[Peace-discuss] Voting

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

All of this jockeying about voting accomplishes nothing.  Without decentralized economies, no democracy 
is likely.  I think the Distributivists like G.K. Chesterton had it right in their defense of democracy as a 
matter of scale---small government and small business limit the temptations of politicians and 
businessman to aggrandizement of power and profit.

              Nick


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
To:      Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Here is an idea 
Date:    Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:47:27 +0000

> 
> What this whole discussion illustrates for me is that the vast majority of 
> us voters - even the so-called "educated" ones - don't have the background 
> in statistics and analytical thinking to comprehend or even be aware of the 
> assumptions and biases inherent in a particular system of voting.  We just 
> go and vote without giving it hardly any thought.
> 
> On the other hand, I guess there's no perfect system that will address 
> everyone's concerns.  Ultimately, if our politicians don't have personal 
> integrity and a deep concern for the common good, any system of voting is 
> going to produce flawed results.
> 
> J.W.
> 
> 
> At 02:56 PM 9/30/2007, Robert Naiman wrote:
> 
> > > > They can allocate them to the winner of the national
> > > > popular vote. There is actually a project underway, the National
> > > > Popular Vote project, to get state legislatures to do the latter. Note
> > > > that this is different from distributing its electoral votes
> > > > proportionately, but the overall result would be the same, if all
> > > > states did it.
> > >
> > > I would find this objectionable for two reasons:
> > >
> > > 1) It would effectively average out any regional or local influences by
> > > under-representing the minority candidates; it is still a winner takes all
> > > zero-sum game in which the winner of the popular vote nationally would get
> > > all the local Electoral votes from that state even if the majority of the
> > > state's voters voted for a different candidate.  The most populous states
> > > would accrue all the electoral power and run rampant over the smaller less
> > > populated states.
> >
> >The more populous states would have more electoral power (as they do
> >now), but only to the degree to which they have more people - it's not
> >obvious why this isn't fair. An additional vote in one state would
> >count just as much as an additional vote in any other state - unlike
> >the current system.
> >
> > > 2) The overall result would be the same as eliminating the Electoral 
> > College
> > > in favor of the popular vote; but it would still be a zero-sum
> > > "winner-take-all" game with no representation for the minority voting for
> > > their candidates.
> > >
> > > For example, according to your statement as to how it works ("They can
> > > allocate them to the winner of the national popular vote"), if there was a
> > > situation where candidate A gets 3 national popular votes, candidate B gets
> > > 2, and candidate C gets 1, then each of the fifty states would have to cast
> > > all their Electoral votes for candidate A even if that candidate got no
> > > popular votes in the particular state.  This is not a very fair and
> > > representative process.  Might as well be a one party state in which the
> > > competition takes place in a national primary on the old southern model.
> > > Let's make political parties illegal and have a national popular election
> > > where people write-in the name of the person that they want without having
> > > nominations or campaigns. Eliminate the middle men and processes! :-)
> > >
> > > Another question comes to mind given a scenario like my example.  In my
> > > example, candidate A would only have a plurality of the votes of those
> > > voting and not a majority since candidates B and C together would also have
> > > 3 popular votes.  Would the allocation of a state's Electoral vote be based
> > > on a national plurality or a national majority of the votes cast by voters?
> > > Maybe we should make it a plurality or majority of the citizenry in the
> > > country of voting age with a national voting age in play so as to take into
> > > account those who find none of the choices acceptable for whatever reason?
> > >
> > > The point is that this scheme does not produce the same results as
> > > proportional representation and cannot as long as it comprises a zero-sum
> > > game where the winner takes all the Electoral votes based on a plurality or
> > > even majority of the national vote which biases the election toward the
> > > larger and more populous states.  It is further undermined by the fact that
> > > the whole election process is rigged toward advantaging and recognizing the
> > > main established political parties and their candidates both at the state
> > > level and the national level to the disadvantage of the third or minority
> > > political parties and independent non-affiliated candidates.  The net 
> > result
> > > is that the persons elected to the offices of President and Vice-president
> > > given the nature of the zero-sum game and the elimination of multiple
> > > competitors for the positions in the election give the winner the 
> > appearance
> > > of legitimacy and strong unified support when in fact this is not the case
> > > but merely an artifact of the system and process.
> >
> >It's true that the national popular vote, which is about electing the
> >president and vice president, does not incorporate proportional
> >representation. But that's true of any scheme for electing a single
> >executive officer - at the end of the day, it has to result in a
> >single winner, and in that sense, at the end of the day, it's going to
> >be "winner take all," regardless of the intermediate steps to get
> >there.. One could, however, incorporate the plurality/majority concern
> >through an instant-runoff/preference voting scheme, guaranteeing that
> >the "winner" would have a majority in some sense, rather than just a
> >plurality.
> >
> >There would be an indirect benefit of a national popular vote for
> >third parties and independents, even without an IRV scheme - it would
> >take away some of the heat about being a "spoiler" - the current
> >set-up, as we saw in 2000, can magnify small differences at the state
> >level in a close election. In a national popular vote scheme, Gore
> >would have been elected president in 2000, regardless of Florida,
> >Nader, butterfly ballots, hanging chads, SWP, Jews for Buchanan, etc.
> >etc.
> 
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