The Beer Election

Breaking news: out electoral system is broken. Okay, maybe that’s old news.

Today, I went to an event hosted by Ranked Choice Voting Massachusetts. They recognise that everyone has at least one important issue that they advocate for, maybe inequality or environment, for example. But at the end of the day, it comes down to our elected representatives. And those folks are asleep at the wheel. So elections matter. And there’s a better way.

Ranked choice voting is a simple fix, in which you vote for your top choice, as usual, along with your #2, #3, etc. If no one gets a majority, the bottom vote getter is eliminated and his or her #2 votes get added to the tally. And so on, until someone gets a majority. And it’s not a pipe dream. A number of cities across the country use it. And Maine just passed a resolution to use it for state-wide elections. 

The best thing about this event, though, was that we all used it to rank our favorite beers at Aeronaut Brewery. You can see the ballot in the photo. Unfortunately, just like a political election, I didn’t stick around for the final tally.