[EM] [RangeVoting] A Voter's Eye View

[Dave Ketchum]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:33:36 -0500 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 02:04 PM 2/14/2007, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>      Plurality NEEDS Primaries to avoid having multiple related
>>candidates competing.  While other methods may also use
>>primaries, primaries provide less value for them.
> 
> 
> While it's true that primaries reduce the clone problem for 
> Plurality, that problem is more generally soluble just by cooperation 
> between candidates with similar views. Primaries are more directly 
> what they purport to be: a method for determining what candidate the 
> whole machinery and resources of a political party will support.

In NY we have two problems for Plurality that Primaries cannot solve:
      Minor parties can an do pick candidates close to, if not full clones 
of major parties.
      Independent candidates can and do get themselves nominated, and can 
be ANYPLACE in the map.
> 
> There are lots of us who think that government should get out of the 
> primary business. I'm a bit suspicious of the hand of government 
> meddling in the process by which political parties determine whom to 
> support. Rather, if people don't like how a party chooses its 
> candidates, let the people switch to a party which does better, or 
> create one. And let parties pay for their own primaries. (If the 
> state requires primaries, it must pay for them.)

In NY the state allocates ONE ballot line to each party demonstrating 
deserving that much.  That space must, somehow, get assigned to not more 
than one candidate.  While parties do have some choices, the state offers 
primaries, and permits caucuses for some offices.
> 
> The assumption seems to be that third parties can't function well 
> when Plurality is the method; it's true (mostly) when parties think 
> of themselves only as means of putting up candidates. But a party can 
> do quite well without, necessarily, running its own candidates. New 
> York has Fusion Voting, which simply means that any party may list 
> any candidate as *their* candidate. Thus, where multiple parties 
> which choose a single candidate have ballot privileges (based on 
> prior votes or signatures, I presume), the same candidate appears 
> more than once. By voting under the banner of your favorite party, 
> you indicate support for the party as well as the candidate.

Interesting detail on NY's Fusion:
      Harlem had a POPULAR, WELL LIKED, resident.  When he expressed a 
desire to become a Congressman, it happened.
      Time for reelection, his party nominated him.  Some residents of 
Harlem were Republicans or Democrats, who could not think of doing less.
      A problem snuck in.  Some in Congress thought of our Congressman as 
a Communist and DEMANDED that NY fix this problem.
      Thus the Wilson-Pakula law, which says you cannot get nominated by a 
party, other than your own, without permission from that party's 
leadership.  Minor parties gladly use this law to keep out those they do 
not like.
      But, in what might be its only use by major parties, he was kept off 
the major party lines - but Harlem residents could and did vote for him on 
his minor party line.
      Next election the major parties used fusion to share and elect a new 
Congressman - probably time for our hero to retire anyway.

NY's election for governor also allocates party privileges.  Thus Joe 
might run as Republican, Conservative, and independent to have the sum of 
three lines help his election.  Lines will get allocated by vote count, so 
Reps HOPE for top line, and Conservatives to at least retain a line.
      Complications for the independent line.  Since Joe was the candidate 
he is part of getting a party started to use that line - it can, and does, 
happen that Joe has no desire for having an actual new party, so that may 
not happen.
> 
> It provides an alternative to the spoiler effect. And when a party 
> can show that it delivered votes, it can then exercise influence. 
> What it gives today, it could take away tomorrow. Politicians tend to 
> listen to large, organized voting blocks.
> 
> In 2000, I half expected Nader to, at the last minute, withdraw and 
> suggest that his supporters vote for Gore, but send $5 to the Green 
> Party in his name, saying that they would have voted for him. Fat 
> chance. But it would have advanced the Green Party cause far more 
> than the debacle that ensued. And the money would have been better.
> 
> Fusion Voting was on the ballot as an initiative this last November. 
> For some reason, there was not extensive public debate. The ballot 
> arguments presented by the opposition were the usual sound-bite 
> deception I've come to expect in ballot arguments in general. Voters 
> will be confused, we don't need this, etc. What is odd to me is that 
> Progressives and Libertarians here did not get noisily and publicly behind it.

Its complications limit its value.  Look above at Joe - he had to promise 
to obey two masters to get nominated, and the parties had to bend a bit to 
agree as to where they wanted to lead him.
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.