[EM] Electoral College (was Re: Voting by selecting a published ordering)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:02 PM 4/25/2006, Dan Bishop wrote:
>A good idea, but how would you prevent it from once again degenerating
>into the "vote for electors who will vote for (candidate)" system?

If that is what the people want, that is what they will get. However, 
we don't allow candidates to put campaign promises on the ballot, why 
allow electors to state on the ballot whom they will vote for?

We do allow party affiliations to be on the ballot: indeed, that is, 
in my view, a bad idea. It encourages "I don't care who this bozo is, 
he's my bozo -- says so right here on the ballot -- so I'll vote for 
him." But, of course, parties are generally for it. Giving 
independents a serious disadvantage, which is how they like it.

If Asset Voting were used to pick electors, it would become practical 
for people to write in anyone they choose; as long as that person was 
willing to serve, at least in the vote redistribution, the vote would 
not be wasted as it certainly will be at present. You can write in a 
Presidential vote, right now, but who becomes the elector? Even if an 
elector has been named, officially, do we know who that elector would 
vote for if freed in a second round? Clearly, in a functioning 
electoral college, the identity and character of the electors would 
be important. It has been made irrelevant by the present system, 
which has reduced the electoral college, almost totally --except for 
circumstances which have not happened for, what, more than 100 years? 
--  to a weird vote-counting method.

I'm not against parties, not at all, but I am against continuing a 
system which *requires* party affiliation, under nearly all 
circumstances, to have any chance of election. This creates 
representatives who are beholden to parties rather than to the people 
as a whole, thus amplifying polarization.

There is, of course, a way around all this, and it is now up and 
running, an application of FA/DP concepts to politics:

http://metaparty.beyondpolitics.org

If even a relatively small people participate, I predict, it will 
work. Surprisingly small.