[EM] The Global Fight For Electoral Justice: A Primer

[ElectionMethods]

On 1/1/2017 4:55 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
> Those that are in power always tend to explain the situation in nicest 
> possible terms. That could be called "hiding". That doesn't 
> necessarily mean that they would intentionally lie or bend the truth. 
> It is also typical that people believe in what they want to believe 
> and what is useful and pleasant for them to believe. 

Even political insiders -- members of parliament or U.S. Congress, and 
political insiders -- fail to understand the mathematics behind voting.

If they, the elected politicians, were asked to consider adopting a 
different vote-counting method, they might ask for the opinions of their 
biggest campaign contributors, who, in turn, would ask for the opinions 
of their election strategists, before it would be recognized what would 
happen if a better method were adopted.

In other words, even the people who use money to control politics fail 
to truly understand WHY their money buys influence.

They tend to think that their money buys advertising and the ads 
influence voters.  But the recent Republican primary election for U.S. 
president reveals that media exposure can be gotten for free, and then 
the money doesn't matter.  Instead, what matters is that the more 
candidates there are on a single-mark ballot, the easier it is for a 
less-popular candidate to win with "the most votes."

Richard Fobes


On 1/1/2017 4:55 PM, Juho Laatu wrote:
>> On 02 Jan 2017, at 02:05, ElectionMethods <electionmethods at votefair.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 1/1/2017 11:35 AM, Juho Laatu wrote:
>>> I guess in many cases the rule is that those who have power want to stay in power.  ...
>>
>> Here is an important pattern worth recognizing:
>>
>>
>> Politicians and political parties (under puppet-like control of the biggest campaign contributors) tend to adopt changes that HIDE the SYMPTOMS of the unfairness.  Yet hiding symptoms does not solve the underlying unfairness, which is the use of single-mark ballots (even in open-list PR).
> The political financing problem is closely related to the power hungriness problem. Also money gives power (not only the used election method etc.), and people want to maintain that power (and increase it if possible).
>
> Those that are in power always tend to explain the situation in nicest possible terms. That could be called "hiding". That doesn't necessarily mean that they would intentionally lie or bend the truth. It is also typical that people believe in what they want to believe and what is useful and pleasant for them to believe.