Almost everyone agrees that we just finished the most painful election season in anyone’s living memory, an agony made worse by the fact that it was nearly two years long. Fortunately, we aren’t doomed to repeat it, as we know many other countries have shorter and more civil election campaigns. Three changes to our method of electing presidents could reduce costs, save time, and make the process less divisive and alienating to voters.
First, we should replace individual state primaries with a national primary in June. Individual primaries not only stretch out the election season and give a few states inordinate say in the nominations, they promote divisiveness because they force presidential candidates to concentrate on local issues that are really outside the scope of the office of the president.
Second, we should abolish the electoral college. Hillary Clinton won at least 200,000 more votes than Donald Trump, but this is the second election in sixteen years in which the winner of the popular vote didn’t win the election.
