VOTERS LOVE TO complain about the two-party system, which can leave us feeling stuck: Trump and Biden again? Yet most of our elections rely on a process that guarantees frustration. Plurality voting—pick one candidate and the top vote-getter wins—usually makes supporting third parties untenable, leaves vast swaths of the electorate emotionally disenfranchised, and allows a rich, bigoted reality TV star to split the primary vote, ooze on into a general election, and win with fewer votes than his opponent. But even putting the Electoral College aside, voting experts broadly consider plurality the least fair system in use, says William Poundstone, whose 2008 book, Gaming the Vote, describes superior methods devised over the centuries by mathematicians, political scientists, and reformers. While some are widely used, each has its pros and cons—and the wonky details matter.
Plurality
The process we know and loathe: Pick one, and the person with the most votes
