Alternative Voting Systems in the Early U.S.

For the TL I'm currently researching for, the Federalist Party splits into two distinct parties over the conflict between Hamilton and Adams. Vote splitting in the Congressional elections of 1800 results in a crushing victory for the Republicans, with even New England states having mostly Republican House delegations. The Federalists and High Federalists in power in these states are rightfully pissed off. They begin to adopt some sort of alternative voting system, in order to eliminate the problem of vote splitting.

I need to figure out just what that alternative system would be.

Connecticut at that time elected it's House delegation statewide on a general ticket. It wouldn't take too much of a stretch in the imagination, for someone to come up with Proportional Representation as a solution to the problem of vote splitting.

Majority voting as an alternative to plurality voting seems like a likely system to emerge. If no candidate gains a majority in the election, it goes to a runoff vote with the top two candidates.

Score voting is also a possibility, and with it's nature as a consensus voting method, it could receive support from minority parties.

My goal here, is to have America become a multi-party democracy. I'm not so sure how well runoff voting would foster the survival of alternative parties, and I am personally not a fan of Proportional Representation. Score voting would be my favorite method, out of all of them, but that would require some feat of mathematical genius, for someone to invent the method. Plus, score voting may be too complicated, for the technology of the time. Some ideas would be appreciated.
 
Score voting seems unnecessarily complicated, and I don't think the country was anywhere near stable enough to accomodate it yet. The instant runoff system could do what you're looking for, though, I think. If you're not familiar with it, voters rank the candidates in order of their preference, and the candidate with the lowest total is removed from consideration until someone has a majority. Thus, if your #1 choice is eliminated in the first round, your vote is tallied for your #2 choice in the second round, etc.
 
Maybe the Federalists in state govt. reinstate voting qualifications or make them more stringent. Property or fiscal earning requirements where standard in the north until the 1810s-1820s (although the barrier was low enough where most people could vote).

If that is impossible I think that IRV (instant runoff voting) is the best bet. Although why would this stave off of the death of the Federalists? They simply lost the battle of rhetoric, in reality a lot of Federalists were absorbed into the northern D-R structure after the election of 1800 and particulary after the "Era of Good Feelings" (James Monroe's 2 terms). For instance, Clay's American System was basically a Federalist idea, the Erie Canal was done by a D-R gov. of New York. and lastly John Quincy Adams was a Federalist in D-R clothing. Something to consider is that they didn't go away but simply changed their name.
 
Instant Runoff Voting could work. At first, I was wary that it could be done in the early 19th Century, or that it could foster a multi-party system. IRV would actually allow the precedent set by the Federalists to be followed in the future, without worry of vote splitting.
 
In those times it did. My point was that a change in structure of voting might help the Federalists but a change in the requirements to be an eligible voter most definitly would.
:confused:Say WHAT!? Most= >50%. Males =50%
if every single male could vote that's not "most". Cut out the blacks, cut out those too poor, cut out those too young to vote, and it's WELL under 50%.
 
:confused:Say WHAT!? Most= >50%. Males =50%
if every single male could vote that's not "most". Cut out the blacks, cut out those too poor, cut out those too young to vote, and it's WELL under 50%.

ok I will try this again. By the conceptions of the Day as in the late 1700s to early 1800s, the only people that mattered and could vote, hence what I mean by "most people" means the white property owners. Of course by Demographic standards, or anyone with any real shred of knowledge or moral decency realizes this wrong and not true. By the standards of the time "most people" consisted of white male property owners.
 
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