# Constitutional Amendment, 51% voter turn out required or
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [August 8, 2016, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116 "2016-08-08T06:58:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/1 "2016-08-08T06:58:45Z")
All Federal elections require a simple majority of voter turn out or the election becomes a vote of no confidence in all candidates. Should voter turn out fail to reach 51% All current candidates are out of the running and we start over with a fresh batch.
(thats the basic debate)
I know this is completely pie in the sky. My reasoning is based on my eternal desire to vote FOR a candidate instead of against one at least once in my effing life.
If voting for X to stop Y is leaving a bad taste in your mouth you can stay home and then not voting actually counts for (and against) something.
I know it needs more nuance.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/2 "2016-08-08T07:31:12Z")
Then what? What happens when the do-over actually has a _lower_ turnout because the people who _did_ turn out the first time were pissed off when the crooks found a reason to throw out their votes?
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### Author:  [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/3 "2016-08-08T07:31:27Z")
There’s already primaries.
The candidates would get worse in each successive round.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/4 "2016-08-08T07:48:49Z")
All elections include some element of voting against someone rather than for someone else. If nothing else, the opportunity to “turn out the bastards” is the fundamental strength of democracy.
But it is a particularly strong feature of first-past-the-post voting that it tends to encourage tactical negative voting, depending on how voters perceive the intentions of other voters.
Preferential systems reduce this, to the point where you can really only vote against someone by not including them in your preferential ordering: but you can vote positively for someone even if you don’t think they stand much of a chance of beating someone you don’t like, by putting them top of your preferences, but putting a potential winner that you do find tolerable but not ideal as second preference, and so on till you run out of candidates you can tolerate. A two (or three) round system, such as they have in France, does the same sort of thing, only with less room for fine discrimination.
But that doesn’t solve the problem of whether the right sort of candidates (whatever those are) are coming forward in the first place, except to the extent that it might enable you to reduce the cost of such a extended primary process.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/5 "2016-08-08T08:17:54Z")
If you want to do this, Australia already makes voting mandatory. That would be simpler in every sense than your proposal, which would probably lead to elections which never, in point of fact, _end_, merely continue cycling until all of the potential candidates are disqualified, leading to a Constitutional crisis when there’s no government in place to do anything and the system’s about to collapse.
If you want to vote _for_ a candidate, I suggest you run for elective office. That’s the only way to guarantee at least one name on the ballot you want to vote for.
More deeply, government is about compromise. It’s about having a debate and figuring out the best policy in an environment where ideas can be heard. This process will rarely produce greatness, but it will equally rarely produce monsters. It isn’t very exciting, but it’s usually a lot easier to survive than the alternatives, especially if your political ideology is disfavored.
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### Author:  [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/6 "2016-08-08T08:50:51Z")
> [@DonLogan](#):
>
> There’s already primaries.
>
> The candidates would get worse in each successive round.
Worse than what we have for options right now?
I love the idea of alternate voting methods, but in this country you get to vote for or against whomever the republicans and democrats put on the ballot for the vast majority of elections. How is this democratic again? I think you would end up with some candidates who are not party affiliated running for office if they actually had a chance at winning, which they might have after you flush the current batch of turds out of the running.
I suppose that is really my agenda, an election system that strips the ability of our 2 parties to chose who you get to chose from.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/7 "2016-08-08T09:00:22Z")
> [@DonLogan](#):
>
> There’s already primaries.
>
> The candidates would get worse in each successive round.
> [@Critical1](#):
>
> Worse than what we have for options right now?
Of course, worse. Didn’t you ever play kickball in grade school? The captains took turns choosing their teammates, and they NEVER saved the best guy for last.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/8 "2016-08-08T11:20:54Z")
> [@Critical1](#):
>
> My reasoning is based on my eternal desire to vote FOR a candidate instead of against one at least once in my effing life.
Which politician have you voted for that comes closest to you being excited about?
What happens if turnout never exceeds 51%? Do we just have Prsident Obama and Speaker Ryan for the rest of our lives?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/9 "2016-08-08T11:49:52Z")
Do we keep pouring money and time into elections?
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/10 "2016-08-08T11:56:13Z")
What does the OP mean by “a candidate”? Does he mean the Presidential options, which he notices when he awakens from his regular four year slumbers?
What we need is more people involved in the process. Who care about _every_ office and _every_ election. Who know how politics work. “What, I need to have a party affiliation to vote for a Primary in my state? How unfair!” (So get it changed.) Those ridiculous “third parties” might even become useful if they managed to win some offices. Even the non-sexy ones.
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### Author:  [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/11 "2016-08-08T11:58:16Z")
> [@Critical1](#):
>
> Worse than what we have for options right now?
Well, yes.
I don’t know for sure it’s universally true that every contested congressional seat has a Republican and Democratic primary. But when primaries occur, your most popular single candidate for each party come out the primary process.
So if neither of them wins, who runs next? You could say well, anyone can run, and that’s true, but that’s not what would happen. The next guy down the list in each party would have the best chance of winning and that’s what would happen - the loser (ie. “worse”) candidates from the primaries would step in.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/12 "2016-08-08T12:19:31Z")
I’d rather see a _None of the Above_ option on all major races. It could be tied, over the long run, to voter turnout - either 50% of eligible voters turn out, or the option goes away. If half the voters don’t care which OR neither, then it’s time for more significant electoral reform.
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### Author:  [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/13 "2016-08-08T12:21:17Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I’d rather see a _None of the Above_ option on all major races. It could be tied, over the long run, to voter turnout - either 50% of eligible voters turn out, or the option goes away. If half the voters don’t care which OR neither, then it’s time for more significant electoral reform.
Or better education.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/14 "2016-08-08T12:24:18Z")
Same thing. 🙂
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### Author:  [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/15 "2016-08-08T12:41:30Z")
In any case, the whole thing smacks of holding your breath until you turn blue.
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### Author:  [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/16 "2016-08-08T13:45:49Z")
My own favored solution is a jungle primary like they have in California now. Just put all 25 candidates or whatever on a single ballot, and the top two votegetters get on the ballot in November, unless one wins a majority.
States could still hold primaries of course, but they would be beauty contests like they were before the modern primary system. A way for candidates to get headlines and make voters think they have legs.
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### Author:  [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/17 "2016-08-08T13:55:12Z")
Since we’re dreaming, I’d like to ditch the electoral college and the presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/18 "2016-08-08T14:01:09Z")
> [@DonLogan](#):
>
> In any case, the whole thing smacks of holding your breath until you turn blue.
Better than bitching until you turn red. 🙂
> [@BlankSlate](#):
>
> Since we’re dreaming, I’d like to ditch the electoral college and the presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system.
Trimuviral Executive.
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### Author:  [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/19 "2016-08-08T14:05:39Z")
Thunderdome Congress.
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### Author:  [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/constitutional-amendment-51-voter-turn-out-required-or/762116/20 "2016-08-08T18:04:40Z")
Any election procedure that involves “If the first vote has some result, have another vote where…” can be more efficiently accomplished by a voting procedure that has one vote that incorporates both. Preferential voting or instant runoff or something else. And they do so without having to have time uncertainty (I wonder when we’ll elect a president…) or the expense of multiple elections.
All the alternate voting systems have imperfections (provably), but they’re pretty much all better than iterated first past the post.
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