#339 Great.com Talks With...The Equal Vote Coalition

The race for office falls between the two major parties in the US - the Democrats and Republicans. While there are other parties, people are hesitant to cast their vote for smaller parties. They feel their vote will not count equally, so voters won't cast their vote for a third candidate on election day. In today's episode, we talked with Sara Wolk, Executive Director of the Equal Vote Coalition.

The Equal Vote Coalition is a nonprofit advocating for true equality in the vote itself, primarily through the introduction of better voting methods. Their champion proposal is conveniently called STAR Voting, which allows voters to score candidates from zero up to five stars. With STAR Voting, every vote counts, and there is no fear of wasted votes.

Fixing A Broken System

Sara says that the current voting method makes real voters perpetually disenfranchised. The fear of voting for a candidate with no real chance of winning makes voters cast their ballot for someone they don't truly believe in. There have been numerous examples in previous presidential elections where this has been the case. STAR Voting promises to address issues like vote-splitting and concerns with Ranked Choice (Instant Runoff) Voting.

STAR Voting is designed to tackle these problems and benefit smaller parties as well as the two major parties. They hope to introduce STAR Voting in Oregon to replace our current Choose-One-Only Voting and ensure our voting system satisfies One Person, One Vote.

Find out more about the Equal Vote Coalition and the problem with the current system. You can also learn more about STAR Voting and what it hopes to achieve, what the difference is between RCV and STAR, and what wasted votes mean. They also address issues like proportional representation and welcome volunteers and donations.

Click here to view this interview on Great.com.

About Great.com

Great.com is an organization aimed at solving the world’s most dire problem — global climate change. Starting in New Jersey, their mission is to take money from an otherwise harmful and greedy industry (online casinos) and move it towards a positive and good cause (solving the climate crisis). In addition to directly donating 100% of the revenue they earn in the casino industry, they also launch and manage fundraising campaigns to persuade casino entrepreneurs to donate. So far, they’ve generated over $2 million to climate research through their own donations and proceeds from their fundraising initiatives.