[EM] MIT News: Math of elections says voters win with 'winner take all'

[Jan Kok]

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/natapoff.html

This is one of the WORST ideas I've seen in a long time!

In Florida 2000, about
3 million voted for Bush
3 million voted for Gore
97000 voted for Nader

Under our current system, the voters who preferred Bush and the voters
who preferred Gore had no trouble deciding how to vote, and had no
regret after seeing the results of the election. They did the best
that they could.

The voters who preferred Nader (about a million of them) were faced
with a dilemma: vote for their favorite, or vote for the lesser evil?
After the election, those who voted for Nader but preferred Gore over
Bush were probably kicking themselves for not voting for Gore. (And
perhaps some of those who preferred Nader but voted for Gore were
sorry they "wasted their vote" on Gore rather than supporting Nader!)

So our current Plurality system only causes problems for the minor party voters.

Natapoff's idea would have caused _all_ the voters to have heartburn
deciding whether to vote. And after the election, most of the Gore and
Nader voters would have regretted voting at all, because their votes
helped Bush win in the Electoral College!

In "safe" states, there would be much incentive for all but the
plurality winner's supporters to _not_ vote. (I don't presume to speak
for all voters, but I consider it a lot more important to help the
right candidate win, than to just increase my state's power in the
Electoral College.)

So Natapoff's idea would cause anxiety for a lot more voters, and
would encourage many to not vote. Sounds like a bad idea to me.

Cheers,
- Jan