[Peace-discuss] Here is an idea

[John W.]

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.