Edward B. Foley, director of election law at Ohio State, Dean Michael Kaufman, Professor David Sloss, and Caitlin Robinett Jachimowicz
Edward B. Foley, director of election law at Ohio State & Charles W. Ebersold, and Florence Whitcomb Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law, presented on Common Ground Democracy on March 19 at Charney Hall as the latest installment of the Dean’s Democracy Series. The new series is dedicated to bringing us all together to explore and uphold our core democratic values, including freedom from tyranny, equal justice under the rule of law, judicial independence, voting rights, educational opportunity, reflective discourse, evidence-based inquiry, and respect for a diversity of viewpoints and life experiences.
An enthralling presentation that crossed political science to American History and jurisprudence to even data analysis ensued that left all in the room leaving better informed about our American electoral
system. Common Ground Democracy explores how to have the most minority-protecting form of majority-winner elections and an electoral system that maximizes the consent of the governed.
Foley’s presentation focused on how to find a common middle-ground candidate, someone who could bring polarized sides together. Using charts of voter distribution, Foley explored how different political systems from our current electoral system to instant runoff voting functioned. The largest section of the presentation focused on introducing a “Condorcet” electoral system to combat polarization. Foley explored how a Condorcet method, where the party that is preferable in the most pairwise matchups wins, can create a third party capable of winning elections in America and how that can reduce political polarization.