[EM] direct democracy / proxy system proposal - comment

[Bryan Ford]

On Sunday 08 August 2004 23:10, Paul Kislanko wrote:
> A minor correction: http://www.fec.gov/pages/ecworks.htm points out that
> it's really the other way around. We do NOT vote for candidates, we vote
> for a "slate of electors". In Nebraska and Maine we vote for 2 "at large"
> electors and 1 elector for our district (I think if every state did it this
> way we'd have better campaigns even in this godawful system, and a
> democratic district in a mostly-republican state or vice-versa wouldn't be
> quite as dis-enfranchised as they are now).

I guess the technicalities of what exactly voters see on the ballot vary a lot 
from state to state, perhaps even locally.  While voting in Cambridge, MA I 
never remember seeing anything about electors on the ballot - though 
certainly I don't deny that when I marked "Nader/LaDuke" on the ballot in 
2000, it somehow translated into a rather futile vote for a certain set of 
anonymous (to me) electors who, if due to hell freezing over had somehow won 
in Massachusetts, could have subsequently voted however they wanted to in the 
electoral college.  (In Florida of course the ballots didn't even really need 
to mention candidates, let alone electors. :))

Cheers,
Bryan