[Election-Methods] Partisan Politics

[Juho]

On Mar 14, 2008, at 5:34 , Fred Gohlke wrote:

> In the U. S., our major political parties are quasi-official entities
> that control the selection of candidates for public office.  They  
> raise
> the immense amounts of money needed to get their candidates elected by
> selling the votes of their candidates to vested interests.  They meet
> their commitment to the donors by picking politicians who can be  
> relied
> upon to enact the laws and implement the policies the donors' desire.
> In other words, political parties are nothing but conduits for  
> corruption.

Ok, it seems that the border line that you consider harmful is where  
the political parties break out from their simple role as groups of  
similar minded people and start exercising power outside of the role  
originally planned for them.

> re: "... where I end up in the same room with a drug dealer that wants
> to expand his influence in the city.  Should I vote against him if he
> seems to be determined to get that position and tells me that I should
> understand that we should elect him."
>
> Doesn't that depend on whether you know the person is a drug  
> dealer?  If
> not, you will have an extended period of time to evaluate him (or  
> her).
>   All you can base your decision on is what you hear and observe, the
> information you are able to glean from your examination of the person,
> and your evaluation of material supplied by others, if there is any.
> For example, wouldn't you be likely to ask the people in your group
> where they work and try to assess the forthrightness of their  
> response?
>
> Furthermore, you are not alone in the process.  Others, too, will
> evaluate this person.  If you misjudge, others may not.  There is  
> always
> the possibility that a scoundrel will run the gauntlet  
> successfully, but
> the odds against it are infinitely better than we endure now, with
> political parties selecting our candidates.

My concern is that the person himself may make it known that he is no  
ordinary person since he knows that it will have an effect on the  
other persons in the room. Maybe there are rumours that last year  
some voter that stopped him on his way upwards disappeared  
mysteriously. The problem thus is that since the votes in practice  
are not secret bad mannered people like this drug dealer could make  
use of that.

(In lesser scale this problem will be present also when other people  
in the room include one's boss, friend, tax official, a person that  
might be hurt if not elected, a person known to tell everyone whom  
you supported etc. Maybe the results of the groups of three will be  
published, and in that case everyone can guess everyone else's  
opinions => better vote party x if you plan career in a x minded  
company.)

> So far,
> we've barely scratched the surface of an extremely complex topic.
> Ideas, to have value, must be challenged.

As you can see my concerns and possible improvements that I'd like to  
study are mainly in the areas of privacy of the votes and in  
proportional representation. In USA proportional representation is  
not a tradition (except to some extent between the two parties of the  
two-party system) so it may not be seen to be that critical. Don't  
know about privacy since people anyway do register as supporters of  
one party. The new set-up brings new challenges in the area of  
privacy though (like the drug dealers).

Juho






		
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