[EM] Declaration ... - political-party & direct-participation side issues

[Richard Fobes]

On 9/5/2011 1:27 PM, Fred Gohlke wrote:
> Good Afternoon, Richard
>
> I've just spent the last couple of hours going over the material at
> www.NegotiationTool.com and www.votefair.org. I enjoyed my visit.
>
> re: "As for promoting direct public participation in the
> political process, first we have to develop election-
> method 'tools' that support such participation."
>
> Precisely!
>
> When I said "I simply fear the purpose of reforming electoral methods is
> lost in the verbiage engulfing the reforms", I was expressing my concern
> that too much attention was being paid to the arcana of counting methods
> and too little to the development of election-method 'tools' that
> support public participation in the electoral process.
> ...

Thank you for expressing your appreciation of my websites!

The declaration now contains the following paragraph (which someone else 
wisely added):

"Nothing in this statement should be interpreted to imply that we 
believe that election-method reform is the only area of existing 
political systems that currently needs reform. In fact, most of us also 
support other reforms such as broader campaign-finance-reporting rules, 
increased use of other decision-making aids such as deliberative 
polling, and clearer ethics rules for officeholders. We believe that the 
election-method reforms we advocate here would be synergistic with such 
other reforms, both in terms of easing their adoption and multiplying 
their beneficial effects."

Hopefully the mention of "other decision-making aids" and "deliberative 
polling" points in the direction of the direct-participation reforms you 
-- and I, and others here -- envision.

I think most of us on this forum agree more often than it might appear. 
  Ah, the ambiguity of words!

Richard Fobes