There has been a lot of talk recently of doing away with the Electoral College, the actual system by which the United States selects its president. In each state the people vote not for a candidate directly but for a slate of electors who have pledged themselves to support a stated person for the position. The elector meets and vote and the person who obtains a clear majority of that vote becomes the president. In the event that no one has a clear majority the House of Representatives determines the winner. With our mature two party system there is nearly always a majority winner, but as we have seen recently and repeatedly that winner, due to the quirks of the states, their populations, and how electors are distributed, may have actually lost the national popular vote. These lesser votes winning the election results are called electoral misfires and with the current president having lost the popular vote by 3 million votes has reignited the debate about how we elect our president with many advocating for a direct popular vote. I am, in general, in favor of direct elections, but I do wonder how we might handle the undoubtedly different outcomes it would generate.

Our two party indirect method of electing a president makes candidates from third parties nearly or wholly irrelevant. With the two major parties fielding candidates that many found deeply unpopular only one third party managed ballot access in all 50 states and obtained a popular votes total of just over 3 percent. But even just that minor number of votes lost in 2016 no major candidate crossed over 50% of the vote. How do you handle the situation where no one has gotten a majority of the votes?

Do you go with simply the largest votes total and accept a minority vote president?

Do you have run offs eliminating candidate until you have a majority winner?

Do you introduce a voting scheme such as ranked choice that creates the effect of an instant run off?

All of these solutions have their pluses and minuses with their advocates fiercely defending their adoption.

Here’s an idea; after the vote totals are known if no candidate has crossed the 50% line, starting with the person with the least number of votes, each candidate assigns their vote total to one of the top two in vote total. The process is repeated until a candidate crosses the 50% mark and wins the election.

This is in one way very similar to the instant run off created by rank choice voting but with what I think is an important distinction, it is not automatic. The losing candidate elects where his votes will go and to whom he, or she, gives their support, creating an incentive for horse-trading. A candidate who campaign had been dedicated to a cause, such as global warming, minority rights, or whatever can demand tangible concession in exchange for their support, cabinet posts, legislation, and so one. This means the winner has to have not just de facto coalitional support in order to win but that those collations are explicit and thereby reducing that likelihood that they will be ignored or taken for granted.

This idea is far from perfect but I think it has promise.