[EM] RE: Approval- Cumulative Votes p.r. methods

[LAYTON Craig]

Demorep,

You don't need to convince me that proxy voting's a good idea, I agree.
However, the various formulations aren't as good as one another.

>It should be noted that I support annual elections for legislative bodies 
>(and, if necessary, recall elections) in view of the well known observation

>that long terms produce arrogant legislators (aka *politicians*).

This idea, along with the idea of changing proxy votes mid term, are ones I
have problems with.  I may be suffering from a Westminster bias here, but a
government would have trouble making any significant changes or reforms,
build up an understanding with the bureaurocracy so as to ensure that
legislation is actually implemented in the way that the legislature
intended.

One-year governments would basically be passing some token popularist
legislation, and campaigning for the next election.  There would be no
medium term accountability for the effects of legislation (ie once the
budget for one year had been passed, the effects wouldn't be felt at all
until another government was in power).  The bureaurocracy, with long-term
tenure, would basically be able to run the government, and direct the
elected officials (increased scope for corruption).

I think all these problems are actually evident in the annual elections in
Italy.  I'm not sure if they are still used, but were up to at least the
late 80s / early 90s.  There was widespread agreement amoung analysts that
this was one of the major factors for the instability and inefficiency of
the Italian political system in comparison with its European neighbours.