Expanding reform by a few

[Mike Ossipoff]

Having criticized another letter from Don as another one of his
jokes, or coynesses, or whatever, I should add that this particulr
letter, the one whose sugject line this reply is to, actually
does contain a good idea, in principle at least, and presumably
was written in one of Don's more serious moments.

But, for one thing, small parties aren't noted for their ability
to co-operate, not with eachother, or even among their own members
usually. That would make the idea impossible unless it can be
somehow overcome.  The other problem is the practical problem of
conducting that vote. We wouldn't have the use of the govt-funded
primary, so how would such a big election be carried out. Small
parties tend to not to be able to afford to write to all their
registrants. Maybe it could just be conducted among the active
members, the few active people who can be reached easily by
local central committees. There'd have to be some way of verifying
the validity of the ballots, since parties would have a very big
incentive to falsify ballots.

If the verification problem could be solved, and statewide party
organizations & local central committee members wanted to gather
those ballots, then the remaining problem would be the big problem
of small parties' inability to co-operate. 


Mike


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