[EM] affects of IRR(V) and meaning of democracy

[Dave Ketchum]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 08:05:58 -0700 Dr.Ernie Prabhakar wrote:

> Hi Dave,
> 
> On Sep 20, 2004, at 11:51 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>> . Nominating more than one
>>> candidate would mean splitting the available campaign funding,
>>> plus it would make it more difficult for voters to become
>>> familiar with all the different candidates and decide which
>>> ones they prefer and in what order.
>>
> 
>> Goals:
>>     Good to let a party nominate more than one candidate, for you can 
>> then do away with primaries.  Also need to allow nominations outside 
>> the party system for starting new parties and responding to dissension 
>> within parties.
> 
> 
> With you so far.
> 
>>     Need to limit candidates to a quantity for which campaigning is 
>> affordable and for which it is practical for voters to evaluate 
>> candidates.
> 

I interpret what follows as a misunderstanding of what I wrote.  I will 
try some more. but my intent was goals without being restrictive as to 
methods.

Elsewhere I wrote of petitions as a desirable method.  They demand that a 
wannabe candidate demonstrate approval by a quantity (percentage) of 
voters - eliminates the worst lemons without exposing them to studying by 
all the voters.

I have nothing against consideration of other methods.

> 
> I disagree. The need to consolidate funding may be in the interest of 
> the *party*, but (in a non-plurality voting system) I don't see how it 
> is in the interest of the public.  Why should the public pay for that?  
> Why not have each party do their own thinning, using direct mail or a  
> web survey or whatever?  That way, candidates who lose the "primary" 
> could still legitimately run in the general election, and only be 
> challenging the party machinery rather than "the will of the people."
> 

First off, the public, collectively, pays ALL that the parties and 
candidates, collectively, spend.  The public, collectively, invests ALL 
the time that gets invested in sorting out the candidates.

I said nothing:
      Against a party doing thinning by some method they choose.
      Suggesting even permitting a numeric limit on nominations by a party 
(though I suggested 20 as a possible limit on total nominations).
      Or permitting a numeric limit on non-party nominations.

Party machinery can deserve some laws.  I would fight against making it:
      Too hard to nominate an officer for a second term.
      Too hard to nominate competition for such an officer.


> And, the issue of confusing voters is way overrated.  Its hard to 
> imagine a wackier situation than the rushed, unscheduled recall we had 
> in California with 135 candidates.   But, everyone who cared soon knew 
> there were only five or six  candidates worth worrying about.  Yeah, 
> voting on the huge form was a pain, but a minor one.   Not worth any 
> sort of artificial constraints.


Seems that, by some unspecified method, the effective list of candidates 
got thinned.  How confident should we be that all the winners were more 
deserving than all the losers (you never get perfection, but the above 
reads as if many never got a close look).

> 
> I agree we need to be sensitive to needs of voters, but I also don't 
> want to condescend.   My belief is that people have a hard time 
> following politics not because they aren't smart, but because they don't 
> care.  If you successfully engage people's emotions and passions -- and 
> make it easy for them to do the right thing --- they'll be willing to 
> engage their minds.  Just ask Joe Six-Pack how far his team is from the 
> playoffs.


Agreed we need more attention to attracting interest.  Still, remember 
that  Joe Six-Pack usually studies only a subset of all the teams of 
possible interest.

> 
> -- Ernie P.

-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
                  If you want peace, work for justice.