This week's column

Hoping for a meaningful election

Each GOP primary produces a new winner, none of them the longtime national frontrunner. Meanwhile, the Democrats feature a tight race between an African-American and a woman -- pure history in the making. It can't get any better than that, the upshot being I might actually cast a ballot that matters for the first time in my life!

Some background:

I've never lived in one of those early primary states. Though I've dutifully voted in the preliminaries, I always went into the voting booth knowing beforehand what the next day's headline would read. That's pretty boring for a political scientist.

Read on at KnoxNews.
Read on at Scripps Howard.

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Any chance in the current array of a "Majority" President? Doubtful!

[Tom Mull]

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) as an electoral system (in both its Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for 1 position and Single Transferible Voting (STV) multi position versions would go a long way to give voting choices. With 3 or more rep positions per district there would be a rep from both partys. Check out: http://www.fairvote.org/

[Sean McPhail]

Surely the congressional return rate is propped up by endemic gerrymandering of congressional districts as much as by the wider social pressures mentioned?