Quo

There remains the risk of those politicians that benefit from the status quo. In particular, the major parties will not be receptive to the implementation of a system that benefits third parties. Thus the initiative must come from the citizens, because once elected officials realize that they will not be elected at all if they do not catch on, then true action can begin.

Moreover, while it is true that the major parties will be damaged in the long run by a system such as this, it may be initially attractive simply for the elimination of third party spoilers. The Democratic party in particular, which has suffered most in recent elections from “vote-stealing” by the Green party, would probably be eager to be rid of this crutch.