IRV wins big in SF and Vermont

[Forest Simmons]

On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Joe Weinstein wrote:

<snip>

> Instead of focusing on political purity, I suggested that political
> activists get interested in 'election methods', as we on this list
> understand the phrase.  Or, and here is my other alternative, perhaps it's
> time for real campaign finance reform, achieved by taking money out of
> electioneering, achieved in turn by reducing the role of elections.  First,
> let's increase direct town-hall democracy.  Of course, if we go too far just
> with that, the result would be too erratic and too time-consuming for most
> of us, but to complement it we could also do something else:  choose
> legislators not by election but by lot, just as we do potential jurors.

A random sample of citizens would certainly be more representative of
the general interests of the citizens than the elite "representatives"
whose interests coincide with the interests of other elites.

If a jury of random citizens can decide cases of life and death, why
couldn't they put a little common sense into government?

At least we should have periodic "Sabbaticals" where common citizens take
over for a while to clean up things, to keep bad habits from getting too
firmly entrenched in our governments.

Some of the U.S. founding fathers thought we would have to have periodic
revolutions. These would be peaceful revolutions, and painless for all
except the career politicians.

Forest