Frontier Fork

Welcome to the Frontier Fork, where new ways of making decisions for the people, by the people, are proposed.

Tournament by Electorate (ToBE)

Tournament by Electorate, or ToBE for short, is a system of preferential voting where before each stage of the election, each voter selects a candidate of his or her choice and pairs up two candidates who they want to see compete. The tournament is formed stage-by-stage depending on the preferences of the voters at each stage. This works as follows:

Before the first stage, registered candidates are added to a candidate pool until a scheduled deadline has been reached. Then voters may select one candidate of his or her choice and may pair up only two candidates who they want to see compete.
The first stage of the tournament is created by first taking the candidate with the most votes and assigning him/her to the match-up most requested by voters. Then of the remaining candidates, the one with the most votes is then matched up the same way. This is repeated until there is one candidate or no candidate left. If there is a left-over candidate, that person is out of the race.
In the first stage, voters repeat the same process. They select one candidate of their choice and may pair up only two candidates who they want to see compete. The winners of each face-off are then entered into another candidate pool. Candidates from this pool are then paired-up in the same way as before. If there is a left-over candidate, that person is out of the race.
The process repeats for every stage, except at the Finals where the voters have only two candidates to choose from.
If at any stage a candidate drops out of the race, that candidate's match automatically wins that stage, except at the Finals, in which case he/she is matched with the runner-up with the most votes from the Semi-Finals.

Voters may desire to match political rivals for their own personally-held reasons:

For example, a voter may match two candidates with opposing political views and/or contrasting character, where the favored candidate is seen by the voter as being very capable of eliminating his/her competitor. (Hypothetical Example: Bernie vs. Donald)
In another example, a voter may match two candidates who share similar political views he/she agrees with, where the favored candidate is seen by the voter as underrated and the unfavored candidate overrated. Another person with opposite persuasion may decide to match these same candidates in order to eliminate one from the competition. (Hypothetical Example: Hillary vs. Bernie)
In yet another example, a voter may match two candidates with similar character, where neither candidate is favored, such that one of the candidates will be eliminated. (Hypothetical Example: Donald vs. Hillary)

The decision to match political rivals is more difficult than simply selecting a candidate, but an informed voter with a strong preference can easily make this form of decision. This gives informed voters with a strong preference more influence over the outcome of an election.