Voter turnout for Tuesday’s primary was dismally low. Polly is incensed, and I agree with her. There’s no excuse for the 82% (85% county-wide) of registered voters who did not make it to the polls. As far as I’m concerned, not voting is like spitting on a veteran’s grave. All those men and women fought and worked and died in many and various wars to preserve our freedoms, but you — you can’t even walk or drive a couple of blocks to a polling place?

I’m going to talk about some flaws in our election system, but don’t get the idea that these flaws are an excuse not to vote. They aren’t. I don’t care how disaffected you feel, blowing off your civic duty is not a solution or some courageous form of protest. It’s a cop-out. You’re part of the problem.

Nevertheless, I think some election reform is in order.

Our current voting system is “winner-takes-all.” Thus, in the Republican primary, even though Judy Barr Topinka didn’t win a majority of the votes cast, she won with a plurality, a mere 37.7%. Before the election, Oberweis was running ads saying “a vote for anyone but Oberweis is a vote for Topinka,” and that was sadly true (although one could have said that about any of Topinka’s rivals). But why should we be limited? 62.3% of Republican voters didn’t want Topinka, but she wins under our winner-takes-all system.

It doesn’t have to be that way. It would be fairer and more democratic for Illinois to implement Instant Runoff Voting, or IRV. Under this system, voters get to rank the candidates in order of their preference (first choice, second choice, etc.). If one candidate gets over 50% of first-choice votes, he or she wins. If no candidate gets a majority, then an “instant runoff” takes place.

Here’s how an instant runoff works: The candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated. Those who voted for that candidate as their first choice then have their votes distributed to their second choice candidate. Then the votes are tabulated again to see if any of the remaining candidates now have a majority. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority of the votes. There’s a good multimedia explanation of how this voting system works here (requires Flash plugin).

Doesn’t that sound fairer? I like it because you could vote for that underdog you really like the best without throwing away your vote. Wouldn’t all you disaffected voters feel more motivated to go to the polls under this type of system?

Of course, to get legislation adopted that will allow for IRV, you’d need to (*ahem*) vote for candidates under our current system that will propose and pass such legislation.