[EM] New election system proposed - Larger votes for poorer people.

[Mike Rouse]

I'm curious on why you would even want to do this. Poor people are not
any more intelligent or virtuous simply because they are poor. In terms
of sheer numbers, poor people already have a larger share of the vote
than rich people. Rich people influence the poor via TV, radio, and
print, and that won't go away if you increase the power of the vote for
poor people. IMO, giving the poor a more powerful vote is one "reform"
that would not give us a more responsive government.

Still, this is a voting methods list, so the proposal is perfectly
valid. Just for fun, here are a couple more proposals to argue -- er,
discuss:

Voting power based on actuarial tables for longevity. People with a
statistically longer lifespan left get a stronger vote -- after all,
they will be dealing with the consequences of their votes for a longer
time than those at the end of their lives. Senior citizen's groups would
complain, but it would be one way of making sure the voice of youth is
heard.

Voting power based on the percentage of gross income paid in taxes minus
the amount of income derived from the government. This would partially
or totally disenfranchise government workers, those on welfare, and
people who sell things to the government. It would also give those in
the higher income brackets (at least thosee who actually pay taxes and
don't hide it in a Caribbean tax shelter)  a bigger say. Struggling for
that government contract or tax loophole could give you more spending
money but less political power. Probably would force a flat tax pretty
quickly, but an interesting method.

Or you could even combine the two -- the actuarial percentage of life
left  multiplied by the net percentage of income going to the government
is your voting power. We could have daily reports like the stock market
"White non-smoking males up 1 3/8... Latino chain-smoking bungee-jumping
females down 1/4..."

On second though, nah... I'm a firm believer that all citizens should be
equal under law, and that includes voting. It's fun to argue though.

Michael Rouse
mrouse at cdsnet.net

On Sat, 2002-09-21 at 10:26, Steve Glickman wrote:
> Hey group,
> 
> My name is Steve Glickman. I'm the president and founder of a new movement
> called the Fair Choice Party. The FCP promotes the idea of curving the size
> of vote size so that poorer people get larger votes. The basic principle is
> to establish a system where each of us is permitted to choose fairly between
> how much participation (vote) and insulation (wealth) we want. It's a
> radical new step in the direction of social justice; brought into focus
> recently by our technology.
> 
> The website is http://FairChoice.org, and for those of you who want to skip
> right to the mathematics try
> http://fairchoice.org/text/VoteScalingTechniques.html.


----
For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), 
please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em