It’s 2024. Welcome to the oldest and worst race in Presidential history.

How the fuck did we get in this mess?

Two parties; one vote.

Political parties have always sucked. Time has only made them worse. More partisan, more extreme. All the incentives are ass backward.

Candidates can’t get elected if they don’t survive the primary. They all get filtered through only the nuttiest of the nut bags who dedicate their lives to party intrigue.

By the time we get to the actual election, we only have two bad choices.

But there is a funky little way to improve this mess. Let people vote multiple times.

Or at least for multiple candidates.

Like picking appetizers with friends, lobby for the wings as your top choice and settle for the mozzarella sticks. Pray to your non-existent god, the vegan douchebags don’t all vote for the tomato caprese.

That’s right. It’s called ranked-choice voting.

No, it’s not going to save America from the red-hatted fascists. We gotta keep the orange farter from returning to office to do that.

But it may bring more power to the middle and limit the stranglehold the party extremes hold over candidates at all levels.

Here’s a quick picture of how it works.

Best visual explanation I could find — stole it from Rock the Vote.

Here’s a video from universal basic income guy Andrew Yang. Sure basic income had a lot of flaws, but it’s a decent idea. In this video, Yang has some details and examples of how ranked choice has already beaten back the Sarah Palin zombie invasion from Alaska.

Ranked choice works best without a primary. Get enough signatures; get on the ballot.

While the usual fascists on the right or socialists on the left, may pull their 5-30 percent from either extreme, they’ll have a hell of a time getting to 50 percent.

Running down the middle is the best path to 50. Sure you may not be Numero Uno for the crazies, but maybe you will get sloppy seconds from enough people to pull a majority.

Maybe even a slightly Red candidate can win a Blue state or even a democrat can win in Alaska.

Letting voters set their own priorities is a receipt for rewarding the moderates.

People may not LOVE the middle, but they will pick it second or third over a complete wacko from the other team.

If nothing else, it may break this stranglehold the two parties have imposed on the American electorate.

Independents may have an easier time getting to 50 percent without carry the water from either party. Party people may be more willing to rank an independent 2 or 3 if their own party only has one dog in the race.

Political polls really suck. Rank choice voting makes them suck harder. When people can set their own priorities, the number of variables vastly increases in each poll. Rendering polling just about useless (FINALLY).

We can only hope polls will suck so bad people will finally stop “believing them” and support the candidates they believe in rather than only supporting candidates they believe have “a chance” to win.

Imagine if I’m 2024 we had 5 or 6 candidates to pick from who had an actual chance of winning.

Instead of third party candidates being outlandish libertarians calling taxation theft or Green Party fanactics trying to kill all cars, we could have a few candidates who are too young for social security and don’t believe in party politics.

Rank choice isn’t perfect. I’ll let others list the potential negatives. But it’s way better than the shit we have now. At least it’s one step better than “none of the above.”

We should give it a try.