What about a meta election?

[Bart Ingles]

Charles Fiterman wrote:
> 
> At 02:43 AM 10/3/98 EDT, you wrote:
> >Any tiebreaker must obviously be mathematically understandable to John/Mary Q.
> >Voter with 100 political I.Q.'s.
> 
> By the definition of I.Q. half the voters will have
> over 100 and half under, its a median. As an election
> judge I can attest that 90% of the problems in an
> election will be due to the bottem 10% on the scale.
> 
> You can't disenfranchise people just because they
> don't understand some complex system.

IMO "consent of the governed" requires that most (by far) of a
population understand something as fundamental as how their votes are
being counted, how the system can be manipulated, etc.  I believe this
is a responsibility that goes along with voting.  It is not enought that
the 90% simply know how to physically enter their votes.

Sending the votes through a "black box" will also tend to weaken the
public's confidence in the outcome, especially in close races, or when
results appear to be counter-intuitive, or event when they differ from
pre-election polls.  Could a situation arise where the public trusts
poll results more than the actual election?