I have a new voting proposal.

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LKL
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11 Sep 2012, 1:08 am

John_Browning wrote:

LKL wrote:

two alternate proposals: first, instant runoff: ie, I vote for candidate x, but if x doesn't get a majorirty, then I vote for candidate y. Would allow people to vote for 3rd parties without feeling like they're 'throwing away thier vote.' Second, an end to the electoral college so that the votes of everyone, not just those in swing states, actually counts in presidential elections.

The electoral college is what insured that rural areas and interests (I don't mean lobbyists) get a say in the election.

Now it ensures that the majority of people in the country don't get a say in the election.

edit: I don't claim that it would be 'perfect,' but I do think that it would be better than what we have. It's basically caucasing written down and systematized.

SavageMessiah
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11 Sep 2012, 2:01 am

Sorry but people in rural areas predominantly have views which are skewed far away from "dynamic" issues facing most of the world today. Small hunter/gatherer communities don't really have much to worry about most of the time compared to people that are born into competitive and compressed areas with no land or even assets.

If anything, people located in statistically more stable and traditional environments should have their opinions on general welfare weighted MUCH more lightly.

Sad as it may be, when your concerns are centered only around you and your little community, it will only be a matter of time before the drooling hoards show up in numbers that no amount of barriers or weapons can protect you from. It is the interest of the dynamic masses that should be considered before anything else.

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Giftorcurse
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11 Sep 2012, 8:14 am

I'm electing Godzilla for President.

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thechadmaster
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11 Sep 2012, 8:26 am

We need to elect a president and congress that has zero political experience. someone who has never been bought by a lobbyist, someone who finds the idea of lobbyists repulsive.

i would vote in a bagger at the grocery store, or a school janitor for president before i would vote obama or romney. The bagger and the janitor both know what an honest days work is. Even if i knew nothing about the person or their beliefs, i would vote for them before a politician.

Tequila
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11 Sep 2012, 8:33 am

marshall wrote:

If you don't want to vote for a particular candidate you have the alternative option of voting against the candidate you hate the most. A vote against a candidate counts as a negative vote, cancelling out exactly one positive vote.

This is endemic in British politics and is known as "tactical voting". Officially we vote for candidates but many people here vote for a candidate not because they like them, but because they want to keep the other lot out or see them as the best of a bad lot.

Oldout
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11 Sep 2012, 10:43 am

The American people need to grow some balls and not be afraid to vote for third party candidates. In '92 Perot woke up both parties with his campain and showing in the election.

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11 Sep 2012, 11:40 am

SavageMessiah wrote:

But if you actually think about it it's the rural people who receive more subsidy on a per capita basis. They are more spread out, thus more public road, electricity, phone, etc... is spent to reach all of them. Then there's the farm subsidies.

ruveyn
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11 Sep 2012, 11:48 am

Oldout wrote:

The American people need to grow some balls and not be afraid to vote for third party candidates. In '92 Perot woke up both parties with his campain and showing in the election.

And Bill Clinton was voted in without a majority of the popular vote.

Consult Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. Bottom line the only fair vote is the majority vote on a binary issue. Two candidates or the acceptance or rejection of a proposed law, for example. Any kind of three way (or more) vote has the potential for unfairness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_im ... ty_theorem

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visagrunt
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11 Sep 2012, 12:27 pm

I'm a big fan of STV, but it seems to be doomed by its complexity.

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ruveyn
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11 Sep 2012, 12:32 pm

visagrunt wrote:

I'm a big fan of STV, but it seems to be doomed by its complexity.

Arrow proved that it is unfair.

Any form of voting other than majority choosing between two outcomes is unfair. Some schemes are more unfair than others. But nothing other than a simple majority decides two way output is fair.

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Tequila
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11 Sep 2012, 12:38 pm

ruveyn wrote:

But nothing other than a simple majority decides two way output is fair.

Do you think it's fair that, say, a party that gets, say, six times the number of votes of a party that has nine seats (but doesn't get any seats) is fair because their votes are spread out?

ruveyn
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11 Sep 2012, 12:44 pm

Tequila wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

But nothing other than a simple majority decides two way output is fair.

Do you think it's fair that, say, a party that gets, say, six times the number of votes of a party that has nine seats (but doesn't get any seats) is fair because their votes are spread out?

That is not a simple two way vote. Hence it is unfair.

Unfairness is guaranteed in any non-simple voting scheme. Read up on Arrow's Theorem.

ruveyn

Tequila
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11 Sep 2012, 12:48 pm

ruveyn wrote:

That is not a simple two way vote. Hence it is unfair.

I'm on about the constituency-based first past the post "winner takes all" system. Basically, in any constituency (which aren't always evenly balanced either - Labour constituencies tend to be quite a bit smaller than Conservative ones) the candidate with the most number of votes wins. That's it.

visagrunt
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11 Sep 2012, 2:45 pm

ruveyn wrote:

visagrunt wrote:

I'm a big fan of STV, but it seems to be doomed by its complexity.

But, ruveyn, how do you address the unfairness of the decision about which two choices are presented to the electorate? Why should I, as a middle-of-the-road, capital-L liberal be forced to choose between the Conservatives and the NDP, when neither reflects what I want?

It's no good pointing out Arrow, when Arrow is predicated on an unfairly constructed ballot.

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enrico_dandolo
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11 Sep 2012, 10:02 pm

Venice used a similar system in some cases. The winner was the one with the most positive votes, but if they had more negative than positive votes, they were disqualified.

ruveyn
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11 Sep 2012, 10:58 pm

visagrunt wrote:

So don't vote in such elections. No matter how it turns out you have not been misrepresented.

Not voting means you are indifferent to the outcome.

ruveyn

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