I know voting and elections are such sexy topics, which is why I want to bring it up again today!
Today’s post won’t be a long guide, but instead I want to share this must-watch, extremely informative, easy-to-follow video by Hasan Minhaj about American Elections.
Let me start off by saying that I am SO glad that this message is on Youtube and is freely accessible to everyone in the US. I truly believe that to make a change in your country’s system, you have to learn the history of how it became that way to avoid making the same mistakes over and over.
Secondly, my favorite thing about this video (and really all his other topics) is that he is teaching us about the American two-party election system and why plurality voting (vs majority voting) is the cause of so many issues we have. He touches on “negative partisanship” which simply means that our voting decision tends to swing in the opposite direction of who we HATE, rather than voting for someone who we actually like. For example, Republicans voted for Trump not necessarily because they liked him, but because they hate Democrats more.
So how do we fix this?! Hasan mentions in the video that even if we fix Electoral College, gerrymandering, and campaign finance, it won’t fix the fundamental issue. Instead he discusses a better long-term solution called “ranked-choice voting”. This is where you rank the candidates in order of your preference (essentially what majority-rules voting is), and that this is something we can do RIGHT NOW because all we need is a local law to implement it.
Couple of fun facts from Hasan’s video:
1. Trump never got a majority of voters. Only 13.5 million Americans voted for him. That’s only 5.5% of all eligible voters!!!
2. There is nothing in our Constitution says that we have to have two parties… but the reason we have this is because the Founding Fathers just copied what the British were doing even though they didn’t want the U.S. to only have two parties.
3. Maine is the first state to implement ranked-choice voting.
Since Texas Primary Runoff Election is July 14th, this is probably going to be my last post about voting until it gets closer to the General November Elections. I will do similar posts about the positions & candidates that are national, state, and local for Harris County/Houston.
If you live in Texas, I hope you got a chance to vote with ease during Early Voting. If not, the last day to vote in the Primaries are July 14th. If you live in another state, I hope you got to vote during your state’s Primaries.
I’ve been enjoying educating myself (and hopefully others) and hope to keep providing relevant, simple-but-accurate information to all.
xo,
Donna
P.S. For those who care to know, I will be voting for Biden in November. I don’t love Biden, but I believe that voting Blue is certainly a step to the right direction. I really miss Bernie.
P.P.S. I mentioned to my friend the other day that I finally understand why people ‘unfollow’ their ex after a breakup and you still have feelings for them – it’s very painful to keep hearing about them and wishing things worked out. This is how I feel about Bernie losing the Democratic vote. He was the one who got away.
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Edit 7.15.2020
Hello! Just doing a mini-edit! Below is the link to view the results for the Texas Primary Runoff Election. I believe this is an ongoing live page, so it will keep updating until all results have been counted.
Sprinkled with Pepper 