Voting, Some thoughts on new methods for an old problem.

Well it may be a slight confusion I had with exactly how it would be enacted. You said there would be a "right" and a "left".Does that mean that all parties would designate themselves left or right and then front a single candidate? Or is it that all parties would designate themselves R or L and then front multiple candidates? Or is it that there would only be two parties, R and L with a slew of candidates?Not that any of those options are bad, just that it reinforces a divisive mindset based on black and white philosophy rather than candidates dealing with issues... job performance kind of thing.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

That's actually why I brought up the overburdensome angle. Each would essentially have to be run as a full election, which is time and energy consuming.And as it is people already get burnt out with only two primaries.I think you have an interesting idea, and it would work in a nation of people who have an active interest in politics, but I fear it might have worse results for populations that don't care and whose apathy increases each step.One might remember when the "singing marine" made it past other much more talented singers on American Idol, simply because a large block of "patriotic" people decided to vote for him regardless of his performance. That could happen within multiple primaries as well, when people feel things aren't so important and can wait for later to make more important decisions.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

it means that all parties would be forced define themselves either right or left, and then it just works like normal. basically, it's just adding one more line to the ballot. maybe. but it's better than the system we have.let's face it, modern politics is rather divisive anyways. we're a two party system, like it or not. i think third parties would have a better shot in this system, but it's only designed to be a minor improvement not a complete revolution.

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אָרַח

Actually it seems to me that interest is higher during the primaries, and then drops off once the mudslinging campaigns start.I would like to keep more of that primary character through the whole election and perhaps then turnout would be higher at the finals. The histories of primaries are littered with candidates that rated high at the start but ended up as no-shows. I don't see that happening so much as having an opportunity for candidates to air a laundry list, if you will, and drive some national policy debate on such things as {energy conservation and alternate sources}, {education in science and logic}, {foreign policy driven by real american values as opposed to business values}, and the like.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

arach, I think your idea would only entrench existing political perspectives and thwart innovative political thinking. If you wish to retain your existing powerful executive system then the president should be elected through a single transferable vote system (preferential voting). The voter votes by giving his preferences 1, 2 etc. Votes are initially counted by the first preference for each candidate. If no candidate gains an absolute majority, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are distributed according to their second preference. This elimination process continues until one candidate achieves a majority of the votes cast.In practice, in situations where you have 2 major parties and one or more minor parties or independent candidates, the votes of independents or minor parties would eventually be distributed to either of the major parties' candidates. However a voter's preference for a minor party or independent would not preclude that voter's preference when deciding between the two major party candidates who would be expected to be the critical decision anyway.This system at least allows positions other than the two mainstream parties' to be recognised and supported by like-thinking voters without being disenfranchised from the main game. It is a system which allows the candidate least hated by the majority of voters to be elected.USA and UK would be more interesting places and better reflect the views of their constituents using this system than the first-past-the-post system.An even more interesting change would be to adopt multi-member electorates for the House of Reps. So in a 5 member electorate system you could see a party with more than 16.7% of votes obtaining will gain representation. Isn't this what you are hoping to achieve?

why do you say that? the major goal of the system i propose is to make third-party voting "safe." combined with third parties promoting themselves a little better, it should actually result in a larger percentage of votes for them. overly complicated. it has to be something the average voter gets. but otherwise a good idea. "trickle-up" voting we could call it. i thought the uk was plurality vote system? the way i understood, even thought there are two major parties, neither has enough support on their own without joining with other third parties. i could be totally wrong though.

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אָרַח

Pretty wrong. The elections at the constituency level are straight FPTP whichever candidate gets the most votes wins. The results of the constituency level voting determines who gets to make up the government, once again a straight FPTP issue of whoever wins the most constituencies.In terms of actually getting policy through it may be neccessary for a party in gevernment to gain third party support especially if it is a minority government, i.e. in which the government holds less than half the seats in the House of Commons. At the moment labour has a majority government with the majority being 66 seats, well down on the 179 and 165 of their previous 2 recent election victories.So in theory a government may need to form a coalition in order to maintain a voting majority, but this hasn't been the case for a long time. Some of the devolved parliaments have coalition governments, indeed in the Scottish parliament there is a Lab-Lib coalition in power, these devolved bodies are somewhat differently constituted however.TTFN,WK

oh, i see. alright then.

Overly complicate?OK, let's go for optional preferential system. Mark 1 in the box for your first preference to cast a valid vote. If you wish, you can continue with 2 for you second preference etc.You do realise these systems are used in other countries?

yes, but we americans are stupid.i mean, look at WHO we vote for...

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אָרַח

Of course, this is complicated by the Labour rebels. As a secondary note, there have been several coalition governments (notably surroundng the World Wars).Interestingly, back in the day when royalty had some significant say in the appointment of Lord Treasurers/Prime Ministers, some peculiar things happened. William IV dismissed a Whig government and replaced it with the Tory party led by Sir Robert Peel. Unfortunately for Peel he had a minority of seats and so needed to get support from the opposition to get anything done. Especially given that the Whig's had a compact with the Irish to give them even more votes.Sorry, just a random tangent there into pre-Victorian Politics.(Edit, despite mentioning William IV - Victoria's uncle - I still called it Victorian Politics).This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 15-July-2005 01:12 PM

Was Victoria as much of a reformer as William? I always found him interesting for two major reasons. One is that he was over 60 when he ascended to the throne and the second was his idea that his duty was to express and opinion and that if his opinion was not adopted, he had still done his duty.He really seemed to have a Grandfatherly outlook on Britain as opposed to Victoria who was very much the Mother.In line with this thread, IIRC it was under William IV that Britian finally established the first uniform rules for the franchise.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I believe so, and then perhaps some more. Her mentor in being a monarch was William Lamb (Lord Melbourne), who was, whilst conservative in some areas, mildly radical (can you be mildly radical?) in others. She was anti-racist (I beliee she chastised soldiers who balked at mixed raced companies) and pro religious tolerance (she guaranteed freedom of worship for Hindus and Muslims in India). IIRC, William IV did that reluctantly - Earl Grey was the man who pushed for the 1832 Reform Act (reducing Rotten Boroughs, giving Manchester, Birmingham and so on the vote etc) - and Grey was too popular for William IV to deny him support. As soon as Grey resigned, that was when William IV did the aforementioned sacking of the Whigs, and appointing of Sir Robert Peel. Ironically for William IV the person who he sacked was Lord Melbourne, who was opposed to the Reform Act in the first place.If you aren't referring to the Reform Act, I'd be interested to learn what else Uncle William got up to.This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 15-July-2005 05:31 PM

No, I was refering to the Reform Act. However his view of the Power of Monarchy certainly seems different than that of Victoria. Of course, W IV was, as I said, a very mature person when he ascended to the throne and IIRC even that was only because his brother who would have been next in line, died.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion