You raise a valid point about how Lincoln & King, could have, in effect, split the same voter base, but then that also suggest allowing people to move their vote *to* Reagan too. It’s not a valid assumption to say his vote would stay the same.

If Reagan won with 24 percent, it means 76 percent of voters were against him for first choice; so we can’t be sure that this poll really reflects public opinion. For example, given their respective records on civil rights, Lincoln (the second place candidate) would quite likely have been preferred over Reagan by most supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. So basically if the majority of voters—not a simple plurality—had to come to a consensus about the “Greatest American,” Reagan might very well not have won. We’ll never know of course, but either way we need a better system that captures the true consensus as to who the Greatest American is.

Next year, AOL should use instant runoff voting (IRV), the same system used to decide nominations for the Oscars. Sen. John McCain and DNC Chairman Howard Dean all currently support IRV.

(For more on IRV see: www.fairvote.org/irv)