It's extremely common for the LPKY to be asked, in a number of different ways, why we're doing what we're doing. Some ways are more pleasant than others. They range from "Why don't you use your talents in one of the two major parties" all the way to "All you Libertarians do is split the vote and you're the reason Obama was elected." (The latter was an accusation at the big Louisville TEA Party by a hit-and-run detractor who apparently said similarly disparaging things to the C4L booth).

Well, for me personally, I believe in this cause. If I didn't believe in it, I wouldn't be doing it. I'm not one to do things if I don't believe in them, and my meandering interests in most other things, through time, make the LPKY the part of my life that is the longest-lasting outside of my family.

So, how do we fix a system that is hard on so-called third parties? How do we eliminate this stupid "lesser of two evils" game, and allow people vote for the best candidate, rather than against the worst?

The simple answer: Instant Runoff Voting.

It has a slew of other names, and slight variations, but the system works as such: You rank candidates you find acceptable, from most acceptable to least acceptable. You don't have to rank unacceptable candidates.

So, as an example: if there are 5 people on the ballot, and you like 3, you would vote #1 for your favorite, #2 for your next favorite, and #3 for your least favorite.

Then, the polls close, and the votes for the first choices are tallied. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the #1 choice vote, the candidate with the least #1 choice vote is eliminated, and anyone who had voted for them now has their #2 become their #1. This is repeated until someone has over 50% of the "un-exhausted" ballots (those with no choices left).

This ensures that the most-acceptable candidate is chosen for office, but nasty tricks, such as intentionally splitting the vote (common in primaries), and compelling people to vote against one bad candidate with another bad candidate while ignoring the best candidate.

This starts to give people options and choices, and takes away the guilt of a theoretical "wasted vote" syndrome. That's 50% of the battle.

This would also work very well in primaries, where the 3 strongest candidates could split 70% of the vote, and the worst captures 30% for the win. It could also be used to completely eliminate primary elections, saving Kentucky taxpayers millions of dollars every election year.

Only until people are truly free to vote FOR someone, rather than against someone, will we really start to see real voting reform.

The next step is to level the playing field by making the rules the same for R's, D's and everyone else. That's another topic, for a different day.

Learn more about Instant Runoff Voting at Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_runoff_voting and see specific implementation in the US at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRV_implementations_in_United_States