Connecticut will hold primaries on August 14 to determine which candidates get on the ballot in this November's midterm elections. Since Connecticut runs a closed primary system, only voters registered with a party get to vote in that party's primary. Unaffiliated and Independent voters are out of luck.
That's not the case in every state. Colorado for the first time last week allowed unaffiliated voters to choose which primary they'd like to vote in. The hope is that the high number of unaffiliated - and largely uninterested - voters will engage with the process.
It's not a surprise that people are losing faith in their vote: nasty campaigns, polarizing candidates, and the dearth of strong third-party candidates challenge the most steadfast voters among us.
It turns out that all the things we dislike about elections may be a symptom of election methods that are mathematically-wieghted to lead to unfair outcomes. A new model may bring more choice along with fairer results. We talk about that.
We also talk to Maine, the first state to use ranked-choice voting in a statewide election.
GUESTS:
- Ryan Anastasio - Runs Raving Ryan, a website about Connecticut politics that includes interviews with many of Connecticut’s political leaders.
- Christoph Borgers - Professor of Mathematics at Tufts University and the author of Mathematics of Social Choice: Voting, Compensation, and Division
- Steve Mistler - Chief Political Correspondent and State House Bureau Chief at Maine Public
- Seth Masket - Professor of Political Science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver
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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show
