Our Undemocratic Democracy

Would you believe that in the 2016 election, the votes cast for Green Party candidate Jill Stein alone could have swung the result in favor of Clinton? Yet, the 628,129 votes cast didn’t end up making a difference because of the voting system in place. First-past-the-post (FPTP) voting is the system used within the U.S. presidential election. It’s an electoral system that, on the surface, seems straightforward: the candidate with the most votes wins. Simple, right? Well, not quite.

FPTP works by having each voter cast a ballot for their preferred candidate. The candidate who receives the most votes wins the election. There’s no need for a majority, just a plurality—the candidate with the highest number of votes, even if they don’t have more than half, is declared the winner. The system is simple and easy to understand; thus, it’s widely used. 

In theory, FPTP should be an effective way of determining which candidate has the most widespread support. However, in practice, it often fails to deliver a product that represents the will of the people; as a result, many voters feel unrepresented, especially when they support third-party or independent candidates who have little chance of winning under the winner-take-all system.

This phenomenon is a direct result of FPTP’s inherent flaws, where votes for third-party candidates often end up wasted because they don’t contribute to the final outcome. This is because these candidates typically have little chance of winning due to their obscurity or lack of broadened support. In a system where only two parties dominate the landscape, any votes cast for third-party candidates don’t help change the overall result. Voters who support these candidates often feel as though they’re throwing their votes away because they know that, in most cases, their candidate won’t come close to winning. 

Thus, third-party candidates that emerge with no chance of winning absorb votes that could potentially be a turning point in any election. As a result of this, smaller parties find it difficult to gain traction, creating a self-enforcing cycle where fear of a wasted vote leads voters to back one of the two dominant parties. This, in turn, augments the power of dominant parties and makes it even harder for third-party candidates to gain momentum.

This cycle ties into what is known as Duverger’s Law. Duverger’s Law states that FPTP voting encourages the creation of a two-party system, even in cases where multiple parties are technically allowed and present. FPTP’s design is an exact enactment of this law—if voters believe their third-party candidate can’t win, they will likely choose to back one of the larger parties so that their vote has more “value,” thus reinforcing the dominance of these two powers. Over time, this leads to a cycle where voters are forced to be strategic with their ballots and begin to vote for what the candidate they feel is the least harmful alternative. 

The candidates, themselves, can also perpetuate this when they shift too far towards extremes. This was evident in the 2024 election, during which many Americans, frustrated by the candidates’ ideologies, found themselves choosing who they thought was the “less dangerous” option rather than who they thought genuinely represented them. FPTP exacerbates this situation by limiting the voter’s ability to support third party alternatives without feeling as though their vote is wasted.

In the presidential election between Harris and Trump in 2024, a Fair Vote poll taken in 2024 found that 47 percent of Americans voted for the lesser of two evils in at least one election on their ballot; the same study found that “given a choice between only the two major-party candidates, most third-party voters would still vote.” These statistics demonstrate the impact that FPTP has on the voting behavior of the electorate and also how FPTP forces voters to pick between the two main candidates, even if they’d rather support a third party, making it even harder for other parties to break through.

Another question that arises when considering FPTP voting is whether it should be applied differently to various types of elections. FPTP voting inherently works poorly in presidential elections; it can lead to unrepresentative outcomes—prime examples are the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush or the 2016 election. Local elections, however, might still work with FPTP in some cases, particularly in smaller communities where candidates are well-known and the electorate is more homogenous.

While it is true that no electoral system is mathematically or politically perfect, there are alternatives to FPTP that aim to address its more major issues. The best replacement system is likely Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. In RCV, if no candidate gets more than half of the votes in the initial count, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and other votes are redistributed to the second choice on their ballot. This process continues until a candidate has the majority. By doing this, RCV ensures that the winning candidate genuinely has the majority support and not just a plurality; it reduces the impact of strategic voting. This system can reduce the need for strategic voting and be more welcoming to third parties. 

RCV has also been shown to be more reflective of the popular consensus. For example, New York City began using RCV in local elections in 2021, and a CUNY study found that it led to fewer wasted ballots. In Maine, where RCV has been used for statewide and congressional elections since 2018, studies have found that the system has resulted in more candidates winning the true majority of voters’ support. However, RCV can sometimes fail to produce a truly fair result. For example, in a situation where two similar candidates run, they could split the vote, leading to the election of a less preferred third candidate due how close the election was.

Alternative voting systems include approval voting—voters can select as many candidates as they approve of, and the candidate with the most approvals wins. This reduces the pressure to vote for the lesser of the two evils but can still encourage strategic voting, particularly in situations where voters feel the need to only approve candidates who have a realistic chance of winning to prevent a disliked candidate from taking the lead. The Condorcet method identifies the candidate who would win in a head-to-head matchup with every other candidate. This method ensures that the winner has broad appeal but can sometimes lead to the Condorcet Paradox, in which no candidate is the clear winner after each comparison.

That being said, FPTP is one of the most problematic voting systems in place. The pressure it places on voters to choose between the two top mainstream candidates is a direct prerequisite to the creation of our two-party state, quieting the voices of other, less dominant political entities. Even with its flaws, alternative systems like ranked choice voting remain better methods that create a greater representation of the population and promote the existence of multi-party states. Federal policies affect everything, from the quality of the education we receive to the healthcare we’ll have access to as adults. The way we vote—and the way that voting system works—affects everyone. Thus, having voting systems that accurately represent the will of the people is an absolute necessity. When a flawed system like FPTP distorts the voices of voters, we all lose.