Yesterday I recommended that we go to a runoff process in the election of our president. Today I’m saying that Florida should go back to holding runoff elections for state and local offices. We used to have runoffs but our legislators eliminated them. Runoff elections cost more but the real reason they were eliminated is that runoff-less elections favor incumbents.

Incumbents running for reelection can generally count on getting about a third of the vote without lifting a finger. There are a lot of mindless voters out there. If even a struggling incumbent lifts a finger she can probably pick up a few more votes. This just about guarantees an incumbent 40 percent of the vote — provided he is not in jail. This means that all the challenging candidates have to fight over the other 60 percent. For one of them to win he has to hold all the other challengers to less than 20 percent. This is difficult when there are more than two challengers.

Consider these results from a race that includes the incumbent and four challengers:

In an election without a runoff this incumbent retains her office despite the fact that 60 percent of the voters wanted someone else to hold the office. In a runoff Challenger 1 would stand a very good chance of defeating the incumbent. Forty percent of the vote is a very weak showing for an incumbent.

A runoff election process won’t hurt deserving incumbents. In fact, a popular incumbent will probably be elected without having to compete in the runoff. A runoff will make it easier to get rid of unpopular incumbents. But then they are the ones who got rid of the runoff process.

Let’s level the playing field by returning runoff elections to Florida. I can think of many better ways to save money than by corrupting the election process.