The Orgeon Initiative Revisited

[New Democracy]

Dear Hammernet List and Jack Alan Brown Jr.

     I have read and reread the post on the Orgeon Consensus Initiative and
I fail to see any election reform presented. I fail to see any improvement
in democracy - on the contrary, I see less democracy.

     If this initiative passes it will be possible for a minority, but well
organized number of people to steal the primary and in turn steal the
General Election. A primary election only has about a twenty percent
turnout. It would be possible for a determined group to gain for their
candidate a simple majority of yes votes and to impose on every other
candidate a simple majority of No votes. These no vote candidates would not
be allowed to run in the General Election. In spite of all the hype in the
article this is not election reform - it is a play for power by somebody.

     If you are honest about election reform then do the following:

     Do Not have any separate primary election.

     Allow more than one candidate to run from each party.

     Do not have any party markings on the ballot.

     Allow the voters to make a series of preferences as they vote. The
preferences will collect all the votes of a party and put those votes on
one candidate of the party - this is the primary - right inside of the
General Election. Then it will be a question if these votes are enough to
win.

     Use Preference Run-off (Instant Run-off) to reduce each single seat
race down to one candidate. Use Preference Voting for any multi-seat races.

     You people should have floated this proposal before making it into an
initiative. It is a shame that all this effort is being used - for a loss
of democracy if it passes.

Sadly Yours,




Donald Eric Davison of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald

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