[EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process

[Fred Gohlke]

Good Afternoon, Michael

In response to your July 29th post on a different thread:

re: "I guess we can safely assume that reforms (whatever they
      are) will not begin with the official electoral process.
      It is too difficult to change and too easy to circumvent.
      What matters is the selection of candidates, namely the
      primary electoral process.  Right?"

Yes, we are discussing a possible method of selecting candidates.  We 
arrived at this particular idea by assuming that parties still operate 
in more or less the same way they do today, but that everyone has the 
right to nominate candidates for public office - party members within 
parties and unrepresented people (in the 'party' sense) as a separate group.


re: "Consider a point in the future at which there are five main
      primary processes in operation at varying levels of turnout,
      with at least two being reformed processes (your choice
      which)."

             Process  Turnout
             -------  -------
                P       20 %
                Q       15        (at least two are
                R        5        reformed processes)
                S        2
                T        1

      Is this expectation more-or-less reasonable?  Anyone?

Please help me with this one.  Are P-Q-R-S-T separate groups (parties?), 
each with members making nominations?  When you say "at least two are 
reformed processes, are you speaking of groups with open nominations? 
Are the percentages the percent of the groups' membership or of the 
entire electorate?


re: "When you speak (Fred) of controlling the time at which
      'candidates are announced', do you mean only for the process
      that you and Juho are mooting, say one of P-T?  Or all
      processes P-T?  Your purpose would seem to require control
      of all the major primaries."

The concept we were examining imagined a single nominating process in 
which partisans and non-partisans nominate candidates for public office. 
  After being nominated, the nominees for each party (and the 
non-partisan nominees as a group) decide which of the nominees are the 
best advocates of the party's point of view.  Then, the remaining 
partisan/non-partisan nominees examine each other to decide which of 
their number will be the candidates for public office.  Then the people 
vote for their choice of the candidates.  The question of how many 
candidates there would be for each office was not discussed, and, 
barring further discussion, would be left to those who implement the 
process.

Fred