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**OCTOBER 15, 2020**

Meyerson on TAP

Election Reforms: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

When voters in Alaska and Massachusetts cast their ballots this November
(this year, it's this October or November), they'll have the
opportunity to make their future voting more meaningful. Through
measures on their respective ballots, they'll be able to enact
ranked-choice voting.

Under this system, voters can rank their preferences for a given office.
If we can bear the pain of flashing back to the 2000 Bush-Gore fiasco,
had ranked-choice voting been in place, voters who preferred Ralph Nader
but didn't want to see Bush become president could have ranked Nader
first and Al Gore second. By that calculus, Gore would have carried
Florida and we likely wouldn't still have troops in Iraq.

What ranked-choice voting does is ensure that the electoral victor
actually has the support of a majority of voters. If a candidate wins a
clear majority of the votes, they're elected. If they have a plurality
but not a majority, the lesser-ranked voter preferences are added in
until one candidate attains a majority. Such a system can bring a larger
number of voters to the polls, as they can vote both for their heart's
desire and, if need be, their heart's runner-up, as a way to ensure
that the candidate who's their stomach-turner isn't elected.

Maine has enacted ranked-choice voting; it would be good to see Alaska
and Massachusetts follow suit. As for other voting reforms that states
have adopted in recent years, there's one-jungle primaries-that
should be shunned. Enacted through a byzantine set of circumstances in
California, this system opens primary elections to all voters, which in
California has meant that, with the Republican Party effectively kaput,
pro-corporate candidates preferred by centrist and even conservative
voters can prevail over more liberal Democrats who'd otherwise be
elected. That begins to explain why a legislature that's nominally
three-quarters Democratic hasn't enacted a program to address the
state's housing crisis, or even to rein in the police.

The worst electoral "reform" of the year is that promulgated by New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's election commission, which threatens to knock the
state's progressive, indispensable Working Families Party off the
ballot in coming years. I'll have more to say about how New York
voters can keep that from happening in my next On TAP.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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How the Education Gap Is Crippling the Left

Increasingly, Democrats rely on highly educated voters to make up their
base. That sits uncomfortably with the party's historical role of
uplifting all workers. BY JEFF SPROSS

Poll Supports Biden Banning Corporate Elites From His Administration

Voters would be more likely to support Biden if his staff did not
include lobbyists or executives. BY DAVID DAYEN

The Politician as Organizer

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is spending the 2020 campaign running workshops
to help exploited and vulnerable people with their greatest challenges.
BY BRITTANY GIBSON

Unsanitized: How Biden Can Jump-Start Recovery Before Becoming President

He'll have to take on the mantle of FDR, but in a different way. This
is The COVID-19 Daily Report for October 15, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

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