Top-3 Voting: Video Version

Reform Elections Now hosted a discussion of this proposal.

Reform Elections Now (REN) as its motto declares, is devoted to “breaking the partisan gridlock.” I was honored to be invited to share with its members the proposal that Eric Maskin and I have developed for a “Top-3” electoral system, as described in a previous Common Ground Democracy essay. (A more extended scholarly discussion of the proposal is developed in this article to be published by the Florida Law Review.)

REN has posted a video of the discussion on its website. In addition to offering an explanation of the proposal that may be more accessible than just reading about it in print, the Powerpoint presentation at the start of the discussion includes depictions of data about the degree to which the electorates of various states are polarized on the basis of partisanship. The analysis of this data was prepared by Nate Atkinson, Scott Ganz, and John Mantus. I’m deeply indebted to them for all the work they’ve done, upon which rests my understanding of how different electoral systems function in the context of varying levels of partisan polarization in an electorate. (I also continue to be deeply indebted to Gillian Thomson’s visual display of how different electoral systems operate.)

This discussion of the Top-3 system I take to be a positive development demonstrating the increased public awareness and interest in electoral reform based on principles emanating from the work of the eighteenth-century French thinker Condorcet. One aspect of the discussion worth highlighting in this regard is what would be the best name for Condorcet-based voting systems. All agree that “Condorcet” itself is not a helpful label for American voters. I explained that in my new law review article for the Florida Law Review I am using the term “Convergence Voting” because in any Condorcet-based electoral system, like Top-3 Voting, different overlapping majorities of voters converge on a single winning candidate. Some participants in the discussion agreed that Convergence Voting is a helpfully descriptive term. Others recommend “Round Robin Voting,” which I have used in previous scholarship to describe a Condorcet-based system involving more than three candidates. I’m curious to receive feedback from Common Ground Democracy readers on what they think is the best term to use.

Another sign of increased public interest in this topic is the Washington Post’s publication of my response to a column written by three former Republican senators. Their column described their plans for a revitalization of the traditional GOP in response to Trump’s takeover of the party with his MAGA movement. The point of my response, drawing upon my recent work, is that their laudable goal is doomed to defeat without the adoption of election reform based on Convergence Voting principles, like the Top-3 proposal.