Question 2 on the ballot sought support for the establishment of a “ranked choice” system to evaluate results in elections. Instead of voting only for one’s first choice, the voter would also select the second and third in case the first choice did not get enough votes to win. There would then be a mathematical system to determine who is third, fourth or so on.
This was an unfortunate year to propose the change because Trump had been suggesting irregularities in the election system. Many voters were understandably skittish. Also, people reflected on the problem with the presidential election in 2000. Republican George W. Bush had 50,456,002 votes, and Democrat Al A. Gore polled 543, 895 votes more at 50,999,897. However, Bush ended up winning.
The problem was that Ralph Nader of the Green Party had tallied 2,882,955, enough to prevent anyone from scoring more than 50%. There is probably little hope for Question 2 until the voting process in the nation is resolved and modernized.
