Majority Support?

Mike Ossipoff dfb at bbs.cruzio.com
Fri Nov 8 10:18:36 PST 1996


Demorep, you were asked for an example where Condorcet or
Smith//Condorcet, without the y/n vote, would elect a majority-
disapaproved alternative, other than in a situation where everything
is abyssmally unpopular anyway. You didn't do so, so you're admitting
that you can't find such an example, right? I don't blame you
for admitting that.

But I hope you've caught on to the fact that no one is opposing
the idea of a y/n vote, with disqualification of anyone getting
"n" from a majority.

As Steve said, a proposal should be preceded by polling &
focus groups. Very likely people will very much like the
idea of adding a y/n vote, since voters have a great 
desire to express rejection of candidates, and one can't
blame them.

So no one's arguing against you on y/n.

I'm not arguing against you on nonpartisan elections, either.
When it's so hard to find a party or a candidate that one can
vote for, there's at least a bigger selection of candidates than
of parties. I voted for Nader, but otherwise left the partisan races
blank, because I didn't consider the parties worthy of a vote.

Still, I don't know that it's necessary to have a law that
sw elections would have to be nonpartisan, meaning that 
the ballot can't identify partisan affiliation & parties can't
participate in the campaigns. That might not go over well, and
the important thing is reforming the voting & count method, &
getting money out of the campaigns & media coverage. So though
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, nonpartisan elections shouldn't
be insisted on. There are much more important things to ask for.


Mike


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