The Oregon Consensus Initative

[Rob Lanphier]

On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, New Democracy wrote:
>      A few days ago I receiver on another list a letter about the Oregon
> Consensus Initiative - copy repeated below. I have read and reread the post
> and I fail to see any election reform presented. I fail to see any
> improvement in democracy - on the contrary, I see less democracy.


The Oregon Consensus Initiative that you posted appears to be a form of
Approval Voting for the primary.

See http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/center.html for more
information on this method.

Approval voting for a primary while still first-past-the-post in the main
election would have some interesting effects.  It brings in some
interesting strategy dilemmas that I'm having trouble deciding if they
would be a net-positive or a net-negative.

I think it's actually an interesting initiative, and I wish them well. 
The only concern that I have is that it doesn't seem to limit the final
election to only two candidates, and so the strategy implications boggle
the mind.  In a predominantly two-party system, it might make sense to
vote for *all* of the opposition, and only the best in your own party, so
that the opposition spends all of its time running against itself, and
your party's soul candidate wins by default.

Something to consider...

---
Rob Lanphier
robla at eskimo.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~robla