Comments on: Preferential Voting: A Tea Party Plan for Victory

By: Ranked Voting Supporter

Ranked Voting Supporter — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:56:57 +0000

Ranked voting works well for everyone EXCEPT party bosses of both corporate parties. It ends the spoiler effect so you can vote for who you really want without fear of taking votes from your second-best candidate and electing the worst candidate. On the right, Tea Party and libertarian candidates can get more traction against the Republican Establishment; on the left, progressives, greens and other “radicals” can get more consideration from voters. (Sorry, you can’t help “your” side only.) Ranked voting encourages more candidates and thus a broader range of opinions, reduces the influence of big money, and leads to more positive, issue-based campaigns. Please avoid knee-jerk reactions (they use it in Minnesota, so I oppose it!) and think it through: this is an issue on which populists/activists on both the right and the left can find common ground.

By: white tiger

white tiger — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:00:47 +0000

No, no, no!
Here is the cure:
Extend the franchise only to males over 35 who have at least a highschool education, no criminal redord and own real estate. Such must also pass a true/false test on the basic facts of history, law, economics and party platforms.
Then we can say goodbye to the parties of the Egregious Elephant and the Jerkoff Jackass.

By: davod

davod — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:40:23 +0000

“Points well taken, but would it work in America? Because what we could end up with is something similar to a parliamentary system in the sense of having to form coalitions to gain a majority for passing legislation.”

The winners in a preferential voting system are the radicals who cannot get elected any the way. In Australian, it is the Greens (The are probably more, I do not know).

Money would still be a requirement and, forgive me for pointing this out, organization. How woud you like the AARP to have a few seniors as its nominated candidates supporting the AARP (Government) Line.

What about a few environmental candidates supported by the full force of the environmntal lobby.

By: Sowell Disciple

Sowell Disciple — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:38:28 +0000

Those stating opposition to preferential voting wrongly state that it would result in a parliamentary system, or that it is wrong because it doesn’t magically produce better candidates. What it does is prevent the total perversion of our system that occurs when a split-the-opposition strategy can win. When Corzine (Democrat) was running for reelection as NJ governor, he was running slightly behind the Republican, but there was a third-party candidate splitting the conservative vote. Corzine’s campaign put out robot phone calls supporting the third party candidate! Fortunately, Corzine lost anyway, but how do you preferential party naysayers feel about that scenario?

Again, here are great references on how to help institute preferential (instant runoff) voting (from my comment #36):

http://accuratedemocracy.com/c_irv.htm
http://www.fairvote.org/

By: Jack

Jack — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:41:17 +0000

Well argued piece. We need to get out of the bind of “support the lesser of two evils or else.” And no matter what you do in primaries, too often the major party nominees will be disappointing, but one will at least by better than the other.

In response to mndasher in #64, Everyone has one and only one vote with this system. No one ever has a vote cast for two people at same time (which it sounds like your system of partial votes would do, which then gets strange. Preferential voting is like a series of rounds of runoff elections, with one vote in each round.

And it’s not a parliamentary system. We already have factions in Congress – whether they have third party names or not. What we need is more elections with choices we can believe in

By: mndasher

mndasher — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:54:45 +0000

NO to preferential voting. They have that in Minneapolis and St. Paul MN. It really makes no sense. Unless you also weigh the votes. 1 vote for first place, 1/2 vote for 2nd, 1/4 for 3rd, 1/8 for 4th, etc.

A better system would be country wide closed primaries, where only those declared for a particular party could vote in the primary for there candidates. The problem we have now is cross over voting, in many areas.

The other thing needed are providing proof of citizenship and proof of residence to vote, and must register no later than 30 days before the election. If you move within that time you must vote at your previous residence’s polling place.

Once you have proof of citizenship and residence, you can vote provided you have a photo ID. Photo ID does no good unless you know the person is eligible to vote.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:43:06 +0000

#36 has the best two references explaining IRV.
One of the corrollaries to Murphy’s Law is that before you can do anything, you have to do something else first.
The problems we have today are a result of the system we have to choose our representatives. If you want to change the behavior of the players, then you have to change the system.
That means instituting IRV in each of the 50 states and that will have to be done by referendum, because the two major parties will not allow this change in the state legislatures.
I have more discussion on the topic on my blog.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:05:12 +0000

Kazooskibum:

“Matthew is wrong. The tea party movement started under the Bush administration”

Some evidence, please. I have it getting started in feb 2009.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:12:49 +0000

Doesn’t LA use this vote line up. And don’t they sometimes get to choose between 4 Democrats? How about returning to paper ballots–the kind you receive after showing your identification and that you view going into a ballot box.

By: njcommuter

njcommuter — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:21:31 +0000

TexExec:

I’d like a system where a person can have multiple votes, based on education, accomplishments, military service, etc. I saw a YouTube video before the last election in which people coming out of a primary voting facility responded to the question “Do you think Obama’s choice of Sarah Palin as running mate is good?” with YES! To give those people the same vote that I have is ridiculous.

So anyone who disagrees with you loses his vote? TexExec, you are an elitist. Whether you mean to or not, you are shilling for the Ivory Tower, the Ivy League, and the Left.

Or maybe you are just trying to get payback for the oil companies, who found Sarah Palin to be a very tough bargainer.