Saturday, September 17, 2016

Ten Ideas to Make Politics Less Rotten by Freakonomics

In a poll taken in 1958, 73% of people stated they trusted the government.  The same poll taken in 2015 showed that only 19% of people trust the government.  Out of all democratic countries, the United States has the lowest turnout rates at the polls.  This Podcast hosts several different people, to include Olympia Snowe, Howard Dean, Karl Rove, Eric Posner, and more.  They all discuss ways to improve politics in the U.S. and they express their interest in which political ideas should be discontinued to “make way for a saner system”.  I decided to listen to this Podcast to learn something new about our political system and voting.  The two things that stuck out most to me were the ideas of “ranked choice voting” and “quadratic voting”.  Ranked choice voting, basically just as the name states, is a method where voters rank candidates in order of preference.  With this system, every vote counts and less votes are wasted.  Quadratic voting is where people are allowed to buy votes for or against a proposal (or candidate) by paying the square of the number of votes they cast (e.g., 3 votes cost $9). The votes are totaled up and the majority prevails.



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