Okay, so anybody can say that something is fair and balanced, but backing up that claim is another story. What makes my proposed electoral reform idea fair and balanced in comparison to the system currently in use in the United States of America is that it gives a clear voice to those who's wishes have been squelched or distorted by the process itself and then further distorted by parties and politicians taking advantage of that flaw in the system. By clarifying the voice of those who's intended votes have been distorted, the overall picture of what the voters really want becomes much more focused, so that everyone who chooses to vote at all can be better represented, making it likely that more people will choose to vote.

There are several forms of vote distortion going on in the current plurality voting system used in the Unitited States of America, but the most profound is that of intended votes against one candidate being converted into votes incorrectly represented as in favor of another candidate. Many people choose to not vote at all rather than to cast such a distorted vote, while many others fail to even realize that their intended vote is being distorted. There are many possible ways to implement a solution to such a problem, but the basis of any such solution should allow voters a balanced set of options when it comes time to actually cast a vote.
The very idea behind voting is to peacefully resolve differences of opinion, so in order for voting to be of the most value it should allow the best possible representation of the individual opinions under consideration. Of course, in the real world there are costs to be considered in collecting such opinions and calculating the most mutually tolerable compromise. For this reason, I offer as a first step in improving the election system used in the United States of America, the simple idea of adding a negative vote option. At a minimum, those voters who favor a specific candidate more than they favor or oppose any other candidate should be allowed to place a vote in favor of that candidate, and those voters who oppose a specific candidate more than they favor or oppose any other candidate should be allowed the option to instead place a vote in opposition to that candidate, so that an equal number of voters mostly in favor of a candidate to those who are mostly in opposition to the same candidate would achieve balance with regard to that candidate and together would neither increase nor decrease the chances of that candidate winning the election.

In addition to the issue of improving balance by allowing both positive and negative votes within the system, which would increase political diversity by removing some of the unfair advantage currently associated with a party being among the two most frequent winners in recent history, I would also like to suggest that voters could be better represented if also given the option to split their vote amongst two or more choices and yet maintain the influence potential of any other individual voter, and I would like to suggest that a popular vote count should be sufficient to represent the wishes of the people without having to be filtered through an electoral college, and that the nominee of a particular political party should be decided by that political party in their own way but that a single nation-wide primary election could be held before the general election without regard to political parties, and the data from that elecection would be made available to the public to be used by any entities or political parties as they see fit to aid them in making decisions that may effect the general election. In other words, the election would be two stage, with the first stage having less stringent requirements for candidate participation and producing non-binding results. Each of these stages should offer at the very least a balanced set of voting options for each voter to choose from.

Donald A. Kronos, Ph.D.

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Here are some links to more detailed papers on my electoral reform proposal and a related electoral reform blog...

Negating Election Negativity - Kronos Electoral Reform, Step 1
http://sodahead.com/blog/15225/

Two Stage Popular Vote - Kronos Electoral Reform, Step 2
http://sodahead.com/blog/15327/

Splitting Votes - Kronos Electoral Reform, Step 3
http://sodahead.com/blog/15328/

Simple Electoral Reform for Fair and Balanced Elections
http://sodahead.com/blog/6690/

Feel free to share them, and if you agree with any part of my electoral reform then please help me to promote at least that part until it gets formally considered by the United States government (or perhaps your own country's government if you are from another country and think it would be good there too.).

Thanks.