Revised Amendment XXVIII

After discussing it with a friend, it became obvious that there was a problem with the run-off method in my proposed amendment: basically, that getting people to go out and vote a second time in the case of a run-off would be difficult for many people. So, instead, there needed to be some way to have that run-off election without having an entire second Election Day.

I've edited the amendment to reflect a better system:

The President shall, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

All eligible voters within the Unites States, its Territories, and all its Possessions, may vote by ballot. On those ballots, the voters shall rank their choices for President and Vice President in the order of their preference, and their choices for President and Vice President shall be distinct. The highest-ranked choice for President on each ballot shall count as one vote for that Person, and the Person with the greatest number of votes for President, shall be President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of votes counted; And, if no Person has such a majority, then a second tally shall be taken using the same ballots as the initial tally, with this second tally featuring only the two People with the highest number of votes for President from the initial tally; And each ballot shall count as a vote for whichever of these two Persons are ranked higher on that ballot; And the Person with the most votes for President from this second tally shall become President. The highest-ranked choice for Vice President on each ballot shall count as one vote for that Person, and the Person with the greatest number of votes for Vice President, shall be Vice President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of votes counted; And, if no Person has such a majority, then a second tally shall be taken using the same ballots as the initial tally, this second tally featuring only the two People with the highest number of votes for Vice President from the initial tally; And each ballot shall count as a vote for whichever of these two Persons are ranked higher on that ballot; And the Person with the most votes for Vice President from this second tally shall become Vice President. If, during a second tally, a ballot does not contain the names of either of the two Persons, that ballot shall count as abstained and neither Person shall receive a vote from that ballot.

So, in short, you rank your preference for President, and if no candidate is the top choice for over 50% of the voters, there is an immediate run-off election between the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the initial election.

I'm personally not a big fan of ranking things. For instance, while I could give you a list of my favorite movies, I don't think I could then rank that list in order of most favorite to least favorite. However, I don't think that would be a problem for most people at the voting booth--I think it's much easier to rank politicians than to rank movies.

Importantly, it would allow people to vote with their heart first while still not throwing their vote away if their preferred candidate does not secure enough votes to win.

Also, if there's someone you simply can't imagine winning (or, if you simply don't know anything about a certain candidate), you can simply not rank that person at all.

Here's how it would work, using a sample election:

Here we have 12 voters, most of whom ranked candidates differently from each other, and all of whom decided to simply not rank at least one person (especially since ranking a person #4 of 4 is basically no vote for them at all).

In the initial tally, we only pay attention to everybody's #1 choice:

Since there are 12 votes total, a candidate would need at least 7 votes to win outright. Here's the tally:

• Gary Johnson: 3 votes
• Hillary Clinton: 4 votes
• Donald Trump: 4 votes
• Jill Stein: 1 vote

Nobody has 7 votes, but Clinton and Trump are have more than anyone else, so the next tally will only include those two candidates. Each ballot will only count for Trump or Clinton, whichever is ranked higher on the ballot:

One voter ranked neither Trump nor Clinton, so they have abstained from this vote and brought the total number of voters down to 11, meaning a candidate only needs 6 votes to win. The tally is:

• Hillary Clinton: 6 votes
• Donald Trump: 5 votes

So, in this case, Hillary Clinton would win.

All things considered, I think this method is fairly easy to understand, but let me know if this is at all confusing.

One major problem I foresee with something like this is how I don't think most voting booths are currently set up for a ranked ballot. I think many polling places are moving toward a digital system, so it wouldn't be too difficult to reprogram them to work with a system like this. However, unless I'm mistaken there are still many places, especially in poorer districts, where they still use analog voting machines that may only be capable of binary choices.

On the other hand, this might be a convenient excuse for those districts to request federal funds to upgrade their voting equipment!

In any case, this amendment is still a work in progress. Feedback is welcome and appreciated!