Making Elections Better
Choosing an electoral system is among the most consequential design decisions for a democracy. At Texas Tribune’s TribFest 2025, Senator Joe Manchin, Nobel laureate Eric Maskin (Harvard), Mark Strama (UT Austin), and Melody Barnes (University of Virginia) dive into how voting rules create incentives that shape which candidates are on the ballot, how candidates and their parties behave in campaigns, how much say voters have in the outcome and even who wins, with significant implications for representation, fairness and accountability.
The panelists also discuss why plurality often rewards intense bases and extremism, how Instant Runoff (IRV) can still miss the broadly preferred candidate, and why a head-to-head “Consensus Choice” approach could improve representation and reduce political division.
