Presidential Platform and Voting Methods

Looking over some political platforms that previous candidates have used.
I also printed my documents for my meeting with Ms. Marberry next week.

More on the Congressional District Method used by Maine and Nebraska:
Each district is given one electoral college vote. These go to the winner of each district, and the remaining two votes go to the winner of the state overall. Since employing this method, neither state has had to split electoral votes. Because of gerrymandering, this could be a problem and misused in many states.

Direct election with Instant Runoff voting:
Ranks candidates by preference. If no candidate has a majority, the lowest scoring one is removed and the votes are recounted until a candidate gets the majority. This prevents a plurality win and can be done a nationwide or statewide scale. (for statewide, no constitutional amendment is required). For this reason, this method is popular as a candidate for use in statewide election in states that have a history of electing governors on a plurality. It is also used in Ireland and for election of the Australian House of Representatives.
(opinion in Alaska) (this report wouldn't load in class so I'll read it at home)
Pros: Costs less than a separate runoff election, prevents plurality win (cites Jesse Ventura and previous gubernatorial candidates), eliminates spoilers, increases voter turnout, one-man-one-vote, politically neutral.
Cons: Some state legislatures require a majority (actual separate runoffs), voter confusion, strange tech issues (lost electronic votes, unreliability of touch screen, etc. these are not all specific to IRV), interesting outcomes that are unintended (the article argues that spoiler candidates, which cannot win under IRV are not bad because they highlight problems with the front runners; however they do not often win under the current voting rules (ex. Ralph Nader).)

Proportional allocation:
Each candidate receives electoral votes according to the proportion he/she won from the state (a candidate who won 45% of the vote would receive 45% of the electoral votes). The biggest problem with this method is math: percentages of electoral votes would sometimes be decimals. Getting this passed on a nationwide basis would be difficult, so it would have to be passed state by state; this could give parties unfair advantages halfway through (for instance, if California switched to proportional while Texas stayed with winner-take-all).

REMINDER TO FINISH ADDING THE PRIMARY REFORMS TO THE OUTLINE