The limits of pragmatic decision-making

We are generally pragmatic decision makers, neither totally calculated and logical, nor entirely irrational. But our pragmatism has limits, and there are some decisions for which we are ill equipped.

I feel for the American voters, who have just gone through the experience of one of the most agonizing presidential elections ever. I feel for those who faced a hard choice between either not voting at all, or voting for the ‘least worst’ of the presidential candidates. I also feel for those who found voting easy because there was only one candidate they could possibly ever vote for.

The US electoral system does not help. In all but two states, the candidate who wins the popular vote gains all of the state’s electors — the winner takes all. (In Maine and Nebraska, two of the electoral votes are allocated in this way, with the remaining two/three going to the winner in each of the states’ two/three congressional districts. This can give up to one/two electors to the candidate who comes second in the state.) In this system, the votes of tens of millions of people have absolutely no significance if they live in states with a large majority for one of the two main candidates. Whether the losing candidate gets one vote, or…