It's Election Day in the United States. Across the nation, millions of ballots are being cast. But what would happen if the rules of our electoral system were changed? Certain states are about to find out. This year, several places have alternative voting systems up for consideration on their ballots, and those systems could set an example for voting reform throughout the rest of the country. Short Wave producer Hannah Chinn and host Emily Kwong dive into three voting methods that are representative of those systems: Where they've been implemented, how they work, and what they might mean for elections in the future. What to hear more about the math powering our lives? Email us at shortwave@npr.org and we might cover your idea on a future episode! Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
Hey, Shortwavers.
Emily Kwong here.
It's Election Day here in the States.
If you can vote and you're listening to this, maybe you voted early, maybe you mailed in your ballot, maybe you're waiting at a polling place listening to shortwave right now.
Regardless, before you even marked a ballot, there was a choice already made for.
You, and that's the choice of which voting system to use.
Hey, Hannah Chin.
Hi, Emily.
Hannah, our producer today, is going to tell us about some of those voting systems, though.
Wait, hold on.
What is a voting system?
Good question.
So, for our purposes, a voting system is the set of rules that you use to deter the winner of an election.
And there are a lot of different rules that you can use.
So to illustrate this, I talked to a math professor at George Washington University in D.C.