Imagine there's no Nader...
Oct. 18th, 2004 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kickahaOr rather, no debate over whether a vote for Nader, or anyone else, is *really* a vote for someone else.
Imagine being able to vote for who you *WANT*, unabashedly, not who is your lesser of two evils choice.
Imagine being able to vote your conscience, not your strategy.
Imagine having more than two choices in any race.
Imagine having your opinion count as much as your vote.
We have none of that now.
I am one of the undecided in this presidential race. I know that shocks many of you, but deal. I am a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. I find Bush's social stances and foreign policies to be abhorrent. I find Kerry's economic and health care plans to lead to insanity. (Bush hasn't been much better, but hey, if we're reduced to lesser of two evils...) Right now I'm leaning, vaguely, towards Kerry. Vaguely. I'd like to have my opinion count, however, instead of being a reductionist and simplistic lesser of two evils approach. (And please, if you're going to try and sway my mind one way or another here, please don't bother. This isn't the place for it. Any such comments will be summarily deleted. Contact me elsewhere.)
Single-vote voting is quite frankly, one of the worst ways of deciding a broad spectrum situation. It works great for yes/no answers, but it does not work for instances where the choice is one of many, or even multi-faceted.
There are several options: Instant Runoff Voting being one used in France and Australia, and one that keeps coming to the top of the heap in analyses of voting methodologies: Condorcet voting, or ranked voting. (Pop that into google and take a peek.)
I know at this point some of you are going to be thinking "Oh yeah, I've heard of that one, it's too hard to understand." Well, no. The mathematics behind it are actually quite easy, but the presentation of the formalisms behind them are opaque in my opinion. To the voter, however, it's as simple as choosing dinner at a restaurant that may or may not have what you want in the back.
"What's your first choice?"
"Okay, if we don't have that, what's your second choice?"
"And your third?"
"Anything else? No? Okay, thanks."
You choose your absolute top pick candidate... *ANY* candidate, not just the top two offerings from the major media and spin machines we call parties. Then pick your next choice. And so on. If you absolutely never want to see a particular someone, don't ever select them. It's just that simple.
Think you could handle that? I think you could. I also think that it makes it *easier* on the voter, not harder. Instead of having to weigh all the possible outcomes of "If I vote for *them*, than will it really mean that that *other* guy will win when I can't stand him?" it becomes what it really should be: "Who do I want in that seat?" Anyone can understand that, it's simple, direct, and to the point. No strategic maneuvering required of the average citizen, just "Who do you want?"
The way it works from the voter's viewpoint is as easy as first grade math. Assume there are 4 candidates. (I know it's a stretch in this political environment, but consider - if South Africa can pull this off, we can too.) You really like Albertson, you can't stand Brown under any circumstances, Conrad has you mildly intrigued, but only slightly more than Denisovich. You would vote for Albertson, Conrad, and Denisovich in that order, leaving Brown out.
There are four candidates, so Albertson gets 4 pts from you. Conrad gets 3, Denisovich 2, and Brown *none*. Yup, you can leave any candidates you really don't like utterly in the cold, so it still has that "Aha! Take *that* asshole!" feel-good aspect. Add up the total points, and the person with the most points wins. Easy.
The amazing thing about this system is that it allows for full-on popular vote voting, eliminating the need for the broken electoral college. I know I've rallied for the retention of the electoral college, but *only* if we continue on the equally broken 'one person = one vote' path. It's because of the threat of 'tyranny of the majority' that we *need* some artificial construct like the electoral college. With ranked voting, that need goes away, and we can have true representative voting. Finally.
An interesting aside: what we have now is equivalent to Condercet voting under two requirements: 1) only two candidates, and 2) nobody votes for a second place choice.
Well, the political machinery has ensured requirement 1, and requirement 2 is met only if the voter can't *STAND* the second choice. Ie, our current system *promotes* a climate of hatred and opposition. You want to stop the inane polarization of our system? Bring in Condorcet voting, eliminating 'Us' and 'Them', and creating a system that encourages collaboration and compromise, not hatred and rhetoric. Political polarization isn't the Republicans fault, or the Democrats. It's simply the inevitable outcome of an outdated and broken voting system that could only have led down this path.
Now, I've brought this up with folks before, and many (including some who should have known better) have assumed I am calling for a parliamentary system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Parliamentary systems are how you set up the representative body and its legal procedures and machinations, this is about how you *select* representatives. Very different. Would the resulting Congress look superficially a bit like a parliament, with a mixed bag of party affiliations and alliances? Perhaps. Would it more accurately reflect the make up of this country's citizens and their opinions? Definitely. Would it have parliamentary procedures and formation/destruction of 'governments'? No. Only the selection process would change, and drastically for the better.
And for the record, my ranked voting for Prez 2004:
McCain, Clarke, Dean, Kucinich
Note that neither of the two current candidates are in there... but I could vote my conscience, not merely what was offered to me by political machines.
And isn't that what voting is *supposed* to be?
"Who do you *WANT*?"
Just imagine...
Imagine being able to vote for who you *WANT*, unabashedly, not who is your lesser of two evils choice.
Imagine being able to vote your conscience, not your strategy.
Imagine having more than two choices in any race.
Imagine having your opinion count as much as your vote.
We have none of that now.
I am one of the undecided in this presidential race. I know that shocks many of you, but deal. I am a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal. I find Bush's social stances and foreign policies to be abhorrent. I find Kerry's economic and health care plans to lead to insanity. (Bush hasn't been much better, but hey, if we're reduced to lesser of two evils...) Right now I'm leaning, vaguely, towards Kerry. Vaguely. I'd like to have my opinion count, however, instead of being a reductionist and simplistic lesser of two evils approach. (And please, if you're going to try and sway my mind one way or another here, please don't bother. This isn't the place for it. Any such comments will be summarily deleted. Contact me elsewhere.)
Single-vote voting is quite frankly, one of the worst ways of deciding a broad spectrum situation. It works great for yes/no answers, but it does not work for instances where the choice is one of many, or even multi-faceted.
There are several options: Instant Runoff Voting being one used in France and Australia, and one that keeps coming to the top of the heap in analyses of voting methodologies: Condorcet voting, or ranked voting. (Pop that into google and take a peek.)
I know at this point some of you are going to be thinking "Oh yeah, I've heard of that one, it's too hard to understand." Well, no. The mathematics behind it are actually quite easy, but the presentation of the formalisms behind them are opaque in my opinion. To the voter, however, it's as simple as choosing dinner at a restaurant that may or may not have what you want in the back.
"What's your first choice?"
"Okay, if we don't have that, what's your second choice?"
"And your third?"
"Anything else? No? Okay, thanks."
You choose your absolute top pick candidate... *ANY* candidate, not just the top two offerings from the major media and spin machines we call parties. Then pick your next choice. And so on. If you absolutely never want to see a particular someone, don't ever select them. It's just that simple.
Think you could handle that? I think you could. I also think that it makes it *easier* on the voter, not harder. Instead of having to weigh all the possible outcomes of "If I vote for *them*, than will it really mean that that *other* guy will win when I can't stand him?" it becomes what it really should be: "Who do I want in that seat?" Anyone can understand that, it's simple, direct, and to the point. No strategic maneuvering required of the average citizen, just "Who do you want?"
The way it works from the voter's viewpoint is as easy as first grade math. Assume there are 4 candidates. (I know it's a stretch in this political environment, but consider - if South Africa can pull this off, we can too.) You really like Albertson, you can't stand Brown under any circumstances, Conrad has you mildly intrigued, but only slightly more than Denisovich. You would vote for Albertson, Conrad, and Denisovich in that order, leaving Brown out.
There are four candidates, so Albertson gets 4 pts from you. Conrad gets 3, Denisovich 2, and Brown *none*. Yup, you can leave any candidates you really don't like utterly in the cold, so it still has that "Aha! Take *that* asshole!" feel-good aspect. Add up the total points, and the person with the most points wins. Easy.
The amazing thing about this system is that it allows for full-on popular vote voting, eliminating the need for the broken electoral college. I know I've rallied for the retention of the electoral college, but *only* if we continue on the equally broken 'one person = one vote' path. It's because of the threat of 'tyranny of the majority' that we *need* some artificial construct like the electoral college. With ranked voting, that need goes away, and we can have true representative voting. Finally.
An interesting aside: what we have now is equivalent to Condercet voting under two requirements: 1) only two candidates, and 2) nobody votes for a second place choice.
Well, the political machinery has ensured requirement 1, and requirement 2 is met only if the voter can't *STAND* the second choice. Ie, our current system *promotes* a climate of hatred and opposition. You want to stop the inane polarization of our system? Bring in Condorcet voting, eliminating 'Us' and 'Them', and creating a system that encourages collaboration and compromise, not hatred and rhetoric. Political polarization isn't the Republicans fault, or the Democrats. It's simply the inevitable outcome of an outdated and broken voting system that could only have led down this path.
Now, I've brought this up with folks before, and many (including some who should have known better) have assumed I am calling for a parliamentary system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Parliamentary systems are how you set up the representative body and its legal procedures and machinations, this is about how you *select* representatives. Very different. Would the resulting Congress look superficially a bit like a parliament, with a mixed bag of party affiliations and alliances? Perhaps. Would it more accurately reflect the make up of this country's citizens and their opinions? Definitely. Would it have parliamentary procedures and formation/destruction of 'governments'? No. Only the selection process would change, and drastically for the better.
And for the record, my ranked voting for Prez 2004:
McCain, Clarke, Dean, Kucinich
Note that neither of the two current candidates are in there... but I could vote my conscience, not merely what was offered to me by political machines.
And isn't that what voting is *supposed* to be?
"Who do you *WANT*?"
Just imagine...