[EM] new simple legal strategy to get IRV

[Gervase Lam]

On Mon, 2015-10-05 at 17:05 -0400, robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> because you cannot have infinite area on a paper ballot (and i am still 
> for the killing of trees to leave a paper trail for election integrity), 
> the only solution to keep the number of candidates from outstripping the 
> number of ranking levels are reasonable ballot-access laws.  if your 
> ballot has, say, 5 levels of ranking, then the ballot access laws (the 
> number of petition signatures needed to get on the ballot) should be 
> sufficiently strict to prevent, in a typical election year, more than 5 
> candidates (plus one write-in) on the ballot.
> 

It seems like a least a few countries have not been deterred from using
massive ballot papers.  Google Image search came in very handy.  Look
for the images in the following web pages.

<http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/08/23/3832651.htm>

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067282/Egypt-votes--woodpecker-pen-tractor-banana-Symbols-ballot-paper-represent-candidates-help-illiterate.html>

<http://easternblot.net/2012/09/12/dutch-elections/>

<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/why-all-our-top-parties-are-doing-voters-a-disservice-by-cramming-the-european-parliament-ballot-papers-with-the-names-of-no-hope-candidates/>

I get the feeling there are several more countries that could be added
to the above list.

Thanks,
Gervase.