[EM] A design flaw in the electoral system

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Morning, Michael

I am not entirely clear on the flow of logic in your abstract, but I get 
the sense that you're saying voters should be able to cast their vote 
and have it, too ...

    Voters are not pieces of cake.  The act of voting does not
    remove their needs and desires from the political system.
    They should be able to continue to influence the political
    process after they've voted.

If that understanding of your paper is incorrect, I must improve my 
understanding before I can comment more intelligently.

At the risk of digressing, I'd like to suggest that the 'Design Flaw in 
the Electoral System' is a step further back.  The flaw is in the 
assumption that the right to vote, by itself, makes a system free and 
democratic.

That assumption is the root of the failure of our political system.

If I am offered options that affect my life, options that I've had no 
voice in defining, the ability to choose one of them is neither free nor 
democratic.  On the contrary, it expresses my status as a subject of 
those who defined the options.  The right to vote in such circumstances 
is a farce.

This is not to say voting is unimportant, it is to say that formation of 
the options on which we vote is more important.

Fred Gohlke