Fishburn Rich Parties Example

[Mike Ossipoff]

Demorep's change in my example doesn't change the result. Sure,
there would be some A voters who prefer A2 to A1; & some C
voters who prefer C2 to C1. I was simpliflying.

As for not allowing partisan elections, that isn't enforcable.
You could ban the mention of a party on the ballot, &
could forbid party central committees to endorse anyone, but
you couldn't forbid candidates from belonging to a party or
supporting the platform of a party. To forbid a candidate
from publicly indicating support for a party platform would
be a violation of freedom of speech, an unnecessary &
seriously undesirable violation.

One author explained why California's municipal races are
nonpartisan, in the sense of forbidding the things 
named in the previous paragraph: He said that it's so that
voters won't understand which candidate is for what, and
so that therefore voters can more easily be led by the nose
by slick, widely distributed, election materials, things
that the big-money candidates can afford. I don't consider
it desirable to have that at the municipal level, much
less to extend it to state or national elections.

Mike


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