Why Republicans should want range voting (Executive summary)

  1. Republicans and the USA were hurt by Plurality voting in 1912 when it caused Woodrow Wilson to be elected instead of Theodore Roosevelt, then in 1920 when the backlash from that error allowed/caused the election of Warren G. Harding, widely regarded as the worst president in US history.
  2. The Republicans may also have been victimized by Plurality in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected instead of Robert Dole.
  3. In general the better candidate usually loses in a 3-way race because he splits the vote with a popular and similar third-party candidate (who is probably more similar to the better candidate, since that was why he was popular).
  4. Range voting fixes that pathology. The cost of even a single one of these bad events hugely exceeds the cost of switching to range voting.
  5. Even without fixing the USA's system – just doing your own primary elections via range voting (much easier task) – you will be able to get ahead and enjoy huge long-term advantages over the Democrats, including significantly better chance of winning the presidency. As a start we suggest trying this in Iowa 2008. You are going to need it.

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