[EM] 1/r as a voting system.

[⸘Ŭalabio‽]

	Date: 	 Tue, 19 Apr 2016 09:45:39 -0400
	From: 	 Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net>
	Subject: 	 Re: 	 [EM] 1/r as a voting system.

> 	The problem with petition-type systems is that they are exploited by rabble-rousers; people who are experts are inflaming the public passion on issues like women’s rights or terrorism.

	We have no way of preventing rich people from ending up on the ballot; but then again however, we do not want a million names on the ballot, most of whom are people running for a lark.  The idea of having to reach the number of signatures greater than the square-root of the population is that, in addition to the rich, poor devoted people wanting to make a positive change in the world can achieve this goal:

	Let us suppose that one has average wealth and income and lives in a country with a population of 100,000,000 people.  One runs as a joke.  One probably would not bother to gather the myriad (10,000) signatures, so probably would not get on the ballot.  If one is seriously committed to making the country a better place and has average wealth and income, if one is willing to use all of one’s spare time for gathering signatures, getting a myriad signatures in an years, is difficult, but doable.  Certainly, the rich could easily pay a myriad people for their signatures, but once they are on the ballot, they can use only public financing, which is a great equalizer because all candidates receive the same amount and can only campaign using public financing.

	Once on the ballot, candidates can only use public money for campaigning, all candidates receive the same about of money, and candidates cannot lie and stay on the ballot.  The limiting all candidates to the same amount of public money is a great equalizer, allowing good candidates to bubble to the top.

	Allowing write-ins is a way of letting the voters choose someone not on the ballot because of chicanery.  The vast majority of writ-ins probably will be rich people trying to buy elections, but I would not write-in such a person:

	In my country, we have a man running for president who lies like a rug.  If candidates could not lie, he would be struck from the ballot.  If he would be struck from the ballot, I am pretty sure that he would start an expensive write-in campaign with his wealth.  No matter how-many of his advertisements I would see, I would never write his name onto my ballot.

	The reason for the primaries with top-2 runoffs and general election with top-2 ruff is information-overload:

	Let us suppose that we have a score (20) of parties, each with a score of candidates and a score of independents.  That is 420 candidates.  None could research that many candidates.  Each party has a primary and the independents have a primary.  Each voter need only research 20 candies.  After the primary, each voter need research only 2 candidates.

	For the general election, we have a score of parties, each running 1 candidate, and 1 independent.  That is only 21 candidates for researching.  After the general election, we have only 2 candidates for researching for the runoff.