There are a few ballot ranking systems. The one I'm most familiar with is called Single Transferable Vote (with fractional transfer), which in the case that you're only electing one candidate reduces to Instant Runoff Voting.
I have a good deal of experience in it, as it was what my friends in the Green Party got us to use for the UC Davis student council. It was honestly pretty great -- we had people representing all slates elected, with majority rule and minority representation, instead of the swingy sweeps we had before. And honestly it was predictable, to the extent that I was able to run a mock election and prognosticate 5 or 6 out of 6 right based on each candidate's constituencies.
As a low level party official, I'll point out that the Democratic Party's opinion is that the current system is best, except that more people need to be encouraged and/or allowed to vote. But personally, I'd rather see us forming coalition governments instead of trapped in this cycle of us versus them. We agree, of course, that the President should be popularly elected -- but of course that means we wouldn't see another Republican president for a generation.
I have a good deal of experience in it, as it was what my friends in the Green Party got us to use for the UC Davis student council. It was honestly pretty great -- we had people representing all slates elected, with majority rule and minority representation, instead of the swingy sweeps we had before. And honestly it was predictable, to the extent that I was able to run a mock election and prognosticate 5 or 6 out of 6 right based on each candidate's constituencies.
As a low level party official, I'll point out that the Democratic Party's opinion is that the current system is best, except that more people need to be encouraged and/or allowed to vote. But personally, I'd rather see us forming coalition governments instead of trapped in this cycle of us versus them. We agree, of course, that the President should be popularly elected -- but of course that means we wouldn't see another Republican president for a generation.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto